kelpiewilson

More Food Is Not the Answer

More Food Is Not the Answer
By Kelpie Wilson
In Good Tilth
July/August 2008

With food riots across the globe in the news, the immediate cause of food shortages is simply this: grain prices have doubled over the last year and poor people can no longer afford to buy enough food. There is no one single cause for the price rise; it is a combination of supply and demand.
Steady population growth means about 70 million new mouths to feed every year, and increasing affluence is also spurring more people to buy more meat. Meat is grain-intensive - it takes about seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Biofuels are another new demand on grain stocks, and a potentially insatiable one. The grain used to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed one person for a year.

There is more than enough grain to feed every hungry human on the planet, but the poor cannot compete with wealthier buyers of meat and biofuels. Markets are not interested in feeding hungry people - they want to make money, so from a capitalist point of view, the only solution is to increase supply in the hope that it will drive prices down.

On the supply side, serious limiting factors are coming into play: dwindling water supplies and increased drought exacerbated by climate change; increasingly degraded land and soils; the rising cost of energy used for everything from water pumping to transport, and the growing cost of fertilizer and other inputs.

The world wants more food - a lot more food - but the planet will not be able to provide it. For this reason alone, more food cannot be the answer.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, says that while there have been food price spikes in the past, “This troubling situation is unlike any the world has faced before.”

Brown doesn’t use the term, but it is likely that we have reached “peak food,” the moment when world grain output has achieved its maximum and we will have to work very hard to keep it from declining.

One of the top reasons to believe we have reached peak food is that we have apparently reached peak oil. In his book, Eating Fossil Fuels, Dale Allen Pfeiffer shows how utterly dependent modern agriculture is on fossil fuels, not just for the machinery that plants and harvests, but for the energy to irrigate fields and for fertilizers. About 30 percent of farm energy goes to fertilizer, much of which is made from natural gas. Like oil, natural gas is becoming increasingly expensive as production nears peak. Without oil, we might not drive cars, but without fertilizer, we might not eat.

Food and fuel are intimately connected. Not only is fuel essential to produce food, but because food can substitute for fuel, the price of food is now locked into the price of oil - a price that is going nowhere but up.

Report shows the way forward

Globalization has promised to lift every person out of poverty by growing the economy so large that wealth will eventually trickle down to all. But this is a false promise that ignores physical limits to planetary resources.

A groundbreaking United Nations report that presents a serious challenge to the promises of globalization and biotech was released April, 2008. The IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development) is directed by Robert Watson, a former director of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and it shares some similar features to the UN Climate assessment reports.

Preparing for Permaculture

By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Environmental Editor
Monday 02 July 2007

An interview with permaculture expert Robyn Francis in New South Wales, Australia.

While in Australia for the International Agrichar Initiative conference in April, I got a chance to visit Djanbung Gardens, a farm and learning center founded by permaculture expert Robyn Francis in the alternative community of Nimbin, New South Wales. After a wonderful hour touring the garden with students from Canada, South Africa and France, I sat down with Robyn for a chat about permaculture and the future of Australia's and the world's agricultural systems.

KW: Robyn, please tell me - what got you interested in permaculture?

RF: In the early 1970s, I was part of the whole counterculture movement and not very happy with the way society was going. I traveled overseas for five years and saw a lot of things good and a lot of things wrong, and one of the things I found that really fascinated me in my travels was the sustainable traditional systems of farming and village culture. Then I lived in Europe, in southern Germany, in a small farming hamlet, for three and a half years, just out of Munich, where I got to see the traditional European farming systems. There were still old farmers who were doing their crop rotations, and the only input to the farm was diesel fuel to put into the tractor and the Mercedes Benz. It was all mixed cropping, and they had their cows and their pigs, and they would use the manures and compost them and put them out in the fields. These types of farms would have a little forest that was managed over 200-year rotations, from generation to generation, and it was just such a stark contrast to the mono-thinking, monoculture, broad-acre agriculture that I grew up with here in Australia.

KW: How did we end up abandoning those kinds of systems?

RF: Post WWII; that's when society went on the most incredibly manic fossil-fuel binge. From the end of the Second World War you can track this corporatization of Western culture and commoditization of land. And all the chemical weapons that they created for war, well, those chemicals then went into chemical-based agriculture, so they could continue manufacturing and have a new market. We really see those major changes in agricultural systems occurring then.

