Enjoy that sandwich while you can.
Apr. 2nd, 2007 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ltmurnauI've been saying this for years. It's the height of folly to build crappy condos and golf courses on top of some of the most fertile and productive land in North America, the Fraser Delta.
I for one, look forward to extending my Victory Garden to the front lawn in years to come. And the local deer and rabbits are gonna get scarce....
Climate change, rising oil prices imperil B.C. food supply: report
'Re-ruralization' of suburbs mulled as one response to our vulnerability
Randy Shore, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, April 02, 2007
VANCOUVER -- Climate change and rising oil prices are a threat to B.C.'s ability to feed itself in the future, scientists and planners say.
B.C. farmers produce only 48 per cent of the meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables that we consume, according to a report prepared by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture.
The report, titled B.C.'s Food Self-Reliance, says that the area of farmland with access to irrigation in B.C. would have to increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2025 to provide a healthy diet for all British Columbians.
Maintaining our current level of food self-reliance in 2025 would require a 30 per cent increase in agricultural production, the report says.
The total amount of land being farmed in B.C. has gone up by less than one per cent since 1986, according to census data.
In the Greater Vancouver Regional District only 223 hectares of farmland came under irrigation between 1996 and 2001, for a total of 6,375 hectares.
The agricultural industry's reliance on fossil fuels for irrigation, processing, harvesting, refrigeration, transport and the production of fertilizer means that as the world's oil supply wanes and fuel prices spike, we should not expect to be eating Chilean grapes and Mexican lettuce in a few years, according to Vancouver architect and planner Rick Balfour.
Balfour, who obtained the ministry report through Freedom of Information legislation, envisions a near-future in which virtually everything we eat will have to be produced locally.
Balfour, who served as chairman of the Vancouver Planning Commission until last week, has organized "war games" sessions for planning and futurist conferences in which people try to work out how societies and economies reorganize as a result of oil price shock.
The "re-ruralization" of the suburbs -- tearing up low-density neighbourhoods to grow crops -- is a typical scenario, he said.
"This report speaks to that very issue and it was being buried by the government," Balfour said. "It took six months to get a 20-page report that asks the question, 'When we can't afford to ship our food from Chile and California, what are we going to do?' "
Within seven to 10 years, fuel prices are going to spike dramatically, Balfour said. Peak oil theory predicts a massive rise in oil prices as oil production reaches maximum outputs and production begins to fall.
Scientists and planners predict that a painful reorganization of the global economy will follow the peak and subsequent decline in oil production.
Ministry of Agriculture regional agrologist Mark Robbins says that real agricultural output in B.C. has outpaced population growth, but mainly through the use of "additional energy input."
"We've used bigger machinery, more fertilizer and so there is a limit to that and [we] won't continue to see that much improvement," Robbins said.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
I for one, look forward to extending my Victory Garden to the front lawn in years to come. And the local deer and rabbits are gonna get scarce....
Climate change, rising oil prices imperil B.C. food supply: report
'Re-ruralization' of suburbs mulled as one response to our vulnerability
Randy Shore, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, April 02, 2007
VANCOUVER -- Climate change and rising oil prices are a threat to B.C.'s ability to feed itself in the future, scientists and planners say.
B.C. farmers produce only 48 per cent of the meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables that we consume, according to a report prepared by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture.
The report, titled B.C.'s Food Self-Reliance, says that the area of farmland with access to irrigation in B.C. would have to increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2025 to provide a healthy diet for all British Columbians.
Maintaining our current level of food self-reliance in 2025 would require a 30 per cent increase in agricultural production, the report says.
The total amount of land being farmed in B.C. has gone up by less than one per cent since 1986, according to census data.
In the Greater Vancouver Regional District only 223 hectares of farmland came under irrigation between 1996 and 2001, for a total of 6,375 hectares.
The agricultural industry's reliance on fossil fuels for irrigation, processing, harvesting, refrigeration, transport and the production of fertilizer means that as the world's oil supply wanes and fuel prices spike, we should not expect to be eating Chilean grapes and Mexican lettuce in a few years, according to Vancouver architect and planner Rick Balfour.
Balfour, who obtained the ministry report through Freedom of Information legislation, envisions a near-future in which virtually everything we eat will have to be produced locally.
Balfour, who served as chairman of the Vancouver Planning Commission until last week, has organized "war games" sessions for planning and futurist conferences in which people try to work out how societies and economies reorganize as a result of oil price shock.
The "re-ruralization" of the suburbs -- tearing up low-density neighbourhoods to grow crops -- is a typical scenario, he said.
"This report speaks to that very issue and it was being buried by the government," Balfour said. "It took six months to get a 20-page report that asks the question, 'When we can't afford to ship our food from Chile and California, what are we going to do?' "
Within seven to 10 years, fuel prices are going to spike dramatically, Balfour said. Peak oil theory predicts a massive rise in oil prices as oil production reaches maximum outputs and production begins to fall.
Scientists and planners predict that a painful reorganization of the global economy will follow the peak and subsequent decline in oil production.
Ministry of Agriculture regional agrologist Mark Robbins says that real agricultural output in B.C. has outpaced population growth, but mainly through the use of "additional energy input."
"We've used bigger machinery, more fertilizer and so there is a limit to that and [we] won't continue to see that much improvement," Robbins said.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
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Date: 2007-04-02 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 11:59 am (UTC);-/