The recent tragic events in Burma and China have perhaps distracted us from another emergency facing the world, and that is a world wide food crisis. Most people (in Canada) wouldn’t recognize it as a ‘crisis’ because it doesn’t personally affect anyone we know. We just know of them. They, are out there, and they don’t have access to food, even though we import it from countries on their continents, and throw away each day sometimes as much as someone would need to eat for a meal.
A possible, and apparently likely, scenario is played out here on the GAB blog. It seems counter-intuitive to me and my peers that we’d face starvation in Canada, because it’s never happened before (in recent history). We see wealth only increasing here, and technology getting only better. How could we ever run short of food, when a tractor and mined fertilizer grows so much grain? We’ve never faced a crisis where the supply of our food was disrupted for long enough for people to start panicking.
Better still (we think) we’re bordered by a peaceful nation (or rather one with mostly peaceful people), America, who would never invade us for our resources because they would just trade money for our food. Well, that may be true, but what if we don’t want to sell them enough because we’d start starving here if we sold them all they wanted? Put yourself in the place of a starving person whose government refused to help? Would Canada as a nation stand aside and let some of our citizens die of hunger, rather than invade a country that refused to sell us the food we have the money for?
I think the Canadian famine that some far-right wing bloggers long for, may be closer than they’d like it to be. Famine is a major national security issue, not just an economic or environmental one either. You think immigration is a mess now? Wait until 5 million hungry refugees land on our shores in the span of a couple years. I used to think that Saskatchewan would never grow to 2 million people. Well, it might just happen, just not how the Sask Party was planning!
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Zhu | 27-May-08 at 6:11 pm | Permalink
This crisis worries me. As you pointed out, we don’t see it for now - most first world countries don’t. We may easily forget about it and not help countries which need it badly. And we aren’t safe either.
Saskboy | 27-May-08 at 6:27 pm | Permalink
It’s the kind of thing that creeps up on a wealthy country, then BAM.
Green Assassin Brigade | 27-May-08 at 6:56 pm | Permalink
Hey! someone other than JB actually reads me!
Even my scenerio is simplistic because I did not factor in the bigger influence that peak oil will play in the near future. As fuel prices rise and real fuel shortages start taking place it will become encreasingling difficult to transport food to out to export in some countries or in to give aid in other nations. The advent of cheap fuel allowed the worlds poor nations to kill off a great deal of their horses, oxen, donkeys. Not only can they no longer plow without gas they can no longer transport food, or medicine.
Like the Inuit who were made dependant on ski doos and gasoline by government sled dog culls, the poor of the world have followed our lead and become dependant on mechanized transport and there is little hope that people who cannot feed themselves will have the opportunity or resources to breed new critters to replace the trucks and landrovers they rely on now.
The other issue is starvation is not just about shortages but just as much about cost, the next decade will see starvation and malnutrition in Canada not from shortages but because of the limited means of many people as the carbon economy crashes, not to mention the potential monetary tsunami coming from the U.S. banking industry.
We are headed for one big Double Whammy!
I saw mentioned this week(no proof) that 7 mil starved in the U.S during the Great depression. That period had many advantages over now, Cheap energy, millions of family farms that could absorb labourers, world food surpluses, and prices that were depressed not inflating
I would recommend that anyone who believes this stuff is real to prepare for hard times because it will come here as well. Join or form a post carbon working group, learn to garden, buy some land with friends, buy a container of freezer ready open polinated seeds for long term storage and learn the old skills, of canning, kniting, sewing, or something more obscure that will serve you as a skill to barter in the new economy. While I’m a staunch Green I don’t see us getting enough power soon enough to save our asses and I don’t trust the rest of the parties to tell us the truth or actually enact anything that will save us.
If we are going to do anything for the 3rd world it needs to include agricultural training, family planing, sponsor seed farms to rebuild domestic open polinated seed stocks, dito for local livestock and pack animals, within in a decade we may not have the means to help them they must be taught to help themselves at home, and as harsh as it sounds letting millions of them into our country will just encourage them to consume like we do and the earth cannot withstand millions more of us who consume like 10s of millions of them. Each new Canadian/or American is just a new planet destroyer and we need to become better examples before we encourage them to become like us.
mizcash | 27-May-08 at 10:22 pm | Permalink
This kind of thing is to be expected, we have been over indulgent in luxury for too long. The time is coming where we will have to go back to the basic in order to survive.
penlan | 28-May-08 at 6:15 am | Permalink
For myself the food crisis has already hit me. I’m on a disability income & with the incredibly fast rising food prices I do not have enough money to buy enough food to get through each month.
I have to portion out how much I can, maybe, eat daily. As an example: 1/2 to 1 slice of bread a day. 1 egg every 5 days. Fresh veggies or fruit & meat or chicken once a week. And it goes on.
I do realize you are speaking of food shortages, the availability of food, but my situation is already serious & it has become like this for many, many other Canadians who live on fixed incomes or have very low paying jobs. We are trying to live on practically nothing after rent, utilities, & meds are paid.
I have access to 1 food bank a month & the stocks there are so low they are only able to give enough food out for approx. 2-3 days - once a month.
There are more people in Canada living like this than you could possibly even imagine. And we are also getting sick more often because of poor nutrition.
And, yes, there will soon come a time when many items, staples, will only be available sporadically.
Saskboy | 28-May-08 at 7:55 am | Permalink
Penlan, thanks for bringing that up. It is terrible how little we actually provide to people who can’t earn on their own.
JimBobby | 28-May-08 at 1:48 pm | Permalink
Hey! someone other than JB actually reads me!
Could be Saskboy and JB are the same person. ;-)
Yeah, we’re headed fer troublems, no two ways. Survival skills and self-sufficiency will be required. It’ll probbly be easier fer us hicks than for city folks. We mostly got backyards and access to relatively clean water. We’re within walking distance of farms.
I’m plannin’ on raisin’ rabbits and chickens in the garage and turnin’ the yard into vegetables. I got some H2O filterin’ equipment and a little (possibly useless) gas generator. I been lookin’ into a roof mounted wind turbine. So far, I ain’t bought a gun. I reckon that might be up there on the survivalist shoppin’ list. I seen a deer in the Legion parkin’ lot last night. They’re thick around here.
O’ course, I ain’t a spring chicken. I might expire before everything comes crashin’ down. I got kids and grandkids to worry about, though. I figger they’ll need to leave Trawna and come out here in the sticks.
BTW, I reckon some of the reason why we might not have it as bad as in the Depression is the so-called green revolution. Mechanized farming and other possibly unsustainable methods increased yields considerably since the 30’s. Some of those methods will be useful in the medium term, if not the long term.
I feel for you, Penlan. Do you have a Paypal account?
JB
penlan | 29-May-08 at 7:42 am | Permalink
Hi JB…No, I don’t have PayPal. I do online banking & have done e-transacts in the past.
Thanks!