It Takes a Village to Cool the Planet

It Takes a Village to Cool the Planet
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t
Friday 15 December 2006

Last week's New Scientist magazine carried an article with this disturbing headline: "Africa Barred From Carbon Trading." Advocates for African farmers were claiming that European Union policies on carbon credits amounted to a carbon trade embargo on Africa.

Louis Verchon of the World Agroforestry Centre said that if the EU would implement a new scheme to credit farmers who capture carbon on their land, "millions of dollars in carbon credits could begin flowing to the world's rural poor."

The World Agroforestry Centre, in conjunction with researchers from Michigan State University, has developed a method using satellite imagery and infrared sensing that measures carbon storage in African farmland. The Centre has completed a pilot program in western Kenya and is ready to encourage poor farmers to plant trees as soon as it can qualify for carbon credits under the Kyoto protocol.

The Good News Is Local - Interview With Jason Bradford

The Good News Is Local
Kelpie Wilson Interviews Jason Bradford
t r u t h o u t | Interview
Wednesday 13 September 2006

Jason Bradford is a PhD evolutionary biologist who studied the effects of climate change on cloud forests in the Andes under the auspices of the Missouri Botanical Garden and other institutions. But in 2004 he switched his focus from study to action by initiating a remarkable community organizing effort in his new home town of Willits, California, called Willits Economic LocaLization (WELL).

In a world where the global political, economic, and environmental trends are so negative and frightening, efforts like WELL really stand out. Jason is no slouch at spreading the word about WELL - he hosts a radio show called The Reality Report, is a correspondent for Global Public Media, and periodically contributes to his local newspaper - so I asked him to answer a few questions about the project for Truthout readers.

Kelpie Wilson: Jason, in a nutshell, what is the mission of WELL?

Jason Bradford: The official WELL mission is to foster the creation of a local, sustainable economy in the Willits area by partnering with other organizations to watch for opportunities and vulnerabilities, incubate and coordinate projects, and facilitate dialogue, action and education within our community.

The greatest challenge we, as a species, face right now is to create a way of life based on the energy flow of sunlight, not fossil or nuclear energy, to do so without destroying our soils, and to enroll others in this transition. We are under no illusion that Willits can tackle this alone, but hope that Willits can be an inspiration to others. If we can do it here, it is possible elsewhere.

KW: How did you make the decision to switch from a career in climate change and biodiversity research to this hands-on engagement with sustainable living?

Jason Bradford: I became really frustrated and disillusioned as a researcher. I would sit in my office and read the flood of data about the climate system, habitat loss and extinction, soil and fresh water depletion, and the impending peak of global oil production. Then I would listen to the radio or look at the newspaper and these issues were basically ignored, meaning my work was being ignored. Why would people train and fund scientists to do this work and then not pay any attention to them?

The institutions I was associated with didn't appear to want to examine the root causes of these problems either. The fact that our financial system is designed to liquidate our life support system, rewarding current returns over any hope for our descendants is hard to factor into the day-to-day decisions a university makes, especially when more and more funding is coming from corporations and endowments tied to the growth of investments. People didn't want to hear what I had to say, and I felt that.

My wife is a physician, and so I could afford to drop out and make a switch. We strategically moved to a place that was relatively small. We felt that social capital would be easier to build here, and the area had a history of thinking about renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. It was a bet that paid off.

KW: In his Labor Day speech, President Bush addressed our "oil addiction" and said that the problem is that "dependence on foreign oil jeopardizes our capacity to grow." In your view, is the energy crisis mostly about our dependence on foreign oil from "people who don't like us," as the president said? Or is there a deeper problem?

Jason Bradford: It is extremely important right now to give people heartfelt honesty. The lies of Bush and Cheney make them bigger threats than those swarthy people they like to scare us with. Cheney said the American way of life is non-negotiable. In a bizarre sense that is true. The laws of physics and ecology won't negotiate and can't be unilaterally ignored. And those laws are telling us we need to change how we inhabit this planet very quickly or we may not be around that much longer.

