Woops!

In a recent post I misquoted a study of agricultural output in which I stated:

“It has been calculated by a number of credible sources that roughly 80% of retail price of food in the U.S. was to pay for the fossil fuel inputs of oil and natural gas into cultivating, fertilizers, pesticides, harvesting, transportation, etc… of our food.”

My apologies, 80% of the cost bringing certain agricultural products to market was fossil fuels, not 80% of retail food prices. I knew I must have made a mistake while reading Stuart Staniford’s excellent piece on retail food prices at theoildrum.com:

Chastised though I was for my error, I was very happy to see a top “Peak Oil” analyst who agrees with me that the food situation in the U.S. is not going to lead DIRECTLY to hunger and anarchy (hunger is a societal/economic problem in the U.S. There is certainly more than enough to feed the population), though neither he nor I are quite so sanguine about the rest of the world.

This is not to say that food inflation is not a serious issue - it is. Nor am I suggesting that 10 years hence the issue could not become much more acute - it could. I AM suggesting that we (you know, the people) will respond as our parents and grand parents did during the great wars of the 20th century. We will figure it out and grow enough of our own food to make up for the decline in industrial agricultural output. For a resident of my hometown of Boca Raton, or Beverly Hills, or some such other rarified community might think this is the end of the world, but it ain’t.

No, I believe that in the U.S., the “Peak Oil” issue is going to be felt initially in the form of a violent economic contraction. Yes, food will be very, very expensive, but there will be enough of it, as far as the impacts of Peak Oil (I have no opinion on the effects of climate change, genetically modified seeds, etc… Oil is all the worry I can handle at the moment, folks).

I will be taking the next week or so off to enjoy some time with family and friends.

Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com