by chycho

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During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries Barack Obama stated that “the world wants to see the United States lead”, and in a recent speech to the US Congress where he received “19 standing ovations”, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown echoed the same sentiment:

“I believe that you, the nation that had the vision to put a man on the moon, are also the nation with the vision to protect and preserve our planet earth.”

These happen to be amazing statements considering that the “American Lifestyle” has been one of the main culprits of our pending global ecological collapse. This lifestyle has been, to this point, dependent on and maintained due to the availability of cheap oil.

It should be evident by now that one of the main reasons why we are facing the largest economic collapse in history is in large part due to the price of oil increasing approximately 7 fold in less than 7 years (2001 to 2008).

The price of oil as of 8 April 2009 has stabilized at approximately $50. One of the main reasons for this is due to the collapse of the global economy – when the economy slows down we use less oil. This may sound like a loop, that’s because it is: growth in the economy is dependent on cheap oil, and since we are at or near peak oil, we get cheaper oil only when the economy collapses.

Peak Oil

The age of cheap oil, however, is soon coming to an end, irrelevant of the state of the global economy.

Even though we may be under the assumption that an oil well will produce oil indefinitely, reality is much different. One of the most important observed properties of oil wells is that they follow Hubbert’s peak theory, “that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve.”

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“Early in the curve (pre-peak), the production rate increases due to the discovery rate and the addition of infrastructure. Late in the curve (post-peak), production declines due to resource depletion. The Hubbert peak theory is based on the observation that the amount of oil under the ground in any region is finite, therefore the rate of discovery (extraction) which initially increases quickly must reach a maximum and decline.”

According to a 2007 report (PDF) by German based Energy Watch Group, many countries have already peaked.

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We don’t know where on the peak oil curve we are globally, but even if we have not reached peak oil production yet, it is safe to assume that we will shortly. This means that we must begin to look for other sources of energy and we must begin to reduce our dependence on oil.

US and Cheap Oil

The end of cheap oil will affect the United States more dramatically than any other country since the US is the world's largest petroleum consumer, and since it has already depleted the majority of its reservoirs.

“The developed economies use oil much more intensively than the developing economies, and Canada and the United States stand almost alone in their consumption of oil per capita (see graph). For instance, oil consumption in the United States and Canada equals almost 3 gallons per day per capita... Oil consumption in the rest of the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] equals 1.4 gallons per day per capita. Outside of the OECD, oil consumption equals 0.2 gallons per day per capita.”

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Once the cost of oil increases and stays at elevated levels than every aspect of our civilization will be affected, specially food production.

Food and Oil

“The systems that produce the world's food supply are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Vast amounts of oil and gas are used as raw materials and energy in the manufacture of fertilisers and pesticides, and as cheap and readily available energy at all stages of food production: from planting, irrigation, feeding and harvesting, through to processing, distribution and packaging. In addition, fossil fuels are essential in the construction and the repair of equipment and infrastructure needed to facilitate this industry, including farm machinery, processing facilities, storage, ships, trucks and roads. The industrial food supply system is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels and one of the greatest producers of greenhouse gases.”

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“Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.

“The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture. In the most extreme cases, energy consumption by agriculture has increased 100 fold or more. In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994). Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:”

31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer
19% for the operation of field machinery
16% for transportation
13% for irrigation
08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)
05% for crop drying
05% for pesticide production
08% miscellaneous

“Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, and household cooking are not considered in these figures.”

Any nation that wants to lead the world towards a sustainable economy must first be able to reduce its use of fossil fuels. Since food production uses the most amount of oil based products relative to other sectors, then it would be logical to begin this process by producing food that is not so heavily depended on fossil fuels. As for how we can achieve this task, we only need to look at Cuba, the only country in the world that has dealt with a peak oil crisis and survived it.

Peak Oil and Building Urban Gardens in Cuba

“When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate.”

“When Cuba's oil supply came to a halt , they immediately changed course by turning any and all available city plots into intensive urban farms.”

“50% of Cuba's agriculture now comes from urban farms. In the smaller towns, they produce 80 to 100% of the vegetables they need, eliminating the need to transport food long distances. The move back to a human and animal powered harvest, instead of heavy machinery, quickly created 140,000 new jobs in a country with a population 30 times smaller than the USA. In order to produce food without the use of fossil fuels, It was a matter of reclaiming land from the large scale industrial agricultural corporations. According to the documentary, The Power of Community, 80% of Cuba's agricultural production is now organic! Since most oil used in the USA is related to food production, Cuba's agricultural model is an important one to investigate.”

The following documentary, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, “tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call ‘The Special Period.’ The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.”

