This Saturday (Details Here) I will join a gang of people at UPEI to spend the day thinking about the practical aspects of shifting much of our food system to a local one.
Behind this is the context of Food Security. We don't really think much about how dependent we are on cheap and easy to get oil. So in my bit, I thought we might imagine what might happen if something happened to take this away. What happened if this happened this year? What would this mean to how we live?
Ian Petrie who was the CBC TV correspondent that had the Food Beat here on PEI has kindly offered to interview me. We will imagine that this is 2020 and that we are looking back. We will focus on what happened and what we did.
I was inspired in this by Jason Bradford who pioneered this scenario in great depth. You can see his work here. He makes the case using the facts of our vulnerability that apply to us.
Many of the ideas I also took from the Cuban experience when they were cut of from oil - Here is a very good film about what happened and how they responded.
The story starts here:
Chapter 1 - The end of the world as we know it
In August 2010, the trucks stopped. War in the Middle East broke out when the Israelis bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iranians blocked the Straits of Hormuz for 6 months. Gas prices went up to $12 a gallon when you could get it. On the Eastern seaboard of Canada where we depend solely on the world market supplies were very spotty and PEI was on the bottom of the list.
Of course the financial markets collapsed as well and credit dried up - there was no room left to bail anyone else out.
So when the straits were reopened the global supply system was not there any more. The global economy had lost its connective tissue.
Canada balkanized into regions. The Atlantic provinces were largely cut off from the rest of Canada and PEI from the mainland.
We were on our own.
The rest of the scenario is after the jump - interested in how you might fill in the gaps as I have only done a sketch
Chapter 2 - the crisis
Fortunately the tanker had just left PEI and we had some supply of oil. But the trucks supplying the supermarkets stopped after 2 weeks. The truckers could not afford to run their rigs, and the supermarkets could not get food into their terminals - for the farmers could not get the food off the farm.
The supermarkets ran out of food in the first week with panic buying. This scare made it all real.
The government put in food and oil rationing. Both had to be allocated. Food kitchens were opened up in schools where all could get one big meal a day. Most of the fuel was allocated to food and fuel distribution. The School buses and the fishing fleet became the public vehicles and the start of a public transport system. All use of private cars was banned.
How was the province going to get through this short and long term? Short term we had to get through the winter and to have enough to plant in a new way next spring.
Very quickly it was decided to make the schools the community centres - everything had to be decentralized.
The school buses became the link. Heavy goods went by water on fishing boats.
With the collapse of the economy most of the jobs disappeared. There were plenty of willing hands. The issue was food and shelter. Winter was only 3 months away - how were people going to heat their homes.
It was the milk cows that paid the worst price. Electricity was spotty now. Big herds just could not be milked and the milk was not picked up. Nationally some neighbours took on cows as house cows. But there was not any time and so much of the milk herd as it was was lost.
On PEI this was better. The herds were smaller and many cows found a new home - the adjustment for the cow and for the new family was a big one. Milking had to be re learned very quickly. The schools became schools in anew way - all the old skills started to be taught there.
Community resource mapping project was implemented. Who had what and who could do what - who had wood stoves - who relied on oil and electricity - who had horses and knew what to do with them - who had barns - a full map of what we had and did not have was an early priority.
The big issue was the potato harvest. We would all survive if we could get it in safely. The potato crop was in the ground and there was no way that it was going to be harvested conventionally.
The other was getting through the winter with enough heat.
These two projects were what made the Island anew. They built the community spirit again and gave Islanders back their sense of mastery and self worth. From this work grew all the things we did over the next 10 years that have made PEI one of the most wonderful places in the world.
Chapter 3 - THE Winter 2010/11
This winter was THE winter.
The average weight loss due to hard work and less calories was 25lbs
A hurdle to cross was issue of ownership. Ownership of food and fuel. A potato farmer owned the potatoes. The people needed them but had no money. The potatoes were in the ground - that was the answer. The same for wood. Each district was set up as a COOP. Every family belonged to the provincial Food and Fuel COOP.
