Food and Oil

We are animals, like it or not - and we require food to live. For most of us the local supermarket is our garden, and our farm, and we rely upon its well stocked shelves. Despite our reputation as one of the great food producing nations of the world, we import more food than almost any other OECD country. In a 6 month period last year, NZ imported $84 million dollars worth of food from China alone?

Whether grown locally, or brought in from elsewhere, our food started its life in the soil - something that is easily forgotten as we stroll down the aisles of colourful packaging in the supermarket. In his book A Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright demonstrates that empires which collapse show similar behaviours: sticking to entrenched beliefs and practices; robbing the future to pay the present; and spending the last reserves of natural capital on a reckless binge of excessive wealth and glory - and soil degradation and loss specifically, has been the most frequent cause of total civilisation collapse. Of the earth's surface, about 3% of it is arable land. The entire world's population relies on the food grown on the thin covering of nutrient rich soil on that 3%, which is presently being lost at the rate of 25 billion tonnes per year (UNEP, 1992b). If you watched the film at the Waiheke Community Cinema last Tuesday night - One Cow, One Man, One Planet - you will have seen what devastation is being wrought by the indiscriminate use of chemical based agriculture methods. The result has been soil degradation, leading to massive crop failures, indebtedness and tens of thousands of farmers committing suicide by hanging, or by drinking the chemicals they are now realising are poisonous. Thankfully all is not lost, and in the same film you will also have seen what can be done when life-positive practices are applied.

Our’s is the first and only fossil-fuelled civilisation. Our entire economy and standard of living currently rely on the burning of fossil fuels as a cheap, convenient form of energy. In the last 100 years or so, it has allowed the development of a fossil-fuel based industrial agriculture. But this resource is not endless. Global Oil discoveries peaked about 40 years ago, and now Global Oil production is at or near its peak. Assume for one moment that the boats stopped running to and from Waiheke, and no goods were being brought over to stock the shelves. While this worst case scenario is unlikely it may be useful to notice that at present we have very little by way of food production occurring here. If there was a squeeze, we might find ourselves scrambling to get some seeds and be looking for some good land to grow them in. Then there would be a need for compost materials to feed the soil, and nurture the plants, and some help from those more knowledgeable than ourselves about what to grow and when.

Right now we are heavily reliant on trade and transporting our basic food necessities onto the island, and I am finding more and more people who not only think this is unwise, but are making the necessary gestures in the direction of greater self-reliance. There is lots we can do, and preparation for future change is easier and more effective than responding to a crisis. In relation to food production we have the beginnings. There is a small but active seedsavers group, the first community garden was established over a year ago and more are being mooted, and food exchange stall operates every weekend at the Ostend market. There are food growing plots with a history of cultivation - now idle because the people who used to grow on them are too old to do the work, or have moved on, and there are many under-utilised fruit trees which offer their abundance every year. These would respond well to a little nurturing and care. The energetic physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author Vandana Shiva, put it very succinctly stating that "When countries have pulled back from large scale industrial farming for a variety of political and economic reasons, and especially when they've also paid attention to indigenous knowledge, they have experienced benefits in terms of food production that are nothing short of astounding."

We have the land, we have the need, we have the knowledge, we have the willingness.