Lana Popham is the MLA for Saanich South and owner of the Barking Dog Winery. She has introduced a private members bill into the legislature called for debate on FOOD SECURITY AND PRODUCTION PLAN FOR B.C.
I am curious to see where this will go and what might come of it. Lana uses as a reference the 2006 BC's Food Self-Reliance report from the Ministry of Agriculture, which is something I had not seen before and will have to read through.
Food security is a big buzz word at the moment and it is sold as we need to be prepared in the case of disaster or high fuel prices to grow food locally. I am not convinced of either one.
In the case of a disaster there has been no case I know of where a 1st world city has had to go more than a few days without new sources of food being available. Frankly a few days may not have occurred either. The public can manage to go a week with the food in their homes, it is a rare person that does not have pasta, rice, canned tuna or whatever in their kitchen that would last that long.
The idea that fuel prices will go high enough to have an impact on the cost of food large enough is unrealistic to ever happen. Should fossil fuel prices rise high enough, there are other energy sources for transport that can and will step in. We use oil because it is cheap, not because we want to. In any case, the price of food as a portion of our incomes is very low, a price rise will not have a major impact.
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