We now need to think in dramatically different ways. Here’s where to begin.
1) CONSERVATION It’s an obvious priority when as much as half the world’s food production is currently wasted, according to Vaclav Smil, Canadian geographer and global expert on this issue. To date, despite Smil’s and my rants, no government has taken serious action to increase food access by reducing waste, the obvious first line of defence.
2) REGIONAL FOOD We need to switch to diets and infrastructure that are close by and sustainable. People can eat more self-reliantly – forget tasteless California lettuce and sprout salads from grains and beans, or enjoy cold-tolerant greens that flourish in unheated greenhouses. Governments need to rebuild a local food economy: local slaughterhouses, local eggs (Ontario’s smashed eggs, used in all mass-service institutions, come from Manitoba) and local fruit and veggie processing.
3) FOOD ACCESS AS PUBLIC POLICY Governments should guarantee food basics in the same way they guarantee other essentials: medical care, education, roads, public broadcasting. Poli ti cal leaders will have to step up to the plate or, like the once-stable governments of north Africa, be sent packing.
Read more on the food crisis here.
