another doomsday thread - Nine meals from anarchy?

[innonimatu]

I happened upon this news piece a few days ago, thought in interesting but not worth mentioning to anyone else. Some current events made me reevaluate that opinion. More on that later. The content (short version):

The phrase 'nine meals from anarchy' sounds more like the title of a bad Hollywood movie than any genuine threat.

But that was the expression coined by Lord Cameron of Dillington, a farmer who was the first head of the Countryside Agency - the quango set up by Tony Blair in the days when he pretended to care about the countryside - to describe just how perilous Britain's food supply actually is.

The scenario goes like this. Imagine a sudden shutdown of oil supplies; a sudden collapse in the petrol that streams steadily through the pumps and so into the engines of the lorries which deliver our food around the country, stocking up the supermarket shelves as soon as any item runs out.

If the trucks stopped moving, we'd start to worry and we'd head out to the shops, stocking up our larders. By the end of Day One, if there was still no petrol, the shelves would be looking pretty thin. Imagine, then, Day Two: your fourth, fifth and sixth meal. We'd be in a panic. Day three: still no petrol.

What then? With hunger pangs kicking in, and no notion of how long it might take for the supermarkets to restock, how long before those who hadn't stocked up began stealing from their neighbours? Or looting what they could get their hands on?

It was Lord Cameron's estimation that it would take just nine meals - three full days without food on supermarket shelves - before law and order started to break down, and British streets descended into chaos.

A far-fetched warning for a First World nation like Britain? Hardly. Because that's exactly what happened in the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. People looted in order to feed themselves and their families.
[...]
Oil prices are spiralling - $120 a barrel this week, up 23 per cent since the start of the year - and the cost is being felt not only by drivers but by each and every one of us who has seen our food bills soaring.

This week, the British Retail Consortium revealed that food price inflation had risen to 6 per cent - the highest figure since comparable records began - and up from 4.7 per cent in April and 4.1 per cent in March.

At its most basic, the reasons for this food inflation are twofold: increasing demand (particularly in the emerging economies of India and China) and spiralling production costs.

The former had been predicted for years, but the latter is more unexpected.

Conventional wisdom had it that in an age of mechanisation, the cost of producing the food that we eat would decrease as technology found new ways of improving yields and minimising labour costs. But there was a problem that hadn't been factored in. Production methods are now such that 95 per cent of all the food we eat in the world today is oil-dependent.

The 'black gold' is embedded in our complex global food systems, in its fertilisers, the mechanisation necessary for its production, its transportation and its packaging.

For example, to farm a single cow and deliver it to market requires the equivalent of six barrels of oil - enough to drive a car from New York to LA.

Unbelievable? One analysis of the fodder pellets which are fed to the vast majority of beef cows to supplement their grazing found that they were made up of ingredients that had originated in six different countries. Think of the fuel required to transport that lot around the world.

Now factor in the the diesel used by the farm vehicles, the carbon footprint of chemical fertilisers used by most nonorganic beef farms and the energy required to transport a cow to the abattoir and process it. The total oil requirement soon adds up.

And so as oil prices have risen, so too has the cost of food - and I'm afraid it's only set to get worse. The age of cheap food is at an end - and it will impact not only on our supermarket bills, but on the whole economy.

Fifty years ago, food represented around 30 per cent of the average household budget, whereas nowadays it is nearer to 9 per cent.

In other words, cheap food has not only helped keep inflation down, it also allowed the postwar consumer boom to flourish.

With our most basic and necessary commodity - the food on our plates - costing proportionally less every decade, we had plenty of free capital to spend on luxuries: flat-screen TVs; the holidays abroad; the home improvements and extensions that so many of us have acquired.
[...]
In a report published on Thursday, 18 charities found that many disabled people and poorer pensioners are having to go short of food in order to pay for home care or simple things such as transport to their local day care centre.

Sue Bott, director of the National Centre for Independent Living, said: 'The shocking reality is that people are being forced to choose between eating properly and using vital care services.' So much for our civilised society.
[...]
In 1995, 27 per cent of UK food was imported. By 2006 it was 37 per cent. The situation is obviously more critical in cities: London imports more than 80 per cent and a food shortage would hit the capital the hardest.

The situation is worsened, of course, by the fact that we are having to compete for supplies on the global market with many more nations than ever before.

For centuries, the typical Chinese diet consisted of rice and vegetables, but as the Chinese pour into the newly emerging cities, so their diets are changing. In 1962, the average Chinese ate just 4kg of meat per year: by 2005 that figure was 60kg and rising.
[...]
In this regard, the dominance of the supermarkets in British food retailing contributes massively to our vulnerability. Rising energy prices have an immediate impact on many of the food giants' common practices.

Their reliance on diesel trucks for 'Just in time delivery' and ' warehousing on wheels'; their endless plastic packaging and their transportation of processed foods and raw materials around the world means that our supermarkets have been hit doubly hard by the high oil price.

(How much longer, I wonder, will the seafood business Young's of Scotland find it economic to fly prawns to Thailand to be cleaned and de-shelled, before flying them back to Scotland for packaging)?

During the fuel protests of September 2000, we caught a glimpse of how even the supply of basic foodstuffs are dependent on oil: Justin King, the CEO of Sainsbury, warned Blair that we would be 'out of food' within 'days not weeks' if the protests continued.
[...]

