Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Arguments for food system localization - role of peak oil?
http://localfoods.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/17/

A recent story at Grist got me thinking about the motivations people have
for calling for food system relocalization, and the scales at which they
operate. The post at Grist, by Jon Rynn is in response to an essay by
Richard Heinberg posted at Global Public Media which presents the main
problem of conventional agriculture as its reliance on fossil fuels and the
approach of global peak oil. Heinberg presents what could be described as
the standard Malthusian scenario of rising population combined with
resource depletion (not just fossil fuels, but also water and phosphates)
leading to crisis, in the not-so-distant future. The four specific problems
identified all “arise from our relatively recent pattern of dependence on
depleting fossil fuels”, and are outlined as follows:

    The first dilemma consists of the direct impacts on agriculture of
higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural
chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs.

    The second is an indirect consequence of high oil prices - the
increased demand for biofuels, which is resulting in farmland being turned
from food production to fuel production, thus making food more costly.

    The third dilemma consists of the impacts of climate change and extreme
weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions. Climate
change is the greatest environmental crisis of our time; however, fossil
fuel depletion complicates the situation enormously, and if we fail to
address either problem properly the consequences will be dire.

    Finally comes thedegradation or loss of basic natural resources
(principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates,
and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap
energy (Heinberg, 2007).

This focus on the approach of peak oil as the impetus for food system
relocalization resonates with organisations like Transition Towns, a UK
charity which aims to “inspire, inform, support and train communities as
they consider, adopt and implement a Transition Initiative” - a
transition initiative being community change which

    “significantly increases resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak
Oil) and drastically reduces carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of
Climate Change)”

The practical focus of the Transition Towns movement is on relocalization,
but this is relocalization prompted by global concerns. It is clear from
the alternative food networks literature that the impetus for many other
movements can operate at much smaller scales, with concerns about consumer
health, community-level social justice, access to food and connection to
agriculture forming alternative starting points.

Indeed, concerns about peak oil and an impending shortage of fossil fuels
with which to power conventional agriculture do not feature in a
significant way in current alternative food networks literature. This is an
important omission, because when mobilised in the way exemplified by
Heinberg, peak oil is not just a factor which implies that we should change
our food systems, it implies that we must change our food systems, because
as fossil fuels run out, conventional agriculture will become impossible.
Thus, by mobilising the peak oil issue, Heinberg presents a strong argument
for food system relocalization, but without falling into the normative trap
set by others campaigning for alternative food networks.