Is food the last thing to worry about?

Our food system is woefully dependent on petroleum, as writers such as Richard Heinberg and Michael Pollan have eloquently pointed out. Soaring food costs have brought on riots in some countries, and in unstable nations, famine continues to be a regular visitor. Fears of empty grocery shelves have made food security the centerpiece of many a post-Peak Oil plan, and among those watching energy descent, a common refrain is that the best way to guarantee your food supply is to buy a piece of land and grow your own.

Yet in the developed world, especially the breadbasket nations such as the US, Canada, and other food-exporting countries, the food network may be one of the last system to fail during energy descent. In developing a wise post-Peak strategy, assessing relative risks is critical. Devoting large amounts of time and resources to events that are less likely leaves us unprepared for more probable difficulties. I don

First, two notes of clarification: This article is about net food-exporting nations such as the US, where I live. In the less-developed world, where food growing has been abandoned for export crops that are sold for cash to import commodity food, the food system is far more vulnerable. And by