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You Can’t Reinvent Food Systems Overnight
Posted Aug 5, 2008 by Richard Heinberg
My wife Janet and I have spent the past two days canning fruit. We’re also preserving fruit with a solar food dryer. We’ve been planning for a post-carbon food system for eight years now, gradually developing the skills and tools needed to feed ourselves from our quarter-acre suburban backyard. Just now it’s plum and peach season, and—as any gardener or arborist knows—when the fruit comes in, it comes in all at once. For two weeks during the year we have a glut of plums; then, in February, when we might like a bit of fruit, we depend on plums we’ve put by. This is how people have lived for millennia.
But that’s not how most people live in the typical modern city or suburb. Food comes from the grocery store, and peaches and plums are available year-round, even if it means flying them in from Chile. All of the food arrives in trucks, and the farmers who grow all this food depend on diesel-fueled tractors.
Now that more folks are starting to understand that Peak Oil just might mean the end of our fuel-intensive food system, proposals to re-localize production and reduce petrochemical inputs are being taken seriously.
If Janet’s and my experience is typical, there is a sobering implication: it takes time to build skills, soil, and habits. Some of our fruit trees, planted seven years ago, are just now beginning to produce significant quantities. And we’re finding that we may have some as-yet-undiagnosed problem with our soil that’s causing some of our annual veggie plants to look kind of stunted this year. I could go on, but you get the idea. After eight years, we’re still far from having optimized our routine.
But what we’re doing in our backyard is infinitesimal compared with the scale and complexity of the global food system. How much coordination, planning, investment, and effort will be necessary to transform that system to work without cheap fossil fuels? And most importantly, how much time? If world oil exports are set to drop by half over the next decade, as Jeffrey Brown at www.theoildrum.com argues is the case, then averting global famine will require an immense, coordinated effort beginning now.
There is probably no higher priority on the human agenda.
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Reader Comments
10 comments
Ripening Order
From: Glen, Jan 19, 2009 04:10 PM
I've been trying to establish some fruit trees on my property.I'm getting pretty interested in the various varieties ripening order and dwarf fruit trees.
eating local & sustainable
From: Jim S., Dec 13, 2008 01:28 PM
Richard, thanks for the nice article. It definitely does take time to build skills, and change habits. We are so used to heading to the grocery store for all our food needs instead of growing our own, or buying direct from local farms. My partner & I started buying direct from local, sustainable farms and ranches a couple years ago and it is really pretty easy to do. (and we made a farm directory here in Colorado to help make it easier to find local farms.) If more people begin to support local, sustainable agriculture we can definitely cut down on fuel usage from industrial agriculture and shipping food great distances. Small farms using sustainable methods require fewer, if any, petroleum based inputs (fuel, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, etc).
Reinventing the food system
From: VICTOR-K, Dec 11, 2008 08:29 AM
We also have been preparing for the worse. Protests in Iceland and Greece. It can happen in the states. I believe in "walk softly, carry a big stick. If something happens, be prepared, do not participate, sit back and observe, say calm.
I look at many survival, doom, desperate boards. I see very informed posts by intelligent people concerning issues such as peak oil and then these same folks are discussing the virtues of there ak47 versus the Thompson machine gun for urban warfare.
Many wars were fought over "salt", I see very little concerning this very important aspect needed to stay alive. I have 50 pounds in storage for our survival. I can hunt and I can butcher. We have dried beans and corn. And "seed" for planting. We know our urban/wooded surroundings. There are abandoned homes we plan on gutting from the inside for firewood, if need be. Open the roofs and introduce the pigeons to the roosting possibilities. These are not going to atract attention, but if it does, we are prepared for that also.
Canning and drying
From: Dan Robinson, Dec 10, 2008 09:54 PM
I'm told here in western Oregon it's too humid to do a good job of solar drying without added heat. But I'm thinking of a black tube, maybe from plastic garbage bags for a start, to heat the air before it actually entered the dryer. Will it work?
I'm also considering canning. My mother said she didn't use mayonnaise jars for instance, though they take a standard lid and ring, because they aren't tempered to stand sudden heat changes, but I'm looking into ways to avoid them. I'm also thinking about paraffin seals when lids run short. Question: Are there ways to test for ptomaine and whatever other food poisons, at least for when the time comes that we have to take some risks?
For now I'm living in an apartment and have little chance to try these out, maybe just as well.
Dan
"undiagnosed problem with our soil"
From: Dawn Deydey, Dec 10, 2008 07:17 PM
You "undiagnosed problem with our soil" makes me think of the symphylan. we don't have a problem with them up here in Canada, but have read about them in Steve Soloman's books.
"All of a sudden, spinach, beets, strawberries, and cauliflower won't grow well. Cauliflower is stunted, spinach and beets germinate but fail to grow, and then much of the stand that did sprout disappears. What's happening is that the root-grazing symphylans are turning vergetables into bonsai minatures, pruning their rootlets almost as fast as they appear.Tomatoes, carrots, corn, parsnips, parsley, lettuce, and members of the squash family seem ralatively immune to all but the worst infestations"
His book "GROWING VEGETABLES WEST OF THE CASCADES, The Complete Guide to Natural Gardening" has a lot more info on them, dry-gardening techniques, and is one of my favorite gardening books
Gardening - Continuous learning experience
From: Bob Boeri, Aug 23, 2008 07:56 AM
I've been gardening since my mid-teens, which would be almost 50 years ago. I've gardened in northern NH, Massachusetts, Raleigh NC, and now in D.C. in perhaps what is 1/8th of an acre back yard, somewhat shaded. I have raised beds, dwarf fruit trees, berries, flowers, 5 "Earth Boxes" for tomatoes, peppers, corn; herbs... and I've never had such bad luck. Not only have various critters ruined my crops, but yields are low to begin with. I thought I'd be overrun with squash and cucumbers, and I have no squash yet. Some of my problem is climate (and maybe climate change). Still, with 50 year's experience, you'd think I'd be doing better than I am. And if I'm having this much difficulty, good luck to the newbie gardener expecting to add anything beyond token amounts of vegetables to his or her food supply.
Solar Drying
From: Georgina Reidy, Aug 22, 2008 08:49 PM
Hi Richard,
I concur with your comments concerning the need to gain the basics skills of feeding ourselves. I have hunted high and low to discover a workable solar dryer. Any chance you could post on this site a description or even a photo' of the one you mention using in your article?
I am at present reading a great book by Michael Pollan called 'The Omnovore's Dilemma' - A natural history of four meals. Although the writer is American and the systems he is describing are American, nevertheless it would be true for us here in Australia. If nothing else it should convince people of the need to look more closely at the food they are presently consuming, (Scary stuff).
One more thing. Here in Australia you would be hard pressed to find a loaf of bread that does not contain soy flour, (plus a whole lot of other 'stuff' too) Do you have any idea why this might be so, and is it the same in the USA?
solar fruit dryer
From: Ben Levi, Aug 22, 2008 06:39 PM
Hi Richard,
My partner Aria and I are in a similar situation here in Boulder, with our fruit trees planted a number of years ago and just beginning to bear fruit. We're interested in building a solar fruit dryer ourselves, and I'm wondering if you have any information on the one you're using?
Warm wishes,
Ben