I have an idea. Let's stop blaming others for our problems. The deeper issue is our addiction to growth. Oil has permitted astounding economic growth, and we have become dependent, both structurally and psychologically, upon not just the oil but the growth process itself. Instead of questioning our assumptions, we are going to war for oil and we are looking for substitutes that are very dirty, like coal, tar sands, and nuclear. And while I am in complete favor of developing renewable energy systems as quickly as possible, I don't believe it is either possible or wise to grow our economy using renewable energy.

The problems with growth are easy to understand, but the implications are hard to face. For example, I have two children, twin boys who are seven years old. For now and over the next dozen years or so I'll be happy if they grow. During certain phases of development growth is perfectly good. But our economy is now beyond any reasonable limits, and we are making ourselves sick with more growth - as a society we have obesity and cancer, and the vital organs are starting to fail. Suburban sprawl, highway expansion, military build-up, air pollution, climate change, and mass extinction of species - these all stem from our drive to grow the economy.

Ironically, there exists a counter movement to slow down in life. Enjoy quality rather than quantity. Many are finding that the pleasures of a beautiful home, neighborhood and community are rewarding enough. Spend time building relationships where you are instead of traveling afar and spending money on things. Less is more. Now that is truly economical.

KW: Obviously the Bush administration is not going to tackle the twin problems of peak fossil fuels and climate change in an effective manner. But with the new climate change legislation in California, it looks like action to address energy and climate change at the state level is possible. Why should people spend their time on economic relocalization as you are doing in Willits rather than work for change at the state level, for instance?

Jason Bradford: I wouldn't say it is an either or proposition. If you have a zone of control or influence at the state level, then by all means work there. But for most people, they can only reasonably feel connected at the local level. I can attend city council meetings, but I am not going to drive to Sacramento for a session of the legislature.

However, what happens at the local level has a big influence on what happens at the state, and vice versa. State representatives will more likely listen to the consensus of the local elected officials than to what an individual citizen might tell them. And cautious local officials will be more open to change if the state is behind it too.

There are just over 2000 homes in Willits. A well-organized group of people can go out in a day and knock on every door. The post office does it! Making personal, face-to-face connections is much more powerful than any other form of communication. It will trump phone calls, emails, newspapers and TV news.

And guess what. As soon as the media and the politicians realize they have an informed and passionate constituency, they will begin copying those messages. It will become a positive feedback with the potential for rapid social change.

KW: From what I have read about WELL, I am amazed at the boldness and scope of what you are doing. Can you give us short descriptions of the half dozen or so most important accomplishments of the group so far?

Jason Bradford: First, I want to make it clear that WELL always works in partnership. None of these accomplishments are ours alone, but involve dialogue and cooperation with others. In fact, it is difficult to know what is WELL versus some other group. We have overlapping roles and are all in this together. This is about all of Willits.

For example, the WELL Energy Group did an inventory of how much energy is consumed in the Willits area. A local city councilman took notice and asked what the city could do. He created an official ad hoc energy group that eventually recommended that the city install photovoltaic panels to run the city water systems, both treatment and sewage. The city council agreed to this, and soon the city will be requesting proposals from contractors to build this.

An amazing group sprang out of the WELL Food Group called the Grateful Gleaners. They go get fruit and vegetables that would otherwise rot, share with the land owner, each other, local food banks, and after-school snack programs. The Gleaners are harvesting literally tons of fruit and giving it away.

For the past 18 months, WELL has organized and co-sponsored dozens of public forums that have raised awareness among the population. At these events and following them, people talk about what really matters and have a social network in which to organize action. The successful ingredients for social change are: providing compelling, relevant information, a place to build relationships, and an organizational structure for continuity and administration of tasks.

Ideally, what WELL wants is for our mission to be taken up by individuals and other institutions. This is starting to happen. On the individual level, many people are evaluating their own habits and consumption patterns.

More collectively, neighborhood gardens are going in. One house may have a big yard, so groups of families are sharing the space and chores. The business community is being enrolled through the Chamber of Commerce, which joined the Business Alliance for Local, Living Economies (BALLE) and is developing a Local First campaign to highlight the benefits of local production, retail and ownership. The Community Development Director for the city has used portions of his budget to co-sponsor events with WELL, and is open to re-evaluating city plans, codes and practices. The school district has allocated an acre of land at an elementary school for an organic community farm. The local county social services center has set aside half an acre for a community garden. The city is sponsoring the Home Energy Link Program of the Renewable Energy Development Institute to do energy audits and then energy efficiency makeovers in Willits homes. The Bank of Willits has approved the Economic Localization Fund in which local savings dollars are used to finance energy conservation projects. WELL participants are becoming mentors of high school students for clubs and independent study projects. Our newsletter is now a column in the local paper.

