Predicting the perfect food storm
If you have read Stuffed and Starved, the book that predicted current food crisis before it began, you’ll enjoy this Guardian interview with it’s author Raj Patel.
His analysis shows how communities around the planet have been disempowered by a system that appears to offer an abundance of cheap food, but in reality dictates unhealthy and limited choices to an overworked and underpaid workforce that cannot afford any better. “The figure that often stuns people outside the US when I tour with the book is that 20% of American fast-food meals are eaten in cars. People are incredulous and ask: is that because Americans so love their cars? But living here you see how hard people work, for a pittance, with no healthcare, no decent education, not even a hint of a pension - so it’s not surprising that the one hot meal you eat a day you eat off your lap. That’s where the food system becomes a lifestyle.”
The thing I think is interesting about the massive industrial monoculture model of farming is not so much that it is in danger of collapsing under its own weight, but that its collapse is leading those who control food markets to call for even more of the same. It sounds eerily reminiscent of Roger Douglas and his fans yelling, as things came tumbling down around him, that the problem was not what he did but that he wasn’t allowed to do more.
So now we have the ‘perfect storm‘ of poorly conceived biofuel policies, climate change driven droughts and floods, the rising price of oil and increased meat consumption.
In the longer term, though, even the current food crisis may seem mild. The world population is set to rise from about six billion today to nine billion by 2050. Global warming is likely to disrupt growing patterns and extend drought across Africa and the American south-west. Water resources for irrigation will be depleted. If we are already in a perfect storm, then we lack the terminology to describe what lies ahead.
Luckily, here in New Zealand we have the means to tidily sidestep all of this. We could easily support all of our farmers and grow all our own food. We could quickly and easily make the shift to a form of food production that used far less oil. We could probably even subtlety change our diet to reflect the healthy, fresh food we grow locally rather than import from overseas. All without any loss of lifestyle.
July 30th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I think your perfect storm is going to be compounded by an overly large (and unsustainable) state expenditure regime.
As outlined
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=1052 4218
The shift in emphasis to self reliance is going to be a major shift for New Zealand.
Not just in food production but importantly in how we fund our society/infastructure. Tax take is going to collapse, another rogernomic bout is not far away if we do nothing.
With both Labour and National bereft of ideas, will the Greens step up to the plate (love those cliches) with a fully outlined policy statement for a forward path to self reliance?
July 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
I don’t know about ‘tidily side step’, but the steps taken in many districts to get home gardening and home orcharding rekindled means empowerment on a local/household level and an increasing degree of independence.
July 30th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Yes but I think a lot of greens support the unsustainable state expenditure regime so its going to be hard for the party to come up with real policy.
Remember the governments money grows on trees so you don’t have to worry about where it comes from you just need to spend it.
I just finished reading Ron Pauls The Revolution: A Manifesto, now that book has some great ideas in it.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:06 am
turnip28 - the party wont have any trouble coming up with policy if it looks to what its ‘on the ground’ members are really doing in response to the food issues. I’m willing to wager that there is a far higher percentage of Greens getting their fingers in the soil to feed themselves, than any other political strand.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I’d probably just go with ‘old people’ greenfly…
July 30th, 2008 at 8:26 am
StephenR - the 4 public workshops on ‘back to basics - growing food in your backyard’ I’ve been at in the past two weeks have been heavily attended and mostly by people in the under-40 bracket. Fortunately there have been several older, practiced gardeners in the audience as well, to offer advice. There is no question at all of the interest being shown. The sale of ‘instant garden’ kits and fruit trees where I’m from is unprecedented. Gardens and orchards in schools are spreading like headlice as well
July 30th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Yes, there certainly is a high(er?) interest in gardening than there was, but oldies have been doing it for years, they haven’t just picked up on it now. I doubt that the people going to those workshops were mostly Greens - probably just greenfingers!
July 30th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Greenfly food production is just one area, how do you think NZ is going to handle the massive welfare state we have created, how are we going to pay for it.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:02 am
turnip28 - how flippantly you dismiss food production as ‘just one area’! I regard it as critical and worthy of concentrated effort. Without a secure, resiliant food supply, communities large and small are very vulnerable to all sorts of influences. I support independence and resiliance every time!
