One of the consequences of a heating planet that we’ve all been warned about is more uneven distribution of rain. Places that were wet before start to experience floods and hurricanes and typhoons, while places that were dry become closer to deserts, and perhaps the most dramatic place to watch this play out in real time is California.
California facing annual water crises means all sorts of things. It means likely fewer people living there. It means more forest fires. But most importantly, it could mean the end of Californian agriculture in our lifetimes.
Now any significant jurisdiction losing its agricultural production would be bad. But California is in a unique position. Over half of the canned tomatoes in America, and a third of those sold worldwide come from California. Almost all of the almonds sold in North American come from there. As do significant quantities of pistachios, and things like broccoli and cauliflower.
In fact, 1/5th of the food eaten in America is grown in California.
Meanwhile the state has been drawing down its aquifers at an alarming rate. The lack of rainfall for the past few years have left reservoirs at record lows, meaning the only way to irrigate crops is to pull the water out of the ground.
Years into that process, however, and well pumps regularly choke and spit up sand.
Meanwhile most of the land between the British Columbia and Ontario is basically good for growing grains and cattle. And not much else. In fact this year, it wasn’t even so great for growing grains, with some yields reportedly down 27%. The implications for food prices this fall and beyond keep getting worse.
At the same time prime agricultural land across central Canada continues to fall under the bulldozer’s blade. In Ontario, 175 acres a day are turned into low density, car dependent tract housing never to grow another crop again.
Unsurprisingly, food prices are rising much faster than the rate of inflation, and food bank use is at historic levels. Many people are finding themselves simply priced out of the supermarket, and are turning to food banks and community fridges to fill that gap.
This is not just happening in North America, and governments who suspect they will have difficulty feeding large numbers of their populace are taking extraordinary measures. China has begun purchasing huge areas of agricultural land in Africa with the likely intent of growing food there to meet the needs of an increasingly urbanized populace.
However, there are some creative solutions happening. The community gardens which seemed to be popping up everywhere across towns and cities a few years ago are now being supplemented by full fledged community farms. These organizations grow much larger quantities of food across multiple locations to provide skills, outdoor activity, recreation and food security to the armies of volunteers that keep them running.
Many of these farms exist in low income neighbourhoods where healthy food is either too expensive or too far away to get for many residents. They fill an important gap in the food security puzzle that can’t be filled elsewhere.
The above mentioned community fridges are also a way that those who have a little extra can give anonymously to those who don’t have enough. As they spring up in neighbourhoods across Canada and the U.S., they too fill an important need for fresh produce, eggs, milk and meat for those who can’t afford them, or can’t get them through the food bank.
And of course the explosion of popularity of vegetable gardening evokes memories of the Victory Garden movement of World War II, where at government urging, some 40% of the vegetables consumed domestically were grown in people’s front and back yards.
Lawns and grass are the single largest crop grown in North America, and the tending and maintenance of them uses a staggering amount of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer and fossil fuels. All of which could be reduced by the widespread adoption of veggie gardens that would nourish and provide countless mental and physical health benefits.
In the end, the future of food production (and energy production, and manufacturing, and so on) is likely to shift from large scale farms thousands of miles away to more local agriculture and more people growing their own in cities.
Cities can help with this by putting a firm limit on their urban boundaries, and by passing by-laws that override restrictive homeowner association covenants and permit veggie gardens in front lawns, and even chickens and bees out back.
In the future we will be able to feed everyone, but we will need to think very differently about where our food comes and be prepared to grow a bit more of it ourselves.
COP26
As of the writing of this, COP26, the global climate change summit is well underway. The funny thing is, global leaders know what needs to be done: ending fossil fuel subsidies immediately, winding down the airline industry, ending old growth logging, investing heavily in high speed rail and local transit and cycling infrastructure, a massive carbon tax, and hard limits on food miles.
Of course precisely nobody with the power to do so is proposing any of those things, with instead lots of conversations about electric cars. The outcome of this conference will be interesting, but it remains to be seen if it will move the needle at all on global greenhouse gas emissions. Look closely to see if there are any plans, vs. just promises. Greta Thunberg and her famous ‘blah blah blah’ was so spot on that it has now become a popular hashtag. Expect more of that for sure.
Whooping Cranes
One of the coolest birds you’ll ever see, and the tallest if you never venture outside of North America, is the Whooping Crane. Once hunted nearly to the point of extinction, the crane is slowly bouncing back due to the efforts of zoos and conservationists.
Every one of the 800 cranes in the world today are descended from the 15 that survived humanity’s best effort to wipe them out. It’s now possible to see 70-80 of them in flocks in the wild, much to the delight of this birder. At nearly 5 feet tall, they are a dramatic sight on the landscape.
They’re also a great example of conservation done well, and something to celebrate as we look for other ways to preserve other species at risk.
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