I bolded the parts that led me to start this topic: I've just seen those happen, in a striking demonstration of the dependence of modern society on fuel. Nothing new, certainly, but not something people usually see first hand.
Transportation companies went on "strike" (not technically a strike, as it's being called by the owners, but the results are the same) over (among other things) fuel prices, first in Spain, now in Portugal. The almost immediate result was the disruption of supplies to the shops of that kind of "food giants", and dry fuel pumps. In the first day journalists were speculating about how long would supermarket supplies last. The result (?) was a small run on supermarkets in the second day, and lots of empty shelves... I don't know how things went so far in Spain. Anyway, it seems this experience will end soon, as the government has been scared into giving in to most demands already.

So, what do you think: are people in western europe trylu only a few days from anarchy, should fuel supplies be disrupted? Is food too important to leave to the care of the free market, and the JIT business model too dangerous here?
Will we be seeing other suck strikes/protests/whatever around Europe (as it happened in 2000, or 2001, I don't quite remember), if fuel prices keep increasing?

And, as a separate question, are we entering a new era of more expensive food, capable of causing so far unforeseen economic and social changes?

 

[LightFang]

Peak oil and rising food prices are the new shark attack!

 

[Tycoon101]

I suppose that the instance of a truck strike in the USA would warrant a Federal Crisis and prompt the president to send in the military to man the trucks until the truckers get back into line.

 

[Elrohir]

But the thing is, the oil isn't going to just suddenly stop for good. It's going to go into a gradual decline over several decades. Things will get more expensive, but civilization isn't going to collapse. Things'll be tight, but we have time to figure out alternatives.

But I guess a reasonable response is less interesting than possible anarchy, come Tuesday.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I usually keep about a month's worth of food on hand, mostly non-perishable stuff. I also have fruit trees and a garden patch. Granted, the trees are somewhat elderly and don't produce as well as they used to, but that's fine. We also haven't used the garden in the last few years (since the neighbor sprayed his yard with herbicide and the toxins drifted through our fence into the garden). However, I can convert the flower beds to gardening purposes.

 

[cubsfan6506]

Meh I could be in a cornfield in 1 hour on my bike.

 

[BasketCase]

a sudden collapse in the petrol that streams steadily through the pumps and so into the engines of the lorries which deliver our food around the country

Indeed--only one thing has to go wrong, and the whole country is doomed, right....?

Wrong.

Note the wording. "If the trucks stopped moving, we'd start to worry...." This is not ONE thing going wrong. There are thousands of trucks shipping food. So thousands of things have to go wrong AT THE SAME TIME. All the delivery trucks have to be put to a halt at the same time, and this is simply not possible. Even if it were possible, how do you stop people from putting other trucks into service to take over for the stalled ones? You can't. Except with something so big (such as a nuclear attack) that the cities will be destroyed anyway and nobody will care about stalled delivery trucks.

Standard paranoia. Destination, round file.

 

[Theige]

But the thing is, the oil isn't going to just suddenly stop for good. It's going to go into a gradual decline over several decades. Things will get more expensive, but civilization isn't going to collapse. Things'll be tight, but we have time to figure out alternatives.

But I guess a reasonable response is less interesting than possible anarchy, come Tuesday.

Bingo.

OPEC could be the only cause of such an oil shock; we didn't descend into chaos in the 70's and we won't now. OPEC does supply a large percentage of oil, but there are many other oil exporting nations. Not to mention most OPEC countries are strategic allies of the U.S.

Food would get much more expensive, and it would be damaging to the economy, but it would not result in chaos.

 

[nivi]

But the thing is, the oil isn't going to just suddenly stop for good. It's going to go into a gradual decline over several decades. Things will get more expensive, but civilization isn't going to collapse. Things'll be tight, but we have time to figure out alternatives.

But I guess a reasonable response is less interesting than possible anarchy, come Tuesday.

Gradual decline of oil? Sure. Gradual increase of price? Hell no. So while everything isn't going to just stop, it's going to be pretty bad.

 

[DNK]

Enjoy your meat while it's cheap. Soon enough, you'll all be eating tofu instead.

Muwahahahaha

But how is all the oil just going to cut out at once?

 

[JerichoHill]

Even in such a situation, I wouldn't care. We have vegetable gardens (and mine's year round indoors!). I could survive such a situation for a very long time (provided my gun provides enough security).

 

[Ecofarm]

Enjoy your meat while it's cheap. Soon enough, you'll all be eating tofu instead.

That has nothing, necessarily, to do with the economy. Some people (I wish I could say most) eventually wake up and see the cost of eating meat, decide the cost is too much for them to bear personally and stop.

It should, then, be no surprise when it happens on a mass scale via manifestation in the economy.

Simply, we cannot continue eating like cavemen unless we intend to return to that state.

Be the change. -Gandhi

 

[GinandTonic]

What have we all said about taking the Daily Mail's scaremongering at face value?

 

[RedRalph]

Actually eating meat is what gave our brains the protein needed to stop being cavemen Eco.

 

[Ecofarm]

Actually eating meat is what gave our brains the protein needed to stop being cavemen Eco.

Citation please.

Of course, I will deconstruct it, criticize it and leave it in a smoldering heap, but I'll read it.

If we'd like to end this silliness right here: there are alot of dumb things that eat meat and have done so for millions of years.

 

[Zelig]

3 days of food? Seriously, I've got a about a month's worth of food on hand at any given time, and I could go a full week before even running out of eggs, milk, fresh fruit/vegetables, etc.

 

[RedRalph]

I wont bother, I dont know enough about the subject to argue back with you. but I'm going to stick with what my sister the anthropologist and Robert Winston have said.

 

[holy king]

But I guess a reasonable response is less interesting than possible anarchy, come Tuesday.

tuesday? but that's when austria plays germany!

 

[RedRalph]

tuesday? but that's when austria plays germany!

and you are looking forward to that... why?

 

[Ecofarm]

I'm so ready for total anarchy, I wish it would happen right now. And I don't even own a gun.