Preparing for the end of food?
By Eve Savory, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News
The small group of would-be food gardeners (seven people, one Muscovy duckling tucked into a fleece) had gathered in a corner of the Dunbar Community Centre in Vancouver. As we discussed how to plant a potato, the edibility of an arugula flower and how to avoid tomato blight, one of the women warned us there was a local seed shortage.
"You see," said another, referring to the daily headlines about food shortages, price increases, and riots. "We're all getting ready."
Perhaps some of us are. This spring, certain seeds were simply unavailable in British Columbia.
"I am exhausted from trying to keep up with it every day" said Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds. "I'm getting a million e-mails, a million letters, and a million calls about how to start a garden and what crops to use, and it's just totally over the top."
At West Coast Seeds, orders were up 30 per cent this spring over last year. The small organic seed company was so unprepared for the sudden onrush of demand that the staff was close to tears.
"All of a sudden it just got out of hand, and where do you find more of everything at that point and how long will it last?" said owner Jeannette McCall.
From Idaho beans to lettuce, the company was short some 30 seed varieties, disappointing customers across the province.
'Everyone has to be asking themselves, what am I going to do, not if the system breaks down, but when.'— Paul Roberts
"People are aware now, from the news, thinking, well yeah, I've got my backyard and got my balcony," said McCall. "I can try to grow something."
For Paul Roberts, the author of the forthcoming The End of Food
"Everyone has to be asking themselves, what am I going to do, not if the system breaks down, but when," Roberts said in an interview. "We should at least begin by asking, how confident do I feel in the system."
Roberts, who authored The End of Oil
Excerpted from the CBC News. Read the full article here
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