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Is Britain sleepwalking into a food crisis?

Image: Andrew Stawarz, CC BY-ND 2.0

On May 8th the government will end its consultation period on a new agricultural policy for England. Revealingly, its policy document – called ‘Health and Harmony: The future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit’– has more to say about the environment than either food or farming. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) wishes to end the direct subsidies that farmers have received under European Union policies, and environmental schemes are at the heart of its proposals.  The policy seems likely to go through, with firm support from environmental groups.

But this is curious in two ways. Policy for the environmental consequences of agriculture is very important.  As we read this week, “In the past 50 years in Britain, through the intensification of agriculture, we have destroyed well over half of our biodiversity, and the populations of birds, butterflies and wild flowers that once gave the landscape such animation and thrilling life have been utterly devastated”.

The measures will be beneficial and they flow on from those of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), 87 per cent of which in England now goes to agri-environment schemes. However, they mainly concern indirect effects of agriculture. DEFRA has little to say about its immediate impacts on the soil itself and through emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases. The report’s 64 pages make no mention of the damage done to soils by modern industrial agriculture as such.

Soil scientists now understand the varied roles that soil microbes play in these areas and more: nutrient cycling; carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus utilisation; carbon sequestration; methane mitigation; soil fertility; and plant nutrient density. Carbon sequestration means a healthy soil will counter climate change since it absorbs carbon dioxide. This has stimulated a farming method called regenerative agriculture, which rebuilds organic matter and restores biodiversity in the soil, ‘resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.’ But DEFRA says nothing about that.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability

 

Recently, I was in a pharmacy and overheard the pharmacist say to someone, “There’s so much unpleasantness on the news these days, I’ve stopped watching.” The pharmacist has my sympathy. I’d love to be able to ignore the deterioration of the First World. It is, at turns, tedious, depressing, disturbing, and infuriating.

Unfortunately, we’re now passing through what, before it’s over, will be the most life-altering period in our lifetimes. As much as we’d like to behave like ostriches right now, we’d better keep our heads out of the sand and be as honest with ourselves as we can if we’re going to lessen the impact that these events will have on us.

I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of a possible shortage of food. History is filled with examples of cultures that would endure most anything and still behave responsibly… but nothing causes greater, more unpredictable, or more violent behaviour in a people than a lack of food.

Interesting to note that whenever I converse with people on the finer points of the Great Unraveling, when I mention the words “famine” or “food riots,” even those who are otherwise quite comfortable discussing the subject tend to want to discount the possibility that these will be aspects of the troubles that are headed our way. For this very reason, I believe that we should shine a light on this eventuality.

The Present State of the Industry

In America, the food industry is not in good shape. Normally, the food industry relies on a low-profit/high-volume basis, leaving little room for error. Add to this fact that many business owners and managers in the food industry have given in to the temptation to build up debt over the years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Is The Government Preparing For?

What Is The Government Preparing For?

UN Vehicle - Jeff SternYou may not be getting prepared for a major national disaster, but the government sure is.  I have been informed that in recent months numerous emergency food companies have been contacted by the government, and they have been told that their inventories could potentially be seized in the event of a significant emergency.  And as you will see below, the government recently participated in an exercise that simulated “an unprecedented global food crisis lasting as long as a decade”.  In addition, NPR has just revealed details about the very secretive Strategic National Stockpile program that is storing billions of dollars worth of medical supplies in warehouses around the nation.  This is a program that most Americans do not even know exists.  On top of everything else, strange reports of military vehicles with UN markings have been coming in from all over the nation.  So what in the world is the government up to?  Why are they working so feverishly hard to get prepared?

Let’s begin our discussion with the Strategic National Stockpile.  According to NPR, there are at least six of these warehouses at various locations around the country, and they are holding at least seven billion dollars worth of supplies…

Thousands of lives might someday depend on this stockpile, which holds all kinds of medical supplies that the officials would need in the wake of a terrorist attack with a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon.

The location of these warehouses is secret. How many there are is secret. (Although a former government official recently said at a public meeting that there are six.) And exactly what’s in them is secret.

“If everybody knows exactly what we have, then you know exactly what you can do to us that we can’t fix,” says Burel. “And we just don’t want that to happen.”

What he will reveal is how much the stockpile is worth: “We currently value the inventory at a little over $7 billion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Food Crisis: Problem is the Solution

Food Crisis: Problem is the Solution

(Subscribe to World Policy Journal here)

From the Fall 2015 Issue “Food Fight

PARIS—Nestled in a valley in the northern French countryside of Normandy, the Bec Hellouin farm, once the first permaculture farm in France, produces some 800 varieties of fruits and vegetables. In 2004, world travelers and teachers, Perrine and Charles Hervé-Gruyer, decided to turn their energies and talents to farming. Their acres of intensive polyculture fields, two greenhouses, two mandala gardens for growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers coexist with orchard-based agroforestry providing berries and fruits on this property. The farm landscape includes several ponds and a river, as well as Mérens horses, a hardy race from the Pyrenees; mini Shetland ponies; sheep from the island of Ouessant; donkeys from the Cotentin Peninsula near Cherbourg; pigs from Bayeux; and an innumerable assortment of rabbits, hens, geese, ducks, and guinea fowl.

But the real experiment that carries enormous promise for global, small-scale agriculture came over a three-year period ending last year. A garden area of a quarter acre was carved out and planted using the most advanced permaculture techniques. In a single year, this plot produced €52,000 ($57,200) worth of output for 1,400 hours of work, for an effective salary of €20 ($22) an hour. With this kind of output globally, there would be little or no threat of hunger no matter how rapidly the population of our planet expands. It raises many questions obviously, and one that especially concerns me—whether microfarming is a solution to the global food problem.

This experiment could seem esoteric, limited to a few insiders or lunatics, yet it is united by the deeper consciousness it reaches and the issues it addresses. The foundations, however, rest on some deeply involved individuals, each looking for answers and a method to tackle new issues. The answers, the methods they uncovered, have turned into deep convictions supported by their experiences and innovations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Did You Know That The U.S. No Longer Has Any Strategic Grain Reserves At All?

Did You Know That The U.S. No Longer Has Any Strategic Grain Reserves At All?

Desolation - Public DomainOnce upon a time, it was popular to say that the U.S. government only had enough wheat stored up to provide everyone in America with half a loaf of bread.  But that is not true anymore.  Recently, I discovered that the U.S. does not have any strategic grain reserves left at all.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  As you will see below, the USDA liquidated the remaining reserves back in 2008.  So if a major food crisis hit this country, our government would have nothing to give us.  Of course the federal government could always go out and try to buy or seize food to feed the population during a major emergency, but that wouldn’t actually increase the total amount of food that was available.  Instead, it would just give the government more power over who gets it.

The U.S. strategic grain reserve was initially created during the days of the Great Depression.  Back then, the wisdom of storing up food for hard times was self-evident.  Unfortunately, over time interest in this program faded, and at this point there is no strategic grain reserve in the United States at all.  The following comes from the Los Angeles Times

The modern concept of a strategic grain reserve was first proposed in the 1930s by Wall Street legend Benjamin Graham. Graham’s idea hinged on the clever management of buffer stocks of grain to tame our daily bread’s tendencies toward boom and bust. When grain prices rose above a threshold, supplies could be increased by bringing reserves to the market — which, in turn, would dampen prices. And when the price of grain went into free-fall and farmers edged toward bankruptcy, the need to fill the depleted reserve would increase the demand for corn and wheat, which would prop up the price of grain.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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