Vancouver Food Network

Before the great gasoline-price spike of 2005 there were not that many people who had noticed the phrase "peak oil," let alone phrases such as "petro-farming," "biofuels" or "food miles." Often bandied about in discussions of local agriculture and "sustainability," they are certainly worth considering, whether they will save the world or not.

Peak Oil and Low-Hanging Fruit

As a finite resource, oil can be depleted. The point at which the maximum amount of oil is being extracted is called "peak oil." After that, oil "production" diminishes, as useful reserves are depleted. Additional oil may still remain in the ground, but it is harder to get, and may require more energy to extract than it provides. If one thinks of oil as cherries on a tree, the "low hanging fruit" are those oil deposits that were relatively large and close to the surface. Just as a ladder may be used to reach more distant cherries, so new technologies can help get more oil, but only to a point. Some cherries on a tree might be too far (even for a ladder) some oil is just too difficult. Like sunburned or damaged cherries, some oil is similarly not worth getting, and a drop in oil supply can cause problems, as 2006 and 2007 demonstrated. Suburban communities that rely on cars are particularly vulnerable.

Why This Matters to Agriculture and Food Systems

Peak oil is also a major problem for agriculture, which has become dramatically dependent on fossil fuels. Since the end of the Second World War especially, small farms have been in decline as agriculture techniques made possible by cheap oil led to much larger farms and less human labor using large machines and synthetic fertilizers. Because many synthetic fertilizers are produced with an energy-intensive "Haber-Bosch" process, increases in the price of fuel such as natural gas leads immediately to increased fertilizer prices. As problematic, increases in fuel costs make the transportation of food from large, centralized and highly-mechanized farms more expensive, especially for highly-processed foods which involve many ingredients that need to travel long distances. One primitive attempt to quantify these transportation costs is with the idea of "food miles."

Food Miles, Over-Processing and Supply Chains

"Food miles" is a term used to describe the total miles that the ingredients of a given meal travel from soil to plate, and was originally intended as a measure of environmental impact of various choices. There are also various ways that this can be calculated on a purely-energetic, calorie basis, but the general idea is that it is more efficient to spend less time shipping things all over the place, especially heavy things for long distances. If a hamburger, for example, is made from South American beef that was fed Canadian grains, processed in the southeast United States and then shipped across country in a frozen truck, that represents many food miles. Compared to a grass-fed cow that travels a few hundred miles, or which was fed grains from much closer and processed locally, the difference can be appreciable. The high price of spices for Europe in the middle ages was directly related to food miles, since such spices needed to be carried by hand for hundreds of miles, but is less of an issue today (although the food miles are usually greater) because they are shipped in much larger quantities by machine.

Many people who discuss peak oil and food miles make the argument that it is better to eat locally because food which travels shorter distances is inherently more environmentally friendly, but this is not necessarily the case. Although fresh strawberries from Clark County are much more flavorful and probably more nutritious, a farmer who brings in fifty flats in her old pick-up may actually use more gasoline per berry than a semi-truck from Mexico, which carries thousands of flats. This is one reason why the grocery industry in the United States has developed as it has toward larger and larger stores, more centralized distribution and Wal-Mart. This finely-tuned machine, however, is very sensitive to fluctuations in fuel prices, as the past two years have shown.

Longer Supply Chains, Weaker Links and Genesis 41

The conventional grocery industry and food distribution system is built on various assumptions and inputs. One of these assumptions and inputs is cheap oil, which dramatically changed things. Another is more highly processed foods, which decrease nutritional content but dramatically increase shelf life and allow more products to be developed and marketed. Entire categories of products have been invented, from the dizzying number of fizzy corn-syrup drinks to microwave popcorn. These two things (cheap oil and long shelf life) allow for much more centralized distribution, as "just in time" manufacturing techniques are applied to foods. Rather than great grain stores such as Joseph suggested to the Pharaoh in Genesis 41:33-36, modern supermarkets rarely have much more than a week's supply of food: less for many staples. In the event of global events or disruptions to the supply chain, this can create problems quickly.

Years of Plenty, Lean and Wisdom

The first bridge connecting Clark County to Oregon is less than a hundred years old, but aging, and the past two winters have seen floods close I-5 to Seattle and significant disruptions to Cascade passes and the gorge. As individuals and families and neighborhoods and a county, it is in our interests to follow the advice of Joseph in Genesis 41 and to prepare for years of famine by learning to make more food at home. We can do this at the home level by stocking a pantry, learning to garden and share by cooking more to share to neighbors. We can do this at the neighborhood level by helping our neighbors with these things and encouraging nutrition programs. We can do this at the county level by supporting local farmers, and working with our commissioners to preserve fertile farmlands, and we can do it at larger levels if we can think that big.

The important thing though is that we do it, at whatever level.

For Further Information

• Wikipedia articles on peak oil and food miles, as a starting point.
• "The Cuba Diet: What Will You Be Eating When the Revolution Comes?" by Bill McKibben, Harper's, April 2005. An example of what happened to one island when the oil unexpectedly ran out.
• "Food That Travels Well" by James E. McWilliams, New York Times, August 6, 2007. A Texan and local-food partisan examines food miles in a more nuanced way.
• James Howard Kuntsler's 2005 book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century provides a look forward and ways that suburban communities can prepare for a better life in the coming years by developing more local agriculture and designing for less auto traffic. FVRL call number 303.4973 KUNSTLE or available through Powell's
• Heather Coburn Flores' 2006 book Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community. FVRL call number 631.58 FLORES is also available from Powell's