Worldwide food prices have risen sharply and supplies have dropped this year, according to the latest food outlook of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The agency warned December 17 that the changes represent an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift in the global food system, threatening billions with hunger and decreased access to food.The FAO’s food price index rose by 40 percent this year, on top of the already high 9 percent increase the year before, and the poorest countries spent 25 percent more this year on imported food. The prices for staple crops, including wheat, rice, corn and soybeans, all rose drastically in 2007, pushing up prices for grain-fed meat, eggs and dairy products and spurring inflation throughout the consumer food market.Driving these increases are a complex range of developments, including rapid urbanization of populations and growing demand for food stuffs in key developing countries such as China and India, speculation in the commodities markets, increased diversion of feedstock crops into the production of biofuels, and extreme weather conditions and other natural disasters associated with climate change.
As civilisation starts to unravel, the global food system is likely to get increasingly unviable. How did we allow ourselves to come to rely on huge corporations selling us industrial foodstuffs, containing little or no nutrition, and shipped half way round the world? If you aren’t growing some fruit and veg, you’d best start thinking about allotments. Food prices, along with anything that depends upon oil, are increasing.
We have two obvious choices. Either try to cope in our present civilisation model (work, buy, consume, dies), relying on the global economic infrastructure to supply our increasingly expensive needs, and watch the system continue to eat the planet. Or try something different. Create vibrant local economies, co-operate with others around you, listen to the land, grow some of your own food while supporting local organic and permaculture farmers, resist centralised control, oppose developments that undermine the ability of your local landbase to sustain you, your families, your neighbours and wildlife.
In the UK, the Transition Town movement is starting to make progress. And some people are starting to grasp the immensity of what needs to be done, and the opportunity to mould our culture into a diverse society that benefits people and the land on which we rely for our survival. Dare to dream, and to use your energy and time to make those dreams into reality. Isn’t it time you and your friends started digging up that car park, and planting fruit trees?