Don’t you think ‘welfare’ is a fascinating word? To ‘fare well’. The word has to have a positive side to it, despite any baggage that it carries. I’d choose to be in a country that ‘fares well’.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:08 am
???? how to I flippantly dimiss food production????
Food security is very important for NZ along with many other things.
The problem is we have created a people who are very dependent on a central government in order to meet all their needs. Thats not a good thing.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:12 am
turnip - from where I’m standing, I see people unravelling that dependence at speed. Don’t be fooled by ideology - have a close look at what is happening on the ground. Necessity is the mother of invention.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:40 am
thats good to hear greenfly
July 30th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Greenfly, yes food production is critical. Really, all we need to survive is food, water and shelter. But the reality of life in our society is that we need a lot more than this. It would be physically possible to buy a small farm, settle down, produce all my own food and live a subsistence lifestyle. But in practice I cannot. I need money for tools, building materials and other equipment. In addition I must pay taxes, for which I need to earn money. Even for the subsistence farmer this tax comes as rates, resource consents and building permits, GST on items that cannot be grown, income tax on however the money to pay the rest of the tax is earned…
In practice, even if you try for a subsistence lifestyle, food becomes only one component of your expenditure, and can be a small component.
It is impossible to live a truly subsistence lifestyle here due to regulation. In Africa, I could just cut down some trees and build myself a house. Here I must apply for a building permit, get qualified tradespeople to do different parts of the construction, buy materials that conform to the building code - all of which costs a lot of money. And the only reason it costs this is due to regulation - even labour is a compliance cost, as I would just do it myself if I was not forced to hire people through regulation. People have been building houses for thousands of years without regulations.
If the Greens wish to improve our self-sufficiency, they should push for less regulation to make it practical. Instead they push for more regulation, incurring more expense, which we have to work to earn money to cover, then complain that we don’t have the free time on our hands to grow our own food.
Turnip is bang on the money.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Old friend of mine is a health food nut from way back and, I agree with him on this, that the bulk of the feed we need to eat is not grown intesively in NZ.
Grains and Legumes. Stuff from the backyard is good but we still need supplies of Wheat, Barley, Maize, Oats etc for our carbohydrate load as well as the dried beans for our protein and fats.
Having loads of people out in the backyard growing veges and pruning fruit trees is definitely a godsend for the way it grounds people and has them working with the earth and the seasons but the staples we need require careful thought as to how we produce or procur them.
I love eating cows and sheep but I know we’ed all be alot better off without the land covered in a meat factory.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Frog:
“So now we have the ‘perfect storm‘ of poorly conceived biofuel policies,”
- supported by the Greens
“climate change driven droughts and floods,”
- scaremongering, it is impossible to blame any particular weather event on global warming
“the rising price of oil”
- fair enough
“and increased meat consumption.”
- ie marginal land that cannot support cropping producing food in its most sustainable manner
July 30th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Mr Dennis, I really think you will struggle to find any Green support for unsustainable biofuel, or biofuel made from food. It was the Greens that negotiated the very tough sustainability clauses into the biofuel bill.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Mr Dennis - I think you are working to an old model of self sufficiency and tripping up on barriers that, while they are real, can be surmounted. Individuals attempting to cut themselves loose and subsist will always view regulation as the enemy, but those who view resiliance and independence as a community development won’t be similarly barred from achieving those things.
Artyone - good call on the grains/legumes issue. There is a dire need for these to be produced locally. The problem (not insurmountable) is that infrastructures for large scale grain production has been dismantled. Small scale is the way ahead here. Legumes are not so difficult and there is an exciting range of ‘new’ legumes that can fill niches in the human and stock feed market.
Mr Dennis - your poke at the Greens for their stand on biofuels is misplaced. Read what they are really saying and give the issue some genuine thought.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Uh, guys - what “food crisis”? Yes, food prices are up compared with 3 years ago. Yes, that has tragic effects.
