Threats of Peak Oil to the Global Food Supply
Food is energy. And it takes energy to get food. These two facts, taken together, have always established the biological limits to the human population and always will.
Food
What will we eat as the oil runs out? [update]
A major international conference on “Food Security in an Energy-Scarce World” is planned for June 23-25 in Dublin, Ireland. The conference will seek to answer the question: “How can the world’s population be fed without the extensive use of fossil fuels in the production, processing and distribution of food?” [The impressive list of participants is now available.]
Oil and Food: A Rising Security Challenge
From farm to plate, the modern food system relies heavily on cheap oil. Threats to our oil supply are also threats to our food supply. As food undergoes more processing and travels farther, the food system consumes ever more energy each year.
EU/US GM Trade War Escalates Over Corn
The EU has banned the import of US corn feed. The new embargo has further strained a trade relationship already tense over genetically modified food, Airbus subsidies, and the weapons embargo against China.
Declining EU soil quality poses threat to farming
More than 16 per cent of the European Union’s land is affected by soil degradation, but in the accession countries more than a third is affected, according to the first Soil Atlas of Europe, published last week.
Audio: Utopia by Necessity featuring Julian Darley and Charles Stevens
A two hour radio show featuring an interview with Julian Darley of the Post Carbon Institute and a presentation on the ‘New Agrarianism’ from the First National Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions by Charles Stevens.
CSA farmer Jay Martin on Sustainable Food Systems
I see food as a powerful unifying force in society, it has been so throughout our history….
Food is the vehicle, community is the destination.
I look forward to the day when farmers claim their rightful place in society as the first line of defense in our health care system and are properly compensated for their work.
Climate change poses threat to food supply, scientists say
Worldwide production of essential crops such as wheat, rice, maize and soya beans is likely to be hit much harder by global warming than previously predicted.
Berkeley: Urban farmers produce nearly all their food with a sustainable garden in their backyard
An approximately 6,000-square-foot yard provides generous space for a bustling urban farm. From the street it is impossible to tell that the property holds everything from apple trees to tomato vines, rabbits to goats, and chickens to domesticated pigeons.
More than 30% of our food is thrown away – and it’s costing billions a year
The British may waste more food than any other nation, throwing out 30-40% of all the produce they buy and grow each year, according to research. … modern food production methods may appear efficient, “but the reality is that large-scale manufacturing and rigid supply chains are creating very significant quantities of waste”.
The Cuba Diet: What will you be eating when the revolution comes?
[Cuba has] created what may be the world’s largest working model of a semi-sustainable agriculture, one that doesn’t rely nearly as heavily as the rest of the world does on oil, on chemicals, on shipping vast quantities of food back and forth… No one’s predicting a collapse like the one Cuba endured – probably no modern economy has ever undergone such a shock. But if things got gradually harder? … It’s somehow useful to know that someone has already run the experiment.
Current food production system due for collapse
World grain yield fell for four successive years from 2000 to 2003, bringing reserves to the lowest in thirty years… The Independent Science Panel (ISP) and the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) are launching a Sustainable World initiative to engage with all sectors of civil society to make our food production system truly sustainable.
