Peak Oil, Urbanization and Food Supplies

Not too long ago the big debate seemed to be about Local vs. Organic. It always seemed like a silly debate to me, both are essential. Maybe one comes before the other. But Local is a partner with Organic. Fresh, abundant, available, healthy food is the overall theme.

If food is supplied locally, then there is less transportation to deliver that food. That means less burning of diesel fuel to run trucks. That also means a farming system which is less about mass production of food, i.e. our modern agricultural system, which itself uses lots and lots of fossil fuels and chemicals, and plays a big role in deforestation to clear land for farming, and a big role in soil erosion due to emphasis on large scale productivity vs. soil building and soil restoration.

If food is organic, then we have fewer pesticides going into our groundwater or our food. For food to truly be organic, we're taking care of the soil. To take care of the soil we create environments that promote the microorganisms that constitute a healthy soil ecosystem. There are enough microbes to make any handful of truly healthy soil look as active with life as a zoo or forest ecosystem or jungle. That's the environment from which nutritious food arises.

So we've paved over cities, which means that even our water comes from far away. In San Francisco, I recently watched a rainstorm. Water was sheeting in waves that may have been a sixteenth of an inch thick. It looked a bit like mountain streams, but they were going down concrete hillsides - into sewers - into the Bay - into the Ocean.

During - a drought. We get our water - from snow. Northern California is surrounded by mountains. This year (rainy season aka 'winter' - of '08-'09) many of the surrounding mountains have more than their usual share of snow. But not the mountains where our water system is tied to snow pack that gives us drinking water when it melts. So there I was, watching all this water that could be immediately available - being taken away - so we could get water that will come from far away - if it snows enough in particular areas that are both far away and high above our elevation.

Food is trucked in, water is piped in, and we've been building high-rise offices and apartments. We're also a restaurant town. We also have lots of organic food brought in from nearby farmers. The question is, will there be a breaking point - in which fuel costs make trucking the food to us no longer cost effective and therefore no longer truly doable ... and if so ... what can we do to grow food so locally that we grow it in the city itself?

Community gardens and backyard gardens to the rescue ... but do we have enough, and what about eggs and fish. Well we don't have enough community gardens and backyard gardens to feed us, and right now with Safeway, Whole Foods, Rainbow Grocery, and many neighborhood groceries, health foods and corner stores, there's not much motivation to change how we get food to feed ourselves. There's still a very understandable feeling that this is taken care of. That we support the food system by working in our mostly non-food producing jobs, which gives us money, to buy the food.

Some people visualize food being grown in cities. They may talk about "one lane for food" or farms in old warehouses instead of new condos, or food paths stretching from one end of town to the next.

If in fact the world in general has significantly passed the line between urbanization and food growing areas, and we have turned so much farmland into suburbs with lawns (and a few household gardens but mostly lawns) - is there a point where this land-use system breaks down - or comes around?

And if so - what happens to individuals' ways of getting what they need? People are buying more cookbooks now due to the recession. How many people are cooking more? How many people are growing what they cook - the so-called garden-to-table or garden-to-kitchen way of life? How many can grow enough to feed their needs - especially now that we've largely learned more about getting our nutrients from varieties of foods, and we've all learned about eating graciously from many cultures and styles of food preparation?

I wonder about this often. People in San Francisco seem aware of these issues in at least a general sense. But how many of us grew up on farms before moving to the city? How many of us are interested in developing a farming way of life? How many of us, more integratively speaking, are thinking of ways to enjoy urban commerce, culture and convenience - with growing food locally, directly adjacent to, or within, city limits?

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