Of course these coops are now the norm and most of us are employed in the today - but then it was all new and strange and there was much conflict about how to do all of this. Now we mainly work for each other. It seems a normal thing now but then we all worked for someone else - how weird that sounds now.
You earned your share by participating in the work. The government ensured a base line for all so that those who could not work had enough.
School for all children over 8 was canceled and creches were set up all over and in the schools.
The fields were filled with people again as were the woods. A crash wagon building and horse training program was set up. Old machinery plans were pulled off dusty shelves and the new Geeks got to work all over the Island in building gear.
Some of the food was traded with New Brunswick for access to the wood - this was the beginning of the Atlantic Alliance with all the Northern States and Provinces to share wood and wood technology for heating. The ferry became the wood hauler.
Wood geeks also went full on to make enough stoves and to instal enough to fill the main gaps.
Families moved back with each other for the winter. Friends moved in with friends. You could not be alone and make it.
Wood heat, potatoes and milk, poultry, eggs and pork were going to be it until the fall of 2011
2011 was going to have to be a brand new year for PEI. None of of our old food system worked. We were going to have to have a local local system. A system that relied not all on oil or oil based products.
That is what we did that winter - we planned and we prepared. The bond that had formed to get the spuds and the wood in - the bond that had formed in the wartime conditions of living with each other and looking after each other set the tone for the plans and for our later success.
Chapter 4 - The Turn 2011
There was till some oil but it was too costly to use as we had and was now allocated by the Food and Fuel COOP - It was used to run the public transport system of school buses, to get food and fuel around and to clear the snow for the convoys.
With only road clearing for the convoys, we all had to settle back to our communities. The sleigh came back in 2011! The ambulance sleigh was one of the first. Getting to hospital became a trial. Doctors were relocated across the Island and worked out of the local hospitals and even from schools. This was how we began our super local health system as we know it today.
But back to food - the farm as we knew it then could not work. They depended entirely on cheap oil. They were too big and too specialized. We had to go back to where were before the plan to the small mixed farm and we had to do something new - urban farming.
Behind all of this was the reality. No oil, no chemicals, only modest machinery and distance was the killer.
Ownership again was the problem. All the traditional farm land was owned by a few farmers who had put their all into it. There was no money. So a tenancy system grew up. On the large plots of land in the rural areas and also in town. All the key open spaces in town became available for working tenancies. If you did the work you could keep your tenancy - Usufruct.
Usufruct is the legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that belongs to another person, as long as the property is not damaged. In many legal usufruct systems of property, such as the traditional ejido system in Mexico, individuals or groups may only acquire the usufruct of the property, not legal land ownership.
Usufruct originates from civil law, where it is a real right of limited duration on the property of another. The holder of an usufruct, known as the usufructuary, has the right to use and enjoy the property, as well as the right to receive profits from the fruits of the property. The English word usufruct derives from the Latin expression usus et fructus, meaning "use and enjoyment".
In Roman Law, usufruct was a type of servitude or ius in re aliena, a right in another's property. The usufructuary never had possession of this property (on the basis that if he possessed at all, he did so through the owner), but he did have an in rem right to the property itself. Unlike the owner, he did not have the right of alienation (abusus), but he could sell or let his enjoyment of the usufruct. Despite the usufructuary's lack of possession a modified form of the possessory interdicts was available to him..
In tribal cultures usufruct means the land is owned in common by the tribe, but families and individuals have the right to use certain plots of land. Most Indian tribes owned things like land as a group and not as individuals. The family never owned the land, they just farmed it. This is called usufruct land ownership. A person must make (more or less) continuous use of the item or else he loses ownership rights. This is usually referred to as "possession property" or "usufruct." Thus, in this usufruct system, absentee ownership is illegitimate.
This principle, an ancient one, was key to our success. Again we now think that this idea of common ownership is normal but then it was weird and hard to accept.
Chapter 5 End of the Beginning 2011
2011 was the breakthrough year. We knew that we had to make it through the next winter and also build the base for any prosperity that we could even think of having.
