You come home. Take an inventory. How much food do you have? Whe we have food we take if for granted. It is only when we are hungry, do our thoughts turn to the kitchen or the telephone. How far ahead do you plan when you shop? One week, two weeks, a month, more?
Do you shop to meet immediate needs or do you take advantage of bargains to stock up and build a reserve? How about freezing , drying or other means of preservation? The question is how long would your food supply last, if the shelves at the stores where empty?
An article in the Globe and Mail of Saturday, May 22, 2004 brought my attention back to the issue of food security and what it really means. The article: "The larder is almost bare" by Martin Mittelstaedt, p.F9. Mittelstaedt writes: "Measured against consumption, there is enough grain left in the planetary larder to last for only 59 days, one of the lowest figures on record. After it is sued up, people will go hungry if the next harvest fails."
Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, according to Mittelstaedt, thinks that the biggest flashpoint for environment problems is on the world's farms. Over the next few weeks as we look at the global food supply, food security and alternatives, we will explore the relationship between food and energy for example. Does wind power offer hope for the family farm. In two weeks, we will examine that question.
What does all this mean? I come to a point that I have made over and over again, we need to have local control over local resources. This includes food and water, Life's essential basics. Food and water must be accessible to all. No one should be allowed to control the system that dispenses these basic necessities. So, how do we create an equitable and ecologically sound, system that generates wealth for all the members of that ecosystem? That is the larger question.
A companion question, do we have the time to develop the transitional strategies which can enable us to survive the energy decline that is surely coming? What does all this have to do with food and the global food supply. Stay tuned.
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