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (52:46)

“Since 1990, Cuba has carried out the world's most comprehensive and successful organic food and farming revolution, including the ongoing cultivation of over 60,000 organic urban gardens that supply 50-80% of its urban food needs.”

“In Cuba, urban gardens have proliferated in vacant lots, alongside parking lots, in the suburbs and on city rooftops, taking up some 35,000 hectares (86,000 acres). Most gardens sell their produce directly to the community and, because the economic embargo restricts agricultural input imports, grow their crops organically.”

Destroying Urban Gardens in the United States

“Around 15 percent of the world's food is grown in urban areas, according to the US Department of Agriculture, a figure experts expect to increase as food prices rise, urban populations grow and environmental concerns mount. Since they sell directly to their communities, city farms don't depend on transportation and are relatively immune to the volatility of fuel prices, advantages that are only now gaining traction as ‘eat local’ movements in rich countries.”

So why was one of the largest urban gardens in the United States sold in 2004 to developers and recently destroyed by the government?

“The South Central Farm , also known as the South Central Community Garden, was an urban farm and community garden located at East 41st and South Alameda Streets in an industrial area of South Los Angeles, California (known as South Central Los Angeles) which was in operation between 1994 and 2006. At 14 acres (~0.056 km²), it was considered one of the largest urban farms in the United States. The farm was sold in 2004, and the farmers were evicted in 2006. The farmers are disputing the validity of the sale in court and are also, as of February 2007, staging vigils in protest. The farm is the subject of the 2008 Academy Award nominated documentary film, The Garden.”

The food supply of hundreds of poor L.A. families was bulldozed to dust. The Destruction of South Central Farmers demonstrated “why short-term, profit-based thinking will ultimately destroy sustainable human life on our planet. Keep in mind what you are watching is the city of Los Angeles destroying a community garden plot… enforced at gunpoint by clueless city cops who are arresting the very citizens they should be protecting.”

In the US, physical destruction of urban farms is just one way of controlling the food supply. Legislation is the other.

In February 2009 H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 was introduced in Congress. “The bill calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. This new agency would empower the government to regulate food production at all levels, up and down the chain of production. For violations, the bill provides for criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers, and distributors who fail to comply with these regulations, and punitive property seizures and large fines of as much as $1 million for each offense upon conviction.”

“The supposed reason for the launch of this bill is that all of these burdensome regulations – heaped on top of already-existing, unevenly-enforced burdensome regulations – will somehow make the nation’s food supply safer. Standards would be set and legions of bureaucratic enforcers would descend upon food establishments of all sorts, including ‘food production facilities’ comprising even the smallest farms, ranches, orchards, and poultry-raising operations. Recordkeeping would be mandated and costs of compliance would soar resulting in a boom for professional accountants and lawyers, who would of course be in increased demand.”

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) does not support HR 875 in its present form, “given the fact that, if the bill's regulations were applied in a one-size-fits-all manner to certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations, it could have a devastating impact on small farmers, especially raw milk producers who are already unfairly targeted by state food-safety regulators. Although the OCA deems this bill vaguely well-intentioned, (they) are calling on Congress to focus its attention on the real threats to food safety: globalized food sourcing from nations such as China where food safety is a travesty and domestic industrial-scale and factory farms whose collateral damage includes pesticide and antibiotic-tainted food, mad cow disease, E. coli contamination and salmonella poisoning.” Further information at OCA - HR 875 Update: The Biotech Companies are Destroying Traditional Farming (Just Not in this Bill)

Whose Example Should We Follow, US or Cuba?

Eating oil: Energy use in food production by Maurice B. Green “was the title of a book which was published in 1978 following the first oil crisis in 1973. The aim of the book was to investigate the extent to which food supply in industrialised countries relied on fossil fuels… Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource, which is nearing its depletion phase.”

“The organic sector could be leading the development of a sustainable food system. Direct environmental and ecological impacts of agriculture ‘on the farm’ are certainly reduced in organic systems. However, global trade and distribution of organic products fritter away those benefits and undermine its leadership role. Not only is the contemporary food system inherently unsustainable, increasingly, it is damaging the environment.”

If we want to build sustainable communities and reduce our dependence on oil, which in turn will reduce damage done to the environment, we must begin to develop and implement techniques for food production that are not so heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

While Cuba has been the world’s leader in sustainable agriculture, the US has been moving towards industrial-scale and factory farming which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The Cuban model has a future; the US model does not.

Barack Obama and Gordon Brown would like us to follow the example set by the United States, my guess is future generations are hoping that we don’t.

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Source: http://www.chycho.com/?q=urban_gardens_chycho2009