I think we have done a great job raising community spirits. So many positive changes are occurring, and each time one of these projects gets going it makes it more likely someone will become motivated to follow their own passion and become a leader of something else.

KW: The community spirit is key, it seems to me. Tell us a little about how the group recruits new members and sustains that spirit.

Jason Bradford: Initially, we set up regular screenings of "The End of Suburbia" and introduced people to WELL. Hundreds of folks around town came to those over several months. The numbers coming to the film dwindled and we were left with many core activists. We spent some time formalizing how we operate, define membership, and elect a council. Soon, we will be doing a significant outreach to the community.

This outreach is important because many people are very supportive but can't regularly attend our meetings or events. They want to be on our mailing list, give us donations, and sort out their support role. Maybe they own a business and give us free services, for example. Or they are going to shift their business practices to be more sustainable. We want to support and promote any family, organization, or business that is willing to make changes towards a sustainable, local economy.

The various subgroups of WELL have split off into projects based on the interests of involved community leaders. Some have felt a dispersion of energy because of this, and so we encourage project groups to report back to the broader WELL group periodically to review the status of their work. By working closely with the WELL office, these community projects get promotion through our web site and newsletter, and announcements at our public events. We also are trying to fundraise for community projects, such as a paid coordinator for a community garden or farm, or equipment for the gleaning club.

Doing anything together has its joys and perils. We can't avoid personality conflicts and miscommunication. I have been amazed, however, at how well people negotiate interpersonal dynamics and come to relationships with compassion and the ability to forgive. For the most part, WELL participants are mature, caring people who have a passion for social change and a sense of urgency. That passion and urgency can be a blessing and a curse, but overall it is the fuel that has kept us going.

KW: What advice do you have for people who would like to start similar groups in their own communities?

Jason Bradford: Leadership is needed from all sorts of people. Have courage and resolve. I ask that those of you worried about the future and upset by the direction of our country, get up and do something about it right where you live. Go beyond angry protests. Begin creating something tangible that realizes your dreams and draws out the aspirations of others.

The first rule is to know your own strengths and weaknesses. Maybe you are a great organizer or strategic thinker, but a terrible public speaker. Next, find some people to work with you to get started and sort out what roles you are good at. The initial goal is to create a team with internal cohesion.

Start planning a strategy. What makes sense in your community, and specifically among your social network? Is disaster preparedness a lead-in topic? Has climate change attracted attention recently? How about high energy prices or the unpopularity of the war? Is the local economy stagnant and/or weighted towards a single, vulnerable industry? Can you connect the dots from any of these topics to the need to relocalize the economy, building a more secure and vibrant home? What projects can you begin that bridge the gap between the current reality and your desired future?

Then build bridges to other groups within the community. Since we are dealing with issues that cut across different kinds of formal and informal social organizations, be flexible enough to go down any paths that show the least resistance. Maybe you will find success with a church group, a school, local government or the business community.

Most importantly of all, get started! You will have troubles and failures. Things will come up that you didn't expect and aren't prepared for. Go easy on yourself; don't get caught up in hindsight. Be honest and persistent and you will earn respect and a following. Cultivate others to follow their own passions. Each of us has the opportunity to rise to some occasion.

Now get moving!

A Virtual Ecotopia

A Virtual Ecotopia
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 24 November 2004

Like many, my first thought on seeing the electoral map of November 2nd was a blue state secession. The blue left coast hanging there off of Canada looked just like Ecotopia to me.

For a certain brand of idealist coming of age in the 1970s, Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia was required reading. This unpretentious novel is a travelogue through the imaginary nation of Ecotopia: the three west coast states that secede from the Union in 1980 to create a sustainable, cooperative culture while spurning militarism, pollution and male domination.

In Ecotopia, there are no private automobiles. Pavement is torn up to grow food in the middle of cities. Power comes from the sun and the thrills of consumerism are replaced by home-made music, art and games. Forests are protected and the air and water are clean. Cooperation and community subsume competition and alienation. It’s not a perfect society but it is sane and sustainable. About the opposite of the red hell we are mired in today.