Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Excerpt from:
Five public health challenges of petroleum scarcity
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2011/fall/features/tough_oil/page_1/

2. Food Scarcity

>From fossil fuel–derived fertilizers and pesticides,to diesel-powered 
>tractors and water pumps,to an elaborate long-distance transport system,oil 
>is something that—in a very real sense—we eat. Because modern agriculture 
>has become so dependent upon oil,petroleum scarcity leads to significantly 
>higher food prices and outright shortages,and was at least partially 
>responsible for the global rice shortage of 2008,when oil reached record 
>high prices. “The poor are exquisitely sensitive to food prices,” notes 
>Peter Winch,MD,MPH,International Health professor. The United Nations Food 
>and Agricultural Organization estimates that more than 900 million people 
>worldwide are undernourished,a number more than 100 million greater than 
>before the oil-fueled food price increases that began around 1997. Increased 
>food insecurity—and even outright famine—would likely result from any 
>additional large increases in the price of oil.

“I think food is the biggest issue of all,” says Melissa Poulsen,a PhD 
student in International Health,whose research is focused on identifying 
populations most vulnerable to global petroleum scarcity and how best to help 
them. “Any disease is irrelevant if you are without a secure food source. 
Good nutrition is critical to health;you have to eat.”

In yet another ironic twist,those same forces in developed nations might tend 
to favor improved nutrition. As rising oil prices make it prohibitive to 
transport highly processed (read:unhealthy) foodstuffs over long 
distances,and consumption declines,people may be forced to turn to more 
locally based,sustainable agriculture.
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paul tradingpost@lobo.net