This picture sums up for me the essence of the last Food Revolution about 10,000 years ago.
If we can unpack the meaning of this picture we can see more clearly why we have a crisis and we can see the direction of the New Food System and how it may affect society.
The Design Issue - Grain is at the centre of the last revolution. In choosing grain, an annual crop, we separated ourselves from nature and forced our will upon her. This is what we see in the picture above.
Nature always wins these arms races. Only the application of the power of oil has made us so successful in the last 100 years.
Only oil can give us the crop protection, the fertiliser and the sheer power needed to keep ahead of what nature wants - a diverse self balancing system. Only oil allows us to keep farming in the same place year after year. Only oil allows us to grow food far away from where people live. Only oil allows us to have most of the food processed or cooked far away from our homes. Only oil allows us to sell food in a very few places through a handful of organizations.
Only oil allows most of us to live in mega cities.
So when the oil gets expensive, we have to lose this race.
When oil gets too expensive, we will have to find another way that will not be based on having dominion over nature.
We will have to find a way of working WITH NATURE so that we can use her help.
This may mean that we have to find a new BASE FOOD for people to replace grain. For it is the focus on grain that demands an annual crop that covers immense acreage that has to the both defended and supported artificially that is the design flaw.
A new base food gown with nature will change every part of our society because how we grow our food is what shapes how we live.
The Impact on Society of the Grain Design - Grain has driven a process of centralization and control.
This is a model of an Egyptian granary. Because grain could be stored, someone was going to emerge who "owned" it.
The egalitarian life of the HG Tribe was a casualty of the essence of the properties of grain. Food was no longer communal - it was owned by someone. Pharaohs and Kings appeared. As did granaries like this on.
Property emerged as the key idea. Note also the scribes. With this kind of property emerged writing. Yes the bean counters came before the poets!
The written word for most of history has been used by the elite to keep the little people in line. The same is true for the child of the written word, the law.
To know that you could pass your property down to your son, you had to know who your son was. So you had to control women. You had to control their access to other men. So Patriarchy is a direct consequence of grain.
A vast difference grew up in the social status of people. The little people did all the hard work.
They still do - the US food system depends utterly on immigrant food workers who are little more than slaves.
The elite concentrated all the wealth and assumed God Like Powers.
They still do. Wealth has been concentrated today more than at any other time than perhaps at the time of the Pharaohs.
Our concentration in cities and our close links with domestic animals created the modern infectious diseases that did not exist in HG societies. These wiped out indigenous peoples such as the Aztecs and Mayans when contact was made with us.
We have "conquered" these types of disease now but our even greater focus on corn has lead to the new disease of modern times - the effects of a diet too focused on simple carbs.
No part of this system is sustainable.
Soon, we will be forced to find another way that does not depend on beating back nature. For only with oil can we do that.
Another factor is health. We cannot afford as individuals or as nations to spend the money to treat the diseases of modern civilization as our populations age.
These stats on diabetes for PEI I am sure apply to any western society.
They are driving costs that we just cannot absorb as most people in the west will be over 60 in 20 years time.
So we need to find a new core idea for our food.
"But we cannot replace grain" you may say. But think of it. Grain has only been the staple for at the most 7,000 years. We are designed to eat so many other foods that are so much better for us. Grain is a double edged sword. Grain + oil has meant that in 110 years our population has risen from 2 billion to 7 billion.
With no cheap oil, we will have no alternative but to look at another way that uses different foods grown in a different way. With healthcare costs greater than our ability to tax, we will have no alternative.
I don't think we can still keep 7 billion people around and I don't think that the process of conversion to a new system will all be fun. It wasn't the last time either.
But right now we can see the principles emerging for a new system. There are even examples of it that exist right now.
In my next post we will look at what these may be - in the final post after that - we will see what their implementation might imply for how we live.
