HOW many complaints have you heard this fall about the high price of gasoline? Soaring gas prices have almost eclipsed the weather as the number one beef in many coffee shops.
There’s good reason to complain, of course. Most of us cannot get through the day without starting a motor vehicle and driving somewhere.
This is especially true for rural people who drive longer distances for services and seldom have the option of public transportation.
With fuel prices up by as much as 40 cents a litre from six months ago, the cost of going about our daily lives has suddenly and unexpectedly risen. For many households, that added expense represents a real economic hardship.
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Farm families are experiencing another range of effects from rising fuel prices. Not only have personal transportation costs gone up, the whole farming enterprise has become more expensive.
Modern farming is dependent on oil and its products. Farm diesel, fertilizer and freight prices are hitched to oil prices and follow them upward without hesitation.
Unfortunately, raw food prices are not attached in the same way so while fuel costs rise, commodity prices veer in the opposite direction. Farmers are seldom able to pass along their increased costs.
But other players in the food chain can and will pass along the rising costs. And this is sure to have an impact on the price of food.
Our whole industrial food system, from production to processing and through to the grocery shelf, is based on oil. Much of our food travels thousands of kilometres before it arrives on our dinner plates.
Liberalizing agricultural trade in international trade agreements has increased the global trade in foodstuffs.
This means that more of the food on supermarket shelves now comes from farther away and has passed through more hands.
All of this makes for a food system that is heavily dependent on oil and vulnerable to oil supplies and pricing.
The current spike in oil prices is attributed to shortages caused by Hurricane Katrina and uncertainty about supplies from the Middle East.
But the real problem is anything but short term. Oil is a non-renewable resource. Experts predict that the high point of global oil production (known as “peak oil”) could arrive in 2008.
After that, stocks will dwindle over a period of about three decades. By 2040, oil production could be down by 75 percent.
So, the current oil price spike should not be treated as an exception but more like the beginning of a trend – like a cold day in November that marks the onset of winter even if it warms up for a few more days before freezeup.
Weaning ourselves from our oil dependence will take thoughtful, collective discussion and intelligent public policy.
Along with changing individual lifestyles – what we drive, what we eat and where we go – preparation for a just and peaceful transition to an oil-scarce economy will require some profound changes of our systems and values.
