9 Jan 2007
Fuelling a Food Crisis – new report on Peak Oil and food from Caroline Lucas.
Green MEP Caroline Lucas has just released a new report, **’Fuelling a Food Crisis – The Impact of Peak Oil on Food Security’**, which is a devastating critique of the UK food system. Co-authored by Andy Jones and Colin Hines, the report exposes the perilous situation in which the UK finds itself. In essence it is an update of Andy Jones’ highly prescient 2001 report ‘Eating Oil’. It is available to download freely at Caroline’s website, and I recommend it highly, it is, for me, more useful and impactful than Dale Allen Pfeiffer’s ‘Eating Fossil Fuels’ which I just finished and wasn’t that impressed by.
Here is the press release Caroline’s office put out to mark the launch of the report.
**‘PEAK OIL THREATENS UK FOOD SECURITY’ – REPORT**
**DWINDLING OIL SUPPLIES THREATEN GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS, SAYS EURO-MP**
Dwindling oil stocks and EU trade and energy policies threaten food price hikes – and could cause the UK to be vulnerable to food shortages for the first time since the Second World War, according to a new report by Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas.
The report calls on the Government to establish a Royal Commission on Food Security to examine the issue – and for the UK ‘s Competition Commission to consider its findings in its ongoing investigation of the supermarkets’ dominance of the food retailing sector.
Fuelling a Food Crisis examines the dependence of the EU’s food supplies on oil – for production, processing and transport – and concludes that food prices are becoming increasingly linked with those of oil, and therefore more exposed to the price volatility of the energy sector.
“Higher energy prices are here to stay,
Peter Cameron
9 Jan 6:31pm
Living in Scotland, where local water is plentiful, one observes the insanity of trucks transporting plastic bottled water here from all over . . .then there is our daily loaf. 30 years ago we had local bakeries. Now trucks cover a 300 mile round trip from Glasgow just to bring us a slice of bread.
Point is can you sort this without getting rid of capitalism? I think not.
PC
Jim in Alabama
13 Jan 6:07am
“The report warns that we must change energy, trade and agriculture policies at an EU level if we are to avoid a food crisis precipitated by ‘Peak Oil’.”
You folks might want to rethink your immigration policies while you’re at it. Allowing millions of new immigrants to flood into the UK is purely insane. Each new immigrant needs food, water, electricity, gasoline, living space, sewage service, garbage collection, etc. Seems like your politicians, and mine, have forgotten the old “ounce of prevention” saying.