Food relocalization and regeneration resources
page under construction
food production, climate change and fossil fuels depletion
Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food, and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
www.newsociety.com/Books/E/Eating-Fossil-Fuels
The miracle of the Green Revolution was made possible by cheap fossil fuels to supply crops with artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Estimates of the net energy balance of agriculture in the US show that ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to produce one calorie of food. Such an imbalance cannot continue in a world of diminishing hydrocarbon resources.
Eating Fossil Fuels examines the interlinked crises of energy and agriculture and highlights some startling findings:
- The world-wide expansion of agriculture has appropriated fully 40% of the photosynthetic capability of this planet.
- The Green Revolution provided abundant food sources for many, resulting in a population explosion well in excess of the planet's carrying capacity.
- Studies suggest that without fossil fuel based agriculture, the US could only sustain about two thirds of its present population. For the planet as a whole, the sustainable number is estimated to be about two billion.
Concluding that the effect of energy depletion will be disastrous without a transition to a sustainable, relocalized agriculture, the book draws on the experiences of North Korea and Cuba to demonstrate stories of failure and success in the transition to non-hydrocarbon-based agriculture. It urges strong grassroots activism for sustainable, localized agriculture and a natural shrinking of the world's population.
www.mnforsustain.org/oil_eating_fossil_fuels_pfeiffer_d.htm
summary from the book
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
www.communitysolution.org/mediaandeducation/films/powerofcommunity/
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.
53 minutes. Region-free. Subtitles in Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Taiwanese-Mandarin.
Produced by Community Solutions; Directed by Faith Morgan.
Find more information about screenings here.
local food reports
The Future is Rural: Food System Adaptations to the Great Simplification
by Jason Bradford, February 19, 2019
www.postcarbon.org/publications/the-future-is-rural/
The Future is Rural challenges the conventional wisdom about the future of food in our modern, globalized world. It is a much-needed reality check that explains why certain trends we take for granted–like the decline of rural areas and the dependence of farming and the food system on fossil fuels–are historical anomalies that will reverse over the coming decades. Renewable sources of energy must replace fossil fuels, but they will not power economies at the same scale as today. Priorities will profoundly shift, and food will become a central concern. Lessons learned from resilience science and alternatives to industrial agriculture provide a foundation for people to transition to more rural and locally focused lives.
Jason Bradford, a biologist and farmer, offers a deeply researched report on the future of food that reveals key blind spots in conventional wisdom on energy, technology, and demographics. The Future Is Rural presents Bradford's analysis from his career in ecology and agriculture, as well as a synthesis of the historical and scientific underpinnings of the astonishing changes that will transform the food system and society as a whole.
Ecotrust
https://ecotrust.org/our-programs/food-and-farms/
https://ecotrust.org/wp-content/uploads/Food-Infrastructure-Report-exec-summary.pdf
Oregon Food Infrastructure Gap Analysis:
Where Could Investment Catalyze Regional Food System Growth and Development?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYApril 2015
full report at https://ecotrust.org/publication/regional-food-infrastructure/
permaculture
Eugene Permaculture Meetup
Suburban Permaculture
Jan Spencer's educational efforts to transform suburbia, lawns to food, neighborhood cooperation. Podcasts.
Northwest Permaculture Convergence
regional annual gathering in Oregon and Washington
Aprovecho Research Center, Cottage Grove, Oregon
Lost Valley Educational Center, Dexter, Oregon
www.lostvalley.org intentional community and teaching center
Cascadia Permaculture, Cottage Grove, Oregon - Jude Hobbs
www.cascadiapermaculture.com permaculture consulting and courses
Resilience Permaculture, Cottage Grove, Oregon - Tao Orion & Abel Kloster, permaculture consulting
David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture (in Australia)
Retrosuburbia
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability
https://store.holmgren.com.au/product/principles-and-pathways/
https://holmgren.com.au/essence-of-permaculture-free/
The Art of Frugal Hedonism: a guide to spending less while enjoying everything more
https://store.holmgren.com.au/product/the-art-frugal-hedonism/
Future Scenarios: How Communities can adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change
The simultaneous onset of climate change and the peaking of global oil supply represent unprecedented challenges for human civilisation.
Global oil peak has the potential to shake if not destroy the foundations of global industrial economy and culture. Climate change has the potential to rearrange the biosphere more radically than the last ice age. Each limits the effective options for responses to the other.
The strategies for mitigating the adverse effects and/or adapting to the consequences of Climate Change have mostly been considered and discussed in isolation from those relevant to Peak Oil. While awareness of Peak Oil, or at least energy crisis, is increasing, understanding of how these two problems might interact to generate quite different futures, is still at an early state.
FutureScenarios.org presents an integrated approach to understanding the potential interaction between Climate Change and Peak Oil using a scenario planning model. In the process I introduce permaculture as a design system specifically evolved over the last 30 years to creatively respond to futures that involve progressively less and less available energy.
– David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept. May 2008
protecting local farmland
Land Watch Lane County
Land Watch is the main effort trying to keep the real estate industry from paving over farms and forests in rural Lane County. www.landwatch.net
learn to grow
OSU Small Farms conference
blogs.oregonstate.edu/smallfarmsconference/ smallfarms.oregonstate.edu
OSU Extension Service
Master Gardener Program
Master Food Preserver Program
Rogue Farm Corps
roguefarmcorps.org
eat local, buy local
Food for Lane County - Youth Farm
foodforlanecounty.org/go-learn-more/other-programs/gardens/
Willamette Farm and Food Coalition
willamettefarmandfood.org Locally Grown guide to sourcing local food in Lane County and Vicinity
Lane County Farmers Market
list of local farmers markets
https://www.localharvest.org/eugene-or/farmers-markets
Unique Eugene trade association of local businesses, including some involved with food
www.uniqueeugene.com
Down to Earth
one of the best garden stores anywhere downtoeartheugene.com
Eugene Backyard Farmer
www.sundancenaturalfoods.com
Friendly Street Market
www.kivagrocery.com
www.capellamarket.com
Cafe Mam
cafemam.com
Organic Redneck
ogredneck.com
Happy Cow
International guide to vegan, vegetarian and veg-friendly restaurants and stores. www.happycow.net/north_america/usa/oregon/eugene/ is a local link
Eugene Veg Education Network
bulk foods
Camas Country Mill, Junction City
https://www.camascountrymill.com
grower of local grains and beans, flour milling, small restaurant serving sandwiches, fresh sourdough breads, located just north of EUG airport
Hummingbird Wholesale
local wholesaler - www.hummingbirdwholesale.com
Growers Market
mushrooms
Cascade Mycological Society
Fungi for the People
seeds
Territorial Seeds
Adaptive Seeds
Seed: the untold story
https://www.seedthemovie.com/
"Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. As biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds. SEED features Vandana Shiva, Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrew Kimbrell, Winona Laduke and Raj Patel."
Lane County Beekeepers Association
National Young Farmers Coalition
youngfarmers.org
NAOG Garden
Neighborhood Assembly of God Church, 815 Irving Road, Eugene
https://www.lanecountyfarmersmarket.org/naogg
Church that converted much of their property to a production farm
Avant Gardeners
beyond Eugene
Earth Activist Training, northern California
Ten Rivers Food Web, Corvallis, Oregon
tenriversfoodweb.org
Oregon Tilth tilth.org
City Repair, Portland Oregon
Global Earth Repair - first conference May 2019, Port Townsend, Washington
The Heirloom Expo, Santa Rosa, California
theheirloomexpo.com