Peak Oil Is Fuelling A Food Crisis, Warns Transition Town’s MEP On Visit to Lewes
11 April 2007 - Dwindling oil stocks and EU trade and energy policies threaten food price hikes – and could ultimately cause the UK to be vulnerable to food shortages for the first time since the Second World War, according to Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas.
Speaking at a meeting in Pelham House, Lewes, organized by the Transition Town Lewes group, Dr Lucas will call on the Government to establish a Royal Commission on Food Security to examine the issue.
The Euro-MP will 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,” said Dr Lucas, Green MEP for South-East England and a member of the European Parliament’s Environment and International Trade Committees.
“Future oil price rises will have a massive impact on food security, and unless we address the problem now, we could face the prospect of food shortages in the UK - one of Europe’s largest food importers - and the possibility of starvation in some developing countries.”
In December Dr Lucas published a report – Fuelling a food crisis - which warned 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’ – the point at which half of global oil production has been consumed, and beyond which extraction goes into irreversible decline, and prices rise accordingly.
Many industry experts predict that Peak Oil will happen by 2020: an increasing number argue we are close to, or have already passed, the peak of oil production. Already, world oil and gas production is declining at an average of four to six per cent annually, while demand is growing at two to three per cent. The last time more oil was discovered than used in a single year was a quarter of a century ago.
Dr Lucas said: “Peak oil is happening whether we like it or not: the fact of dwindling finite fossil fuel reserves is simply non-negotiable.
“Oil prices have already risen 7-fold in the last 7 years. Our food supply systems have become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels. Industrialised farming techniques use about 50 times more energy than traditional methods – and we are importing more and more of our food from overseas: half of all vegetables and a staggering 95 per cent of all fruit eaten in the UK is grown abroad.”
The problem is exacerbated by EU energy policy, which calls for the large-scale cultivation of crops for conversion into bio-fuels, thus creating competition between food and energy for agricultural resources.
This in turn will decrease the amount of land given over to food production as energy prices rise – which could cause global food shortages exactly when we should be boosting food production to maintain stable prices.
The report calls on the Government to establish a Royal Commission on Food Security, demand changes to the EU’s trade and energy policies, increase promotion of organic, locally grown foods, and change its development policies to encourage agricultural production for local markets rather than export at the expense of local food security.
“We have to decouple the food and oil markets – by cutting agriculture’s dependence on oil, by promoting local and organic food systems where possible and reversing the UK’s current enthusiasm for international trade in food, and revising EU energy policies which risk promoting bio-fuel production at the expense of foodstuffs,” Dr Lucas will tell the Lewes meeting.
Dr Lucas added : “The Transition Town movement is an inspirational example of how communities like Lewes are facing up to the challenges of peak oil and climate change. They’ve given up waiting for the Government to take us down the path towards a zero-carbon future, so they’re just getting on with it – and making an enormous difference as they do so.
The problem, of course, is that not every town is following Lewes’s example, and we need to work towards making zero-carbon lifestyles a real option for everyone. This is where it is so essential the Government steps in and delivers policies to ensure the best aspects of the Transition Town model can be replicated up and down the country.”
ENDS
