 |
| Drought threatens California crops - and BC's food supply |
In Dangerous Times, Why Lower Our Best Defence?
Bill Tieleman’s 24
Hours Vancouver / The Tyee
column
Tuesday October 14, 2014
By Bill Tieleman
"There
are too many inequalities around the world -- there are millions of people
dying of hunger and a few thousand dying of indigestion."
- Mahamadou
Issoufou president of Niger, 2013
What
connects the horrific disease Ebola in Africa, the terrorist group Islamic
State in Syria, the possible mega-drought in California and British Columbia's
shrinking food production?
The
answer is simple: in an increasingly interconnected and threatening world, food
security may be the most valuable defence of all.
Yet
instead of increasing protection of our farmland and promoting food production,
the BC Liberal government is actively eroding it.
Last
week, a new report
on B.C.'s food security warned that due to a prolonged drought in California,
prices here for a variety of fruit and vegetables could jump by 34 per cent
this year alone.
As I
walked Sunday through the Kitsilano Farmers' Market packed with fresh fruit and
vegetables, it seemed impossible that our foodie fixated province is producing
less and less food.
But the
"Wake Up Call" report commissioned by Vancity credit union points out
that between 1991 and 2011, B.C. food crop production dropped by 20.4 per cent.
And in
2010, 67 per cent of all imported B.C. vegetables and 44 per cent of imported
fruit came from the Unites States, with over half from California.
Deepening
our dependence
We are
overly dependent on California, where experts fear that three years of
extremely low rainfall may be the start of a "megadrought"
-- a dry period that lasts decades and has afflicted California in the past.
What
are the odds of that? Cornell University researchers did the calculations and
estimate the likelihood of a 10-year-long drought is at 50 to 80 per cent.
And the
chances of a "megadrought," which they classify as a 35-year dry
period, runs from 10 per cent to 50 per cent by the end of this century.
So as
ISIS terrorism in the Middle East and fear that a deadly Ebola in West Africa
can arrive in North America dominate our news, it's easy to see the value of
reducing dependence on food imports in an uncertain world.
Some
leaders like Niger President Issoufou get that world hunger stemming from
inequality is a huge threat to peace.
So does
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack.
"Working
to eliminate food insecurity across the globe will provide incredible economic
benefits to developing and developed countries alike. It will increase
political stability in conflict and poverty stricken regions, and put these
countries on a path to future prosperity," Vilsack told the
Global Food Symposium in Tokyo on April 7, 2010.
Gobbling
up farmland
It's
why Brent Mansfield, co-chair of BC Food Systems Network and author of the
Vancity report argues: "More energy needs to be given to initiatives, both
public and private, that work to increase local production, support new farmers
accessing land, and transition under-utilized parcels of zoned agriculture
lands into active production."
Unfortunately,
British Columbia is moving in exactly the wrong direction.
The BC
Liberal government pushed through
changes in the legislature earlier this year to make it easier to remove
protected Agricultural Land Reserve farmland for development in the Interior,
North and Kootenays.
That
came despite statistics from B.C's Agricultural Land Commission that overall
farmland protected dropped
95,000 hectares between 1974 and 2012.
When
Core Review Minister Bill Bennett introduced changes in March to the
Agricultural Land Reserve, he claimed
that: "These improvements achieve our goals of supporting the ALC in its
role as independent decision maker, protecting our high quality farmland and
still supporting farmers to get ahead."
But with
imported food prices dramatically increasing while B.C. crop production
plummets, Bennett may yet have to eat his words.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment