FOOD

Food-related Feasta events, listed with the most recent ones first:

Members-only Seminar: Danny Day, founder and president of EPRIDA, on Creating a Virtuous Circle

How new biotechnologies can increase crop yields, extract a wide range of fuels, foods, chemicals and materials from the plants themselves and sequester perhaps a third of their carbon in the soil.

13.45 for 14.00, Friday, 27th July, 2007
at the Teagasc Ashtown Food Research Centre

In association with the University of Georgia, Eprida has developed a method of producing biofuels and valuable coproducts which also allows greenhouse gases to be removed from the air and sequestered in the soil. See www.eprida.com. There is no charge for the seminar but to enable detailed discussions to take place afterwards, attendance is limited to members of Feasta and invited guests. New members may join at the door.

Download map and directions (pdf document, 72 K)

Food security in an energy-scarce world

Feasta held an international conference at University College Dublin on June 23rd, 24th & 25th, 2005.

The world's food supply has become heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Environmental degradation, water shortages, soil erosion, climate change, globalisation and corporate control all pose serious threats to our food supply and further increase the consumption of finite oil and gas reserves. Now, however, oil is becoming scarce and its output is expected to decline. This conference therefore explored both the nature of the threats to world food security and sought to answer a crucial question:

How can the world's population be fed without the extensive use of fossil fuels in the production, processing and distribution of food?

More...

View multimedia files from the conference

Articles on food from this website

Articles are ordered with the most recent ones first.

The Economic Challenge of Sustainability   August 2006.

by Richard Douthwaite and Emer Ó Siochrú

This paper, which was written for CORI Justice, gives an overview of Feasta's ideas about economic growth, money systems, peak oil, and the need for a land value tax and for citizen carbon quotas.

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From the second Feasta review, November 2004:

GM: An unnecessary technology by David Fleming

The benefits claimed for genetic manipulation are largely illusory and are far outweighed by the disadvantages and dangers the technology carries. Despite this, it is being pressed by powerful companies with the support of governments. Fleming explains why and says it can, and must, be stopped.

Panel: Big biotech's plans for domination run into difficulties by Michael O'Callaghan

Book review: Time for the next agricultural revolution

Tom Campbell reviews Agri-Culture by Jules Pretty

Book review: Getting back to eating local foods

Ivan Ward reviews Bringing the Food Economy Home by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield and Steve Gorelick

From Before the Wells Run Dry, November 2003:

How the farmers' world will change: new problems, new crops, new opportunities

by Bernard Rice. Although the scope for replacing oil with plant-derived fuels is limited, energy crops could readily produce a tenth of Ireland's total energy demand without seriously curtailing other types of agricultural production. But financial incentives will be needed to make this happen.

Sustainability through local self-sufficiency

by Folke Günther. Modern agriculture is a device to convert large amounts of fossil fuel into human food. It is therefore very vulnerable to energy scarcity and supply disruption. Making it more sustainable requires nutrient recycling and that people live near where their food is grown.

Hydrocarbons versus carbohydrates - the continuing battle in the United States

by David Morris. Recent political and technological changes have enabled plant materials to replace some of the petroleum compounds used by industry. Farmers will only benefit significantly, though, if they own the companies that turn their crops into the chemicals that industry requires.

Maximising the returns from growing biomass

by Michael Doran. Farmers should not expect to find that simply growing energy crops will prove very profitable. They must also use such crops to meet needs besides those for heat and power which people will pay them to fill.

The case for returning to real live horse power

by Charlie Pinney. Replacing tractors with horses would enable farms to significantly reduce their fossil energy use. Growers who have already made the switch report reduced soil compaction, increased yields and improved harvesting times.

From Short Circuit:

Chapter Six: Life from the land

Modern industrial agriculture cannot be continued for very much longer because of the damage it is doing to the soil and the way it is undermining its genetic base. Community farms are part of the answer, locally-owned shops another.

From the first Feasta Review, June 2001:

Book review: What happens when the wells run dry?

James Bruges reviews Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner

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