Food disruption and relocalization
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: Coronavirus and Food Security
Posted on March 27, 2020 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield
Farmers call for 'land army' to sustain UK food production during coronavirus crisis
Leaders and unions concerned about acute labour shortage suggest retraining those put out of work
https://www.yisraelfamilyfarm.net/2020/03/26/homesteading-your-way-through-the-coronavirus/
www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=246093d6-d88d-47de-96a4-f74e933e17c8
Pandemic could create serious and sustained food
shortages, expert warns
Helen Branswell
Canadian Press
June 20, 2005
(CP) - An influenza pandemic would dramatically disrupt the processing and distribution of food supplies across the world, emptying grocery store shelves and creating crippling shortages for months, an expert warned Thursday.
Dr. Michael Osterholm suggested policy makers must start intensive planning to figure out how to ensure food supplies for their populations during a time when international travel may be grounded or severely cut back, when workers are too sick to process or deliver food and when people will be too fearful of disease to gather in restaurants.
Food and other essential goods like drugs and surgical masks will be available at best in limited supplies, Osterholm cautioned in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, which devoted a number of articles to the threat of pandemic influenza.
He saved his most flatly worded warning, however, for a news conference organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes the respected journal. In an interview from Washington following the briefing, he repeated his blunt message of how dire things would be if a pandemic starts in the short term.
"We're pretty much screwed right now if it happens tonight," said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Osterholm said the "just-in-time" delivery model by which modern corporations operate means food distribution networks don't have warehouses brimming with months worth of inventory.
Most grocery store chains have only several days worth of their most popular commodities in warehouses, he explained, with perhaps 30 days worth of stock for less popular items.
He pointed to the short-term shortages that occur when winter storms threaten communities, then suggested people envisage the possibility of those shortages dragging on for somewhere between 18 months and three years as the expected successive waves of pandemic flu buffet the world.
"I think we'll have a very limited food supply," he said in the interview.
"As soon as you shut down both the global travel and trade . . . and (add to it) the very real potential to shut down over-land travel within a country, there are very few areas that will be hit as quickly as will be food, given the perishable nature of it."
Osterholm has been one of the most vocal proponents of the urgent need to prepare for a flu pandemic that could sicken at least a third of the world's population and kill many millions. However, he is not alone in fearing the world may be facing a pandemic, widely viewed as the single most disruptive and deadly infectious disease event known to humankind.
The lingering outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu strain that has decimated poultry stocks in wide swathes of Southeast Asia has influenza experts the world over losing sleep over the possibility the highly virulent virus will mutate or evolve to the point where it can spread to and among humans, starting a pandemic.
According to the official World Health Organization tally, at least 103 people have been infected with H5N1 influenza since December 2003 in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. That count doesn't include a farm worker in Indonesia who was recently confirmed to have been infected with - and recovered from - H5N1.
It also doesn't include six new cases which came to light this week in media reports from Vietnam. While Vietnamese authorities haven't notified WHO of the cases, the agency said in a statement Thursday the reports "appear to be accurate."
Official and unofficial tallies put the human death toll at 54 since December 2003.
Laurie Garrett, a fellow at the council, noted the unprecedented potential of a pandemic to wreak economic and political havoc.
"Frankly no models of social response to such a pandemic have managed to factor in fully the potential effect on human productivity," Garrett, a Pulitzer-prize winning former journalist and author of The Coming Plague, said in an article in the journal.
"It is therefore impossible to reckon accurately the potential global economic impact."
Osterholm said it is incumbent on governments to start identifying essential basic commodities and figuring out supply and delivery for a time when long-distance truckers may balk at travelling to affected communities and armed forces personnel may be too sick to fill in the gaps.
© The Canadian Press 2005
food: climate change and fossil fuels depletion
Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food, and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
www.newsociety.com/Books/E/Eating-Fossil-Fuels
The miracle of the Green Revolution was made possible by cheap fossil fuels to supply crops with artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Estimates of the net energy balance of agriculture in the US show that ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to produce one calorie of food. Such an imbalance cannot continue in a world of diminishing hydrocarbon resources.
Eating Fossil Fuels examines the interlinked crises of energy and agriculture and highlights some startling findings:
- The world-wide expansion of agriculture has appropriated fully 40% of the photosynthetic capability of this planet.
- The Green Revolution provided abundant food sources for many, resulting in a population explosion well in excess of the planet's carrying capacity.
- Studies suggest that without fossil fuel based agriculture, the US could only sustain about two thirds of its present population. For the planet as a whole, the sustainable number is estimated to be about two billion.
Concluding that the effect of energy depletion will be disastrous without a transition to a sustainable, relocalized agriculture, the book draws on the experiences of North Korea and Cuba to demonstrate stories of failure and success in the transition to non-hydrocarbon-based agriculture. It urges strong grassroots activism for sustainable, localized agriculture and a natural shrinking of the world's population.
www.mnforsustain.org/oil_eating_fossil_fuels_pfeiffer_d.htm
summary from the book
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
www.communitysolution.org/mediaandeducation/films/powerofcommunity/
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.
53 minutes. Region-free. Subtitles in Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Taiwanese-Mandarin.
Produced by Community Solutions; Directed by Faith Morgan.
Find more information about screenings here.
local food reports
The Future is Rural: Food System Adaptations to the Great Simplification
by Jason Bradford, February 19, 2019
www.postcarbon.org/publications/the-future-is-rural/
The Future is Rural challenges the conventional wisdom about the future of food in our modern, globalized world. It is a much-needed reality check that explains why certain trends we take for granted–like the decline of rural areas and the dependence of farming and the food system on fossil fuels–are historical anomalies that will reverse over the coming decades. Renewable sources of energy must replace fossil fuels, but they will not power economies at the same scale as today. Priorities will profoundly shift, and food will become a central concern. Lessons learned from resilience science and alternatives to industrial agriculture provide a foundation for people to transition to more rural and locally focused lives.