But if you want to argue there’s a crisis you’d better put that in context. People in the West spend less of their income on food now than they did 20 years ago - and vastly, vastly less than they did 100 years ago. Meanwhile a smaller percentage of humanity is living at starvation-level than 10 or 20 years ago, and vastly fewer than 100 years ago.
Humans spent tens of thousands of years in the Malthusian Trap: as soon as people got wealthier, that wealth meant more food which meant more population until everyone was at starvation level again. That’s part of why a peasant in Italy in 200BC, a peasant in England in 1400AD and peasant in Indonesia in 1950 all shared a similar (lousy) standard of living - they starved in bad years, they died young, most of their children didn’t make it to 5 years of age.
There are sensible things people can do such as having your own veggie garden (like most people did 50 years back). Which is all well and good for a rich dude like me who owns a house with a yard - but lots of people don’t. Most of the world lives in cities, most of NZ lives in cities, and the density of population in those cities is increasing (which is good, as the alternative to that is for them to sprawl further and further out). Any long-term plan you come up with needs to be a plan that assumes most of humanity lives in high-density cities - because unless a hell of a lot of people die that is how most of us will live in 30 years time.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Mr Dennis,
“In Africa, I could just cut down some trees and build myself a house. ”
The sort of self-sufficient independence that you are after assumes a wealth of natural resources per household (in particular, forested fertile land per person) that our planet does not possess.
We can’t all own a lovely bush-covered lifestyle block. It’s self-sufficiency for the rich.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
“People have been building houses for thousands of years without regulations.”
The regulations are there because instead of an owner building a house, with some help from the neighbours and skilled people living nearby, houses get built by profit-seeking companies and without regulations it isn’t in their interests to do a good job. Take away the profit motive and you can take away the regulations.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:54 am
“Which is all well and good for a rich dude like me who owns a house with a yard - but lots of people don’t.”
There’s plenty of available land in NZ cities - we’ve got a community garden in Island Bay, Wellington and have more land available then people to use it.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
including the loss of lifestyle when the country becomes crowded with refugees from the rest of the world? or do we luckily have the means to tidily sidestep all of that, too?
July 30th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Frog, I understand the sustainability criteria are here, but if I am looking at the wrong reference please correct me.
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2007/0148-2/latest/whol e.html#DLM1382702
I note that this page says:
“In order to clearly signal the sources of biofuel associated with food production that we believe should count towards the obligation, we recommend that the bill state that the following biofuels do not contravene the second sustainability principle, regarding competition with food production:
* by-products of food production described in the Order in Council
* ethanol from sugarcane grown in circumstances and areas described in the Order in Council
* rotational oilseed crops grown not more than 12 months in any 24-month period on the same land, or as otherwise specified in the Order in Council.”
So the sustainability criteria allow ethanol from sugarcane, with possibly some restrictions that we won’t know of until after the Order in Council, and will also allow oilseed crops, even though both of these are in direct competition with food production. About the only thing that is out as far as I can see is palm oil.
Even inefficient maize ethanol is specifically promoted by the bill
“… an opportunity was identified for the domestic production of maize ethanol. As a result, the 2012 obligation level was increased to 3.4 percent….”
The problem I have is that the primary purpose of the bill is to introduce mandatory levels of biofuels. This IS supported by the Greens, who are hoping that their sustainability criteria will stop any ill effects. But the criteria are loose and still allow direct competition with food production. Yes the sustainability criteria are a big improvement to the bill. But they still allow unsustainable biofuels, as sustainable biofuels (from algae etc) are not yet available in sufficient quantities to fill the mandatory requirements.
Therefore although Green party members may oppose unsustainable biofuel, and good on them, the party is supporting unsustainable biofuels by supporting this bill.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Greenfly food production - Yuck! I don’t care what you make out of them I don’t want any of it!
