Why are we in Transition Towns so keen on growing food locally and preserving our local farms? Because the evidence is starting to pour in that food security and food shortages are a major emerging problem. We might be eating too much right now and worrying about our waste-lines but already a lot of us are struggling to afford enough to eat and the problems could get worse.
Tim Fischer has been the Australian ambassador to the Vatican for some time and he has just retired. On the occasion of his last meeting with The Pope he gave the Pope a bood on food security by Australian journalist Julian Cribb. He says: I decided to chance my arm and present it to the Pope as a farewell givt because the issue of revitalising agriculture is very much inline with Australian government policy and it is one of my priority issues. The Pope had previously expressed a great interest in the issue and even if he doesn’t read the book himself I’m sure one of his advisers will go through it and brief him on its main points. The book is: The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do To Avoid It by Julian Cribb.
The Pope has made several public statements expressing concern about the adequacy of our food supply and the fact that the food system is already creating misery for the poor. The book argues that by the middle of this century the world will be unable to feed itself unless there are radical changes to agriculture land and water usage diet and the way modern cities recycle resources.
Tim Fischer says: I think it is the biggest challenge we face because it is even more immediate than climate change. As things stand we will probably lose about a quarter of our food supply in the next few decades at a time when the world’s population will grow from 7 billion to 10 billion.
What are you doing about your food security for the future? This is a big issue but we don’t believe that we will always be able to rely on Coles and Woolworths to feed us. We need to develop more resilience and skills around producing our own food or supporting local farmers who produce local food. This means learning about growing food and improving the quality of our local soils too.