Researcher - Urban Farming Best Way To Blunt Future City Food Insecurity, System Failures

[hatrack]

A city that grows at least some of the food that its people eat will be better able to withstand changes and breakdowns in global food supply, according to post-doctoral researcher Tara Moreau.

"There's a movement now to design livable areas that have agriculture as one of main components, so that people can live, grow food and eat close to where they work and play," Moreau explained. "These are systems designed for resiliency."

And resiliency will be required. Climate change will almost certainly alter the kinds of crops that we can grow commercially, she said. As rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels, waning fresh water supplies and extreme weather create a new agricultural reality in the coming decades, there will be breakdowns in the supply of food. "We saw that just recently, in 2008, with rice," said Moreau, a board member of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation.

A minor crop failure due to erratic weather sent prices in some Asian countries up 300 per cent and many countries, including China and India, immediately closed their borders to rice exports. Rioting and hoarding spread quickly across southeast and west Asia. The price shock was even felt in Vancouver.

"There are ways that we can rejuvenate the urban environment, using rooftops and converting laneways into productive food growing space," Moreau said.

EDIT

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Plan%20food%20insecure%20future%20academic%20warns/3254796/story.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Part of the "shock wave" of rice was by hedge fund traders driving up the prices.

They had run out of things to gamble on, so turned to rice and other commodities.

From a 2008 article:

"The conventional explanations for the flare in prices are population growth, diversion of corn and soybeans to biofuel production, rising Asian and Middle Eastern demand for high-value foods, higher transport costs and crop failures. Oddly little has been said about the role of speculation in the rise in commodity prices generally and specifically in food.

On the Chicago CME Group market, which deals in some 25 agricultural commodities - it is a merger of the former Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade - the volume of contracts has increased by 20 percent since the start of the year and now has reached the level of a million contracts a day. This will soon exceed the rate of growth reached in all of 2007.

The hedge funds are now active in commodities and are playing the futures contracts, where upwards of 30 million tons of soybeans for future delivery are contracted for every day. They are also buying the companies that stock."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/opinion/16iht-edpfaff.3.12052202.html