As for making ourselves (New Zealand) self sufficient and self sustaining, have another think! You want to maintain the drainage system - we import all the pumps. You want bathrooms with running water, we import virtually everything for them too. Look at the list of ‘current’ basics that are imported and you’ll find that your overall standard of living will plummet, there won’t even be rubber for sandals, never mind for tyres, insulation, etc., and as for simple stuff like nails, hinges, roofs etc., anyone know of a handy load of iron ore we can dig up, and the means to make the machinery to transform it? (without importing anything of course, as we’ll have no foreign currency to trade with!
Please, move to the real world guys.
The green movement isn’t (or at least I don’t think it is) about returning to the village living model with no transport and no telecommunications (that’s right, our phone system will quickly stop working if we have to depend on domestic manufacturing of wire, glass fibre, computers, etc.,). It’s about extending the life-cycle of humanity. Anything that does that I’m all for, anything that impinges on my ability to enhance my standard of living and quality of life I’m against. I think the majority of humanity is with me on this, the challenge to the ‘dedicated Greens’ is to find a way of doing them both, it cannot be one without the other.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
The over-regulation of NZ housing construction has its roots in the broken model of having Councils rather than buyers/sellers being responsible for the quality of their housing.
The idea that the council is responsible because someone bought a home that was constructed poorly is something astonishing to me. The idea that the council can (and must) certify the home at that level just leaves me cold. As a buyer I should have an independent inspector check the property out. His job is to inspect. I need THAT to get the bank to give me a loan, sometimes (back before they got so greedy) the Banks had their OWN inspectors (after all, they’re taking it as security on the mortgage loan). The seller would have an inspector even before going to market, mostly for self-preservation. The liability after that is strictly between the buyer and seller… and any insurance that the buyer takes out. Which we did do back in the US.
Here the inspectors seem to all work for the Council.
Why?
respectfully
BJ
Here there’s not much of that at all that I can see. It’s all about the council and their inspectors. The inspections to keep the builder building to code wouldn’t have stopped the problems that the leaky-homes debacle exposed, the problem was the code itself at that point. It was the independent inspectors who raised the flag in the US… (did you think those monolithic cladding systems and their problems were unique to here?).
According to the last statement I saw there’s to be an exemption from the requirement for a “registered Master Builder” if you certify that the house is being built for your own use. Not sure how THAT will play out.
respectfully
BJ
July 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Sorry… getting interrupts from doing my actual job here
July 30th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Yep BJ, it is insane.
They like socialism, you see - government entities making work for themselves.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
icehawk
I agree with the cyclicity theory. Unfortunately it misses a bit, which is the creation of societies that, in general, do not want to undertake manual labour of any kind that isn’t paid at very high rates, leading to growth in domestic ’service’ industries that create low, if any, real value. This in turn leads to import of “things” from countries whose people are willing to ‘labour’ for comparatively low wages to increase their standard of living and quality of life.
I remember back in the 60s being told that factories wouldn’t need lights by the end of the century (yeah, there was a man and a dog in that statement too,) but that hasn’t come to pass. Here in NZ we import the fruits of the labour of people willing to do those things that we don’t want to do, mainly from so called third world countries. We also import the people to do the work if we can’t transport the result (just look at where the Pacific Islanders, in general, are working and what they do for their crust).
“Made in Singapore” used to resonate around the world, as did “Made in Hong Kong”. Now it’s “Made in China”, “Made in Vietnam”, “Made in Indonesia”, etc. This shows how the transition from poor, to working class to middle class accelerated over the 20th century, for three hundred years “Made in England” was the standard to beat, now I wouldn’t buy a “thing” made there no matter how cheap, it would be rubbish as soon as it came out of its “designed in Hong Kong” packaging!
July 30th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Most of this has gone over my head, but as for England - you wouldn’t buy expensive high quality ‘niche’ products if they produced them to fill a gap in the market that China didn’t have Strings?
July 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
i don’t think people decided they didn’t want to undertake manual labour. rather they were led to believe that the future was bright if they studied management & marketing… leading to a generation of curiously well-educated but unskilled workers
July 30th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
HISTORY TEACHES US that the situation(s) of humans on this Planet change. These changes are often, but not always, brought about by our own behaviour. How well Humans (will) survive depends on our meeting these changes, by adapting our behaviour. Very often it is appropriate to look to the past to find solutions that worked previously. (ie “LOOK BACK TO THE FUTURE”!)
