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May 26, 2011
The promise of spring brings thoughts of a bountiful harvest and notions of
living off the land. But just how realistic is it for Canadians to be
self-sufficient?
It's possible that B.C. could grow all the food we need. We currently produce 48
per cent of the food we eat according to a report by the B.C. Ministry of
Agriculture and Lands. That's complicated by that fact that we don't eat what we
should according to Canada's Food Guide. If you factor in a healthy diet - -
more fruit and vegetables - - we only produce 34 per cent of what we should eat.
The self-sufficiency picture gets even cloudier when you consider that Canada is
a trading nation. B.C. actually grows more fruit than we eat but we don't eat
the fruit we grow. In fact, we import three times the fruit we export.
Do we have enough land to feed ourselves? Let's do the math. It takes one square
kilometer of arable land to grow food for 200 people using current production
technology. In order to produce enough food to feed British Columbians, the
province needs a total of 21,500 square kilometers of arable land. We don't have
that now. In order to meet the needs of a growing population, B.C. needs about
50 per cent more land, some which will require irrigation.
To keep transportation costs low, crops need to be grown close to markets.
Cities compete with farms. Sprawling cities build on perfectly good farmland and
waste water on inedible crops (unless you have a goat).
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Canada's chances of being self-sufficient are even slimmer than B.C.'s.
Canada has enough land to theoretically feed 83 million people but we export
most of our crops to the U.S. In return, we import two-thirds our food from
them. The reason is obvious: we trade a lot of grain of marginal nutritive
value for the fruit and vegetables necessary for a healthy diet.
The chances of feeding the world are bleaker than Canada's. A useful
indicator of the world's ability to grow food for all 7 billion inhabitants
is called "real population density." That's a ratio of the number of people
in a country to its arable land. Given our massive land base, our real
population density is only 78 Canadians per square kilometer. Compare that
with Singapore, the highest in the world, with 441,000 persons to be fed
from one square kilometer. Britain must feed 1136 on the same area, almost
twice that of India.
Global populations are growing and arable land is shrinking; a looming
problem that no one wants to face. There are one-quarter million more mouths
to feed each day. Land is being lost each year because of soil depletion,
urban sprawl, and desertification. Compared to 1960, there is one-half the
cropland per person resulting in the largest number malnourished people ever
recorded. Not only is it the largest number but it's the largest proportion
of the world's population living on the edge of starvation.
We in the affluent minority world would rather look away from the stick
people and their misery, or blissfully wish for better distribution of
subsistence foods like rice. Or hope for another technological miracle like
the "green revolution" that averted the last crisis. There are no miracles
on the horizon; no political will to keep malnourished billions from dying;
only less arable land with less water for irrigation and a per-capita crop
production that continues to fall.
Even as hope of springs eternal, we are running out of dreams. B.C. could be
self-sufficient; Canada, not likely; the rest of the world, impossible.
David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at
dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca
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