School reopened with a vengeance in the winter with the plan being to close school from May to November and only offer daycare and creches in the warmer months. We needed the labour and we needed the kids to learn the new/old skills!
For the rural areas the plan was to use a grass based approach that used a full mix of animals. The rotation had been developed by the Salatin family at Polyface Farms. Grass was the base. You rotate chickens, cows, pigs and horses on the grass and you grow hay and potatoes on top of the rotation. The system worked even better with a wood lot as the sawdust was the base for much of the compost.
In the towns, the focus was on greenhouses and small animals such as rabbits and hens. The waste was fed to the animals. The green crops came from the city and close by. Everyone had hens.
Of course one of the things that went out the window was the rubbish about how food was regulated. Local slaughter was the new norm. Local and small scale. The animals could not be moved more than they could walk. People could not shop further away than they could walk.
We had no idea how local local would be!
Much of our attention was spent not only on growing and harvest but also back to storing and canning. The WI came back into its own here.
Seed and breeding stock was identified as being a vital issue and a breeding project was put into place by the FF COOP. This was of course one of the smartest things we did. For not only did it do well for us but as we now know 10 years later, this formed one of our great export areas today when PEI sends seed all over the world. Good to be an Island!
An irony was that having grown up in a society were a problem was fat and sugar - now we were back when both were hard to come by. Alcohol also went back into the past. Stills opened up all over and the first boat went back to the West Indies with a load of spuds to be traded for sugar and rum!
A few intrepid folks went to the mainland to join the nascent schooner building plan put together by the Atlantic Alliance. Now of course we have quite a fleet again and Schooners are commonplace. So is the traditional trade via the Boston States, the West Indies and Europe.
This was till a hard year though- we could see that we were going to make it though and that gave us hope.
Chapter 6 - Glimpses of sun 2012 The old comes back with the new
2012 was a year when we could start to think of the future. We knew we could survive. In 2012 we could see that if we planned well and if we backed some new things that we could thrive.
For the collapse of the worlds financial system had meant the collapse of the global trading system as we knew it. There was not a currency that had any value. So the ships tied up and rotted. The oil that was left was only available regionally
But for us, the Winter of 2011/12 was less awful. We turned inward. We had to to get by.
We knew what we were up against. So we had all planned better. The new compact way of living back in the community felt normal - we could all know the benefits. This was the winter where the fun came back - kitchen parties and a good store of rum and shine made the weekends better. Local drama and all sorts of activities that we could play a role in came back. Central was the school play.
There were enough sleighs now and enough horses and enough people that knew what they were doing.
Core to all of this were the new organizations. The Food and Fuel COOP being the main one and the Atlantic Alliance providing the links to the Mainland. 2012 was the year that the West Indies and Cuba formed their alliance and talks began with the Atlantic Alliance.
Our links to Canada were weakening. Geography and the Sea were the points of connection.
Trade was by barter. Currency as we knew it was worthless.
Everyone on PEI had work. Much of it hard, but all had work. Feeding and heating 140,000 people was at the heart of it all. But also many new related opportunities were springing up.
The animal breeding program run by the FF COOPs was bearing fruit as it were. We could see that by 2015 we might be a horse exporter. The new seed program was going full tilt. We had no idea how dependent we had become on the seed companies. PEI and the other Atlantic Provinces set up a seed program with the Northern States. This was a survival issue for us all. We had to get a diverse and healthy seed system in place if we were going to make it long term.
The Francis Sleigh Company was back in action and employed 200 people with a summer run for carts and wagons.
Leather works and blacksmiths were a growing trade. An unexpected business was mining the old dumps. There was no such thing as rubbish any more. Recycling took on a new meaning.
Clothing is a problem. Our old clothes are wearing thin. We have no access to the global clothing market anymore. Nor do we have access to cotton. Wool and linen are going to be the new staples. Sheep are the new big thing. Flax the new big crop. As we start to get a handle on food and heat, clothing will be the next main area of employment. Mini mills are opening up as are weaving looms. Those who can cut cloth and sew are in demand. All those old foot driven Singer sewing machines came out of the attics.
