Rationing food in the land of plenty?

It's happening, reports The New York Sun

Posted by Tom Philpott at 1:36 PM on 22 Apr 2008

Read more about: food | shopping | websites | local food

Is the U.S. on the brink of food rationing? Possibly. Reports The New York Sun:

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply.

It's hard to know what to make of the report, though. The Sun article focuses mainly on anecdotal evidence: shoppers at a Costco in Silicon Valley -- one of the the most prosperous areas on the planet -- a guy who runs a survivalist website (sample line from ad: "Free XD pistol!"), and "an anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment website."

Still, if they really are rationing rice in Silicon Valley -- and flour and cooking oil in Queens -- then something weird is afoot. Rather than everybody panicking and stocking up on guns, ammo, canned goods, and grains, I'd rather see us reinvest in local-food production networks. Call me wacko.

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4 Comments | Post a Comment

Plant potatos

It's easy, just go get some potatoes of the variety you like, leave them in the sun for about a week and when they start to sprout eyes cut chunks with on good eye each and bury just under the top of the soil. Cover with straw and wait 3 months. Water the spuds if you're in a dry climate.

Then, if an army marches over your potato patch you still have something to eat. Spuds in the ground are like money in the bank. Unless the bank fails and then your atm card is useless but the spuds will still be waiting for you.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 3:43 PM on 22 Apr 2008

Good News

Most problems with food have come from not high cost...but low cost!

Exacerabated low costs associated with mechanization have forced people off farms and into the cities creating the conditions for pollution, traffic problems and so on.

The principle effect of NAFTA, for example, was not in manufacturing, but in driving Mexican farmers off their land when low cost American "food" was imported there. These farmers became the "immigration problem" that Americans then decried.

Higher food costs mean that people can return to the family farm and run the business profitably...especially if they use organic methods.

In effect, we never really had "cheap food"...as most of the food sold today is inedible and cannot be processed by the human body.

One bite of an apple from a farmers market will tell you that.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 7:12 PM on 22 Apr 2008

J.B's right this time.

The real problem with food is low cost production methods that empty the countryside and rape the soil. Unfortunately the only way to correct this is to raise wages all around but not raise things like mortgage payments.

When mortgages were limited to 15 or 20 years and no more than 25% of gross income it was reasonable to expect that a prudent family could pay off the mortgage a few years early. Home ownership was actually home ownership instead of home-loanership as is the case today.

Food was relatively pricey but wages covered it so there wasn't a conflict.

Honoring the land means honoring the labor that works the land. There's not really another option that I see.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 10:06 PM on 22 Apr 2008
[ Parent ]

Seattle whiskey supplies falling!

The city council here just approved a major study on increasing reliance on local food. Interestingly, they included a proposal to develop an emergency food distribution system!

Regarding stocking up, did you notice the NYT article on survivalism about a week ago. Apparently, peak oil freaking-out is even infecting the green-techno website, WorldChanging!

One left-of-center environmentalist who is taking action is Alex Steffen, the executive editor of www.worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability. With only slight irony, Mr. Steffen, 40, said he and his girlfriend could serve as "poster children for the well-adjusted, urban liberal survivalist," given that they keep a six-week cache of food and supplies in his basement in Seattle (although they polished off their bottle of doomsday whiskey at a party).

by Colin Wright at 10:42 PM on 22 Apr 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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