Jason Bradford, a biologist and farmer, offers a deeply researched report on the future of food that reveals key blind spots in conventional wisdom on energy, technology, and demographics. The Future Is Rural presents Bradford's analysis from his career in ecology and agriculture, as well as a synthesis of the historical and scientific underpinnings of the astonishing changes that will transform the food system and society as a whole.
Ecotrust
https://ecotrust.org/our-programs/food-and-farms/
https://ecotrust.org/wp-content/uploads/Food-Infrastructure-Report-exec-summary.pdf
Oregon Food Infrastructure Gap Analysis:
Where Could Investment Catalyze Regional Food System Growth and Development?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYApril 2015
full report at https://ecotrust.org/publication/regional-food-infrastructure/
permaculture
Eugene Permaculture Meetup
Suburban Permaculture
Jan Spencer's educational efforts to transform suburbia, lawns to food, neighborhood cooperation. Podcasts.
Northwest Permaculture Convergence
regional annual gathering in Oregon and Washington
Aprovecho Research Center, Cottage Grove, Oregon
Lost Valley Educational Center, Dexter, Oregon
www.lostvalley.org intentional community and teaching center
Cascadia Permaculture, Cottage Grove, Oregon - Jude Hobbs
www.cascadiapermaculture.com permaculture consulting and courses
Resilience Permaculture, Cottage Grove, Oregon - Tao Orion & Abel Kloster, permaculture consulting
David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture (in Australia)
Retrosuburbia
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability
https://store.holmgren.com.au/product/principles-and-pathways/
https://holmgren.com.au/essence-of-permaculture-free/
The Art of Frugal Hedonism: a guide to spending less while enjoying everything more
https://store.holmgren.com.au/product/the-art-frugal-hedonism/
Future Scenarios: How Communities can adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change
The simultaneous onset of climate change and the peaking of global oil supply represent unprecedented challenges for human civilisation.
Global oil peak has the potential to shake if not destroy the foundations of global industrial economy and culture. Climate change has the potential to rearrange the biosphere more radically than the last ice age. Each limits the effective options for responses to the other.
The strategies for mitigating the adverse effects and/or adapting to the consequences of Climate Change have mostly been considered and discussed in isolation from those relevant to Peak Oil. While awareness of Peak Oil, or at least energy crisis, is increasing, understanding of how these two problems might interact to generate quite different futures, is still at an early state.
FutureScenarios.org presents an integrated approach to understanding the potential interaction between Climate Change and Peak Oil using a scenario planning model. In the process I introduce permaculture as a design system specifically evolved over the last 30 years to creatively respond to futures that involve progressively less and less available energy.
– David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept. May 2008
protecting local farmland
Land Watch Lane County
Land Watch is the main effort trying to keep the real estate industry from paving over farms and forests in rural Lane County. www.landwatch.net
learn to grow
OSU Small Farms conference
blogs.oregonstate.edu/smallfarmsconference/ smallfarms.oregonstate.edu
OSU Extension Service
Master Gardener Program
Master Food Preserver Program
Rogue Farm Corps
roguefarmcorps.org
eat local, buy local
Food for Lane County - Youth Farm
foodforlanecounty.org/go-learn-more/other-programs/gardens/
Willamette Farm and Food Coalition
willamettefarmandfood.org Locally Grown guide to sourcing local food in Lane County and Vicinity
Lane County Farmers Market
list of local farmers markets
https://www.localharvest.org/eugene-or/farmers-markets
Unique Eugene trade association of local businesses, including some involved with food
www.uniqueeugene.com
Down to Earth
one of the best garden stores anywhere downtoeartheugene.com
Eugene Backyard Farmer
www.sundancenaturalfoods.com
Friendly Street Market
www.kivagrocery.com
www.capellamarket.com
Cafe Mam
cafemam.com
Organic Redneck
ogredneck.com
Happy Cow
International guide to vegan, vegetarian and veg-friendly restaurants and stores. www.happycow.net/north_america/usa/oregon/eugene/ is a local link
Eugene Veg Education Network
bulk foods
Camas Country Mill, Junction City
https://www.camascountrymill.com
grower of local grains and beans, flour milling, small restaurant serving sandwiches, fresh sourdough breads, located just north of EUG airport
Hummingbird Wholesale
local wholesaler - www.hummingbirdwholesale.com
Growers Market
mushrooms
Cascade Mycological Society
Fungi for the People
seeds
Territorial Seeds
Adaptive Seeds
Seed: the untold story
https://www.seedthemovie.com/
"Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. As biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds. SEED features Vandana Shiva, Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrew Kimbrell, Winona Laduke and Raj Patel."
Lane County Beekeepers Association
National Young Farmers Coalition
youngfarmers.org
NAOG Garden
Neighborhood Assembly of God Church, 815 Irving Road, Eugene
https://www.lanecountyfarmersmarket.org/naogg
Church that converted much of their property to a production farm
Avant Gardeners
beyond Eugene
Earth Activist Training, northern California
Ten Rivers Food Web, Corvallis, Oregon
tenriversfoodweb.org
Oregon Tilth tilth.org
City Repair, Portland Oregon
Global Earth Repair - first conference May 2019, Port Townsend, Washington
The Heirloom Expo, Santa Rosa, California
theheirloomexpo.com