Soap has been a problem too. This was the first household product of the industrial age. The shortage of fat is a core issue that we have not solved yet. Wash days once a week are back as are hand driven machines. Wringers and lines are every where.
We had power for 3 hours in the evening. Cooking meals on the old electric stove was hard. We had no propane.
The wood stove came back. So did local foundry's. Our source for metal? Our old cars!
Behind all of this was a big research effort. We were looking to apply our new knowledge such as the art of permaculture and to resurrect our old.
Islanders lost collectively another 20lbs but their health was way up. Diabetes was disappearing. People’s mental state was much better. The young looked like athletes.
Chapter 7 - From then to now 2013 - 2020
This was the year that we started to get beyond survival. Signs of recovery.
The national project of rebuilding the rail road had reconnected us to the rail head at the end of the Bridge. By 2015 Summerside and Charlottetown will have track laid. The old rail beds have been surveyed and a light rail network is on the cards. This is Canada’s work to get the nation back.
Until now we had depended on water to get our bulk goods. But now with the rail we are reconnected again and hope rises every day. But Canada will never be the same. The role of the federal government is a shadow of what it was. We are indeed a confederation. We are also very close to our cousins in the Northern States and in the West Indies. With new formal ties, a new larger network from Montreal East - down to Boston and across to the Caribbean is the new close reality. Canada and the US are also forming regional networks that have more to do with shared geography and culture. The top down centres have withered.
The same is true on PEI. Our democracy has become more real. It is the boards of the COOP's that represent what we all do. The government is largely in the law and order business.
The PEI Dollar is now well accepted locally and the founding of the PEI bank - an amalgam of the credit unions - is bringing credit back too. But we now like the idea of working for each other rather than for the man. We don’t want the old banks back either - we bank with each other now. Just as we use the land together.
Permaculture - using nature’s rules - is becoming a central idea not only in food but in all things. We are starting to see the connections in all we do. My waste is your lunch is a mantra.
UPEI’s School for the Natural Economy is a global draw. Yes people come here from all over even after a sail crossing of the Atlantic.
Core to this is a new insight about water ways. Now we have not used chemicals and much of the plow for 3 years, their health is way up.
2013 was the year of the Water Plan - the big question that we asked ourselves was how could we help our water ways become abundant. We know the answer to that now. The cleanup, the removal of many of the causeways and their replacement with bridges has flushed them out. The collapse of the global fishing fleets has turned the corner for fish everywhere. The fish are coming back and with them the full ecosystem of the rivers.
The swing addition to the Hillsborough Bridge has opened up the entire river to navigation and much of the heavy freight goes by river again.
Water ways are so important because we have no tar for the roads and we cannot import crushed rack for the roadbed. Mud season shuts the roads down all over the Island. It is back to the 19th century!
With real water flow, the Mills are reopening all over the Island. Water power is back. The Kinkora dam is back and is in full power production too. We are looking at all the old hydro projects that once dotted the Island - micro hydro is on everyone's mind.
These are the kind of projects that we are investing in.
With the rivers opening up and water becoming a powerful tool we are getting closer to our goal of food security. Now in 2020 we have it.
All our local food systems have back ups and supports that makes us reliant on no one crop, season or supply.
With the Atlantic Alliance Wood Plan - we have abundant fuel for heat and for business. With no newspapers and no mass housing, the wood supply is well in hand. Our improvements in technology has made our use per unit of energy ever better too.
The car as the normal is gone. The train and the boat is how we get about long distance. The horse is once again the centre of life. As is the home the centre of the economy.
It’s a mixture of the old and the very new. With permaculture, nature does most of the hard work. We have become a nation of gardeners rather than farmers.
Much of our work is with our hands and for our neighbours. We all feel better for it.
We have come home. Not to picture book PEI. But to a place where mankind fits into nature.