My former partner grew up in Occupied Germany after WW2.
His mother had to grow most of the food for their family of six children:
… in window boxes, plant pots, along the roadside, on upstairs balconies, on the roof etc etc … (ie in every spare space that was reached by the sun). Many families walked to their small “allotments” of land (at the outskirts of the towns). They traded food items with others, went fishing, etc etc.
His father went out into the country on his day off work and used his skills, mending people’s clocks or repairing their furniture etc, in exchange for food items that his family could not grow themselves … “One time his father came home with a great big fish”. The sight of this wonderful treat made a lasting impression on a small semi-hungry child, and fishing became a lifetime passion!)
Because he was often hungry as a child, my partner became an expert in (organic) horticulture … It is amazing just how much food can be grown in a suburban garden!
July 30th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Absolutely right Andrew, which is the crazy thing about the governments latest idea to keep people in school or training until 18. You don’t need to educate everyone up to university entrance level. Many (most?) jobs just require basic education and can be started at the age of 15. The earlier people start working, the more productive the population and the lower the burden on the state.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
“Many (most?) jobs just require basic education and can be started at the age of 15.”
If any training is involved (hopefully there is), then that fits with the govt’s proposal doesn’t it? I think the ‘training’ has to be something formal though…
July 30th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Not really StephenR since the training that Mr Dennis is talking about can probably be learn’t on the job.
Lets not turn into the US where so many jobs require a college education but you can do the job without it. What happens in the US then is you get lots of college’s passing out retard college degree’s to retarded kids who didn’t need them but who have just handed over large amounts of money to the school for their crap worthless education. Move them into the workforce at 15/16 instead.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“Not really StephenR since the training that Mr Dennis is talking about can probably be learn’t on the job.”
I suppose i was thinking more of formal apprenticeship programs. Basically we tend to think the only options are ‘uni or the trades’ which both involve study or training. Am I missing something else?
I should add that this is all part of the govt’s grand plan for a higher value economy - not going to happen (or will happen slower) if people just give up at an early age and don’t go into training or study…
July 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Yeah but even the formal apprenticeship program needs to be offered by the company and the trade should be learn’t on the job from a trades person just like it was done for 100’s of years.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Yes, i’m fairly sure that fits the govt’s description of ‘in training’, but couldn’t be sure.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
well saying ’sure’ twice isn’t going to help things. I’m a bit hazy on the scheme, but i think that it allows for what you talked about.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
You don’t have a formal apprenticeship if you leave school and milk cows. You will be learning on the job. I don’t believe this would be counted as “in training” by the government. But the prospect for advancement is much greater than in many other professions - you can move into sharemilking, then into farm ownership, with no formal training at all.
It is counterproductive to force teens to stay in government-approved training. It stops them working.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Turns out i’m missing something eh. Yech. Apparently getting into farm ownership is a bit hard these days though…cos they gettin’ big!
July 30th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
All the way back to Strings - the call isn’t for NZ to be self sufficient, just as an individual would be unwise to cut himself completely free of the society he is part of (please read he/she) Our country is not an island (it’s several :-)) in the sense that we need to pass stuff back a foward and take part in the international exchange, but we should guard against throwing the baby out with the bath water and exporting our ability to sustain ourselves in most things. Many things have to be imported, most things don’t. The strongest individual (or country) is one that has sound relationships and connections to its/his neighbours, especially in times of need/stress. Interdependence is a good thing, if done well.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:42 am
Eredwen, Does your partner have experience with hot beds? I was half through making one when it started raining just like in Auckland or Reefton. Now I have a trench full of green water from the pony manure in the completed half of the hotbed. Is it safe to bucket this onto my other gardens?
I should have known Murphy would intervene
July 31st, 2008 at 6:38 am
Transition Towns and The Re-localization Network are both excellent examples of Community/locally bases movements that offer hope for a brighter, sustainable future. Check them out.