Our Food and Climate Change

When people make any connection at all between our food supply and global warming, it usually takes the form of food miles, the distance food travels to get to our plates.  As readers of this blog know, I often point out that the connection between food miles and a particular food’s carbon footprint can, at times, be tenuous.  Local food supplies are critical for a number of reasons, many of which are more important than the miles food travels to your table.

On this Blog Action Day, many people are making the climate change – food connection in the opposite direction.  As the next 20 years of changes that are already locked in to the global climate occur, food production, especially large scale commercial agri-business food production will be adversely impacted.  As these impacts make it more difficult to feed the majority of the World’s population, 99% of who do not grow their own food, we will come to rely more and more on local food production.  This local production may be the food you grow, (or are thinking of growing), in your own back yard, it may be the food you buy from local growers at Farmer’s Markets or it may be the food sold at your local Food Co-op.  Whatever form local food takes, it will necessarily become a much more important part of our food supply.

Here is a link to a panel discussion sponsored by Slow Food Nation.  I would encourage everyone to make their contribution to this Bog Action Day by watching the video of the panel discussion.  It  is also broken into 19 sections that you can watch in smaller pieces if that fits better into your schedule.   The discussion took place last September, but nothing in it has been changed by the passage of a few months.

Finally, if you wrote a Blog Action Day post of your own, you can leave a link to it below so we can read it. Thanks!