On the good side the elections last November resulted in a few good deputies getting elected to the States, and we now have an active Jersey Climate Action Group, which also covers peak oil. There is positive movement but sadly we are still a long way from being a Transition Island.

Are wealthy people with large ornimental gardens and lawns really going to let others turn them into veg plots?

What proportion of islanders (British as well as Jersey!) would be up to the task in terms of knowledge when most people under 40 have never grown a food item in their lives, except perhaps a few tomato plants? Education would be essential and it would be difficult to see more a than a few percent taking it up in a big way until a crisis really hit. These few percent (compared to the current few tenths of a percent) would be the pioneers, the people we need to reach and teach, who after honing their skills would lead others.

There is a big difference physically and psychologically between growing a few summer veg as a hobby and to save a few pounds, and growing the range and amounts of food to feed your family for the whole year when the difference between success and failure could mean starvation. Some individuals would inevitably fail in some years and strong communities such as those being built by Rob would be essential to prevent social breakdown, if not anarchy.

A key reason for doing the rough calculations was to demonstrate the fallacy of the widely known ‘fact’ in Jersey that we simply cannot grow our own food. There is good reason for this belief. The experience of the occupation 1940-1945 when imports were all but non-existent showed that supporting a 50,000 population was not really sustainable with the technology and techniques available then.

However that was an unplanned event. Although agriculture at that point was a major activity in the island, it was significantly geared to exporting potatoes and tomatoes. At that point too horses were still comonplace on farms, and it takes a couple of vergees (say an acre) of good land to feed a horse. It’s a tough decision – feed a horse or feed 10 people on the same area of land.

As it happens I have been making some refinements to my calculation to deal with new information. For example my original figures used a typical calorie requirement for modern westerners. However I read recently that in the 16th century land labourers had a calorie intake closer to modern olympic athletes. That shouldn’t be a big suprise given the sheer physicality of the work. However it does mean that if you use human labour you have to grow perhaps 25% more food. It just goes to show how sensitive all these models are to basic assumptions.

Thanks Rob for a thought provoking essay.
And also your humour and humanity.

Jersey shifting from a society with employment mostly as bankers, finanical advisors and tax-dodging investors to a more labour-intensive agricultural economy will be a challenge.

In the transition, for those interested in the security, health benefits, enjoyment and bloody-minded righteousness of growing their own organic fruit and veg, but don’t have the time to do the work, see an example of an organic grower being paid to use other people’s land:
http://www.growbiointensive.org/biointensive/goldmine.html#goldmine

Anyway, Jersey is an interesting case study for considering an Energy Dissent Plan. This is not just in relation to the consumption of oil as a direct energy source. As an island dependent on electricity from French nuclear power stations, it also potentially highlights the indirect oil dependence of nuclear energy generation – eg just for starters through mining, processing and distribution of uranium. (leaving aside all the other, I believe prohibitively negative impacts of the nuclear industry, from the fact that it is also a finite and exhaustible mineral resource, to the dnagers of its waste products.)

I think the population of Jersey will probably decided to move elsewhere if the costs are too high and they realise this before their money becomes useless and in 50 years time perhaps the population will be back to 10,000 again.

You state that Jersey could feed itself using high-intensity organic food production techniques (i.e. no fossil fuel inputs), needing only 4000 square feet per person of good quality land. That’s the good news for Britain and most of the rest of the world, and contradicts the most doom-laden peak oil predictions of starvation, population collapse, etc. However, you also say that 25,000 of the island’s population would need to be involved in food production. By “involved� I assume you mean it would be their full-time occupation, equivalent to, say 40 hours per week. Assuming that 60% of the current 90,000 population are aged between 20 and 65 (a reasonable percentage for any industrial country) and ignoring the agricultural work contributions of people outside that age group, that means 25,000 out of 54,000 people of such age would be involved, nearly half. Alternatively, if everyone of such age was involved on a part-time basis, they would have to input time of about 16-18 hours per week. It is, to say the least, not easy to see how our current growth-based society could be maintained in conditions where nearly half the time of the working-age population is spent in growing basic foods.

Also, consider the fact that the 16-18 hours per week would mostly be spent outside, at all times of year, in all weathers doing work which, to put it unromantically, would often involve getting cold, wet, dirty and physically tired. And that just to grow basic foodstuffs – vegetables, fruit, etc. – for ones own kitchen which then need preparation and cooking to make a meal. This seems an unlikely scenario for a generation largely used to physically undemanding work indoors, easy availability of cheap prepared food ingredients, ready-meals, etc., from supermarkets. As mentioned above, much the same would apply to the UK although the figures might be ameliorated somewhat by the continued availability of some (very expensive) fossil fuels, biofuel, etc. It was also mentioned that such an agricultural system would produce a vegan diet – another culture shock for the vast majority.

In all, this emphasises the fact that the implications of weaning ourselves off our fossil fuel addiction, whether as a result of peak oil/gas or the need for reducing CO2 output, extend way beyond transportation. Even in the terms outlined here, it requires a degree and speed of adaptation greater than any seen in modern human history and will need correspondingly determined action to bring it about. Let’s hope TTT is the first of many initiatives which will be needed to succeed in this task!

Much of the island is sparsely populated and still agricultural; St Helier being the notable exception with lots of “modern” flats, offices and leisure complexes being built. Plus the occasional 1960s tower blocks.

They used to use seaweed for fertiliser but I believe this is now banned due to it containing low levels of radioactivity from France’s nuclear programme.