Sowing the Seeds of Self-Reliance for Forty Years
(Part I of a three-part series)
Oil to Fork: Crude Oil is Critical to Food Supply
Copyright © 1999 , by Geri Guidetti

This and all Updates may be reprinted and distributed in any media if done so in their entirety, including byline, Web address and signature file information. Permission to print edited versions may be obtained by emailing Geri Guidetti at arkinstitute@aol.com All Food Supply Updates must be distributed free of charge unless included as part of a magazine, newsletter, newspaper or journal.
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As a young college professor and fledgling science writer some 27 years ago, I remember reading the personal account of a senior science journalist who had, years before, been invited by our government to witness a new, above-ground nuclear explosion in the Nevada desert. Not knowing what to expect of the test detonation, the man was unprepared for what he was about to see. Later he would write an emotional essay about his experience and the new technology. Though I do not remember who he was, I will always remember how he began his essay: "There I stood, on the brink of hell...."

Despite the obvious differences between a space- and time-limited detonation of a single nuclear bomb and the potentially catastrophic impact of prolonged, widespread technology failures in Y2K, the latter may very well trigger in thousands, millions or even hundreds of millions of people, an equally acute sense of fear, horror and powerlessness. Some of us may, indeed, come to the conclusion that we are teetering on "the brink of hell." Please understand that I don’t make that comparison lightly, or suggest it irresponsibly, for effect. I am serious and, based on new, highly credible information, I am that concerned.
The Ark Institute concerns itself with issues of food security in the United States and throughout the world. Before Y2K was even a blip on our radar screen, we had initiated, in 1994, a public dialogue about our increasing, nearly total, dependence on technology and a handful of powerful, multinational corporations to feed us. I was concerned that any natural or manmade threat to a single component of our current food supply system had the potential to topple the entire system. Sadly, it appears that we will soon be confronted by multiple threats to our food and water security, directly, indirectly or unrelated to Y2K. In this three-part series, I would like to look at some of these threats, and discuss some steps we might take to increase our personal and community-wide food and water security.

Threat #1: TheY2K Threat to Oil
Like a rich, complex, intricately woven and richly colored tapestry, the successful production, processing, transportation, distribution, sales and personal preparation of food are entirely dependent on the integrity and strength of the common "thread" of technology binding them together. Though often referred to as the "millennium bug", a metaphor that has now been transformed into cute tee shirts sporting often comical cartoon insects chewing holes in the shirt ,the real world Y2K problem might be better thought of as flawed thread that has been woven throughout the entire tapestry of modern civilization. That thread forms the very foundation of the fabric of which modern civilization is woven.
Old weavers (programmers), working with crude machines, knew the thread was flawed and would eventually break, but they expected the tapestry would be replaced by the time the flaws became apparent. It wasn’t replaced.
Instead, more and more weavers added to the tapestry over time, creating layer upon layer of intricate, multicolored and functional design. It was difficult to believe that anything so beautiful could really be flawed to the point of failure—until the first threads began to break, and the resulting weaknesses caused parts of the tapestry to unravel, leaving random holes throughout the beautiful cloth. Despite heroic efforts by the weavers to fix the flawed thread wherever breaks occurred, eventually the breaks would be too many and the fixes, themselves, will have generated flaws in those parts of the tapestry still intact.

Some of the old and many younger weavers (programmers) fear that they will not be able to tie in and incorporate new pieces of thread without creating a bump, a wrinkle or a distortion somewhere else in the tapestry. They may be right, especially when you consider that this is a global tapestry. Bit by bit, the integrity of the original cloth will deteriorate, they say. After years of trying to salvage the flawed tapestry, the weavers—and their employers—will have to admit failure and create a whole new cloth based on sound thread and a sustainable, less critically dependent design.

With less than 100 days to go before the roll-over, I have come to expect, and am preparing for, this more pessimistic outlook. Barring unthinkable nuclear or chemical catastrophes (more about them in Part II) or extensive, catastrophic weather patterns (more about water in Part III), whether or not we eat next year comes down, directly or indirectly, to oil. Oil to fork—it really is as simple as that. Here in the U.S., the modern, commercial agricultural miracle that feeds all of us and much of the rest of the world, is completely dependent on the flow, processing and distribution of oil, and technology is critical to maintaining that flow. Without timely and expensive inputs, yields of all basic food crops, as well as seed for the following year’s (2001?) crops, would plummet or stocks simply disappear because....

•oil refined for gasoline and diesel is critical to run the tractors, combines and other farm vehicles and equipment that plant, spray the herbicides and pesticides, and harvest/transport food.

•Food processors rely on the just-in-time (gasoline-based) delivery of fresh or refrigerated food.

•Food processors rely on the production and delivery of food additives including vitamins and minerals, emulsifiers, preservatives, coloring agents, etc.(Many are oil-based. Delivery is oil-based.)

•Food processors rely on the production and delivery of boxes, metal cans, printed paper labels, plastic trays, cellophane for microwave/convenience foods, glass jars, plastic and metal lids with sealing compounds. Many of these are essentially oil-based.

•Delivery of finished food products to distribution centers in refrigerated trucks. Oil-based on daily, just-in-time shipment of food to grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, etc., all oil-based, customer drives to grocery store to shop for supplies, often several times a week.

So what, you ask? We have plenty of oil? Think again. The U.S. currently imports about 55% of its oil. Our food supply, and our economic survival as a whole, depends on the steady availability of reasonably priced oil. Oil is our Achilles heel. We import about 18 million barrels of oil per day to sustain our current lifestyles. We have anywhere between 45-60 days of oil stockpiled in the U.S., according to several expert sources. Life as we know it stops if we drain that supply. The big question is, are our foreign sources of crude oil Y2K compliant?
Two respected consulting firms’ ongoing studies would suggest that they are not. London-based, International Monitoring, rates the potential for severe disruptions in transportation, utilities, telecommunications and government for 140 countries on a 1 to 6 scale. One is the best case scenario, and 6 is the worst. The scores of 8 OPEC nations averaged out at 4.5. This translates into a moderate to high risk of political system disruptions, delays in transportation averaging 37 days, and utility disruptions of 15 days. Though the U.S. was rated a 1.4 on the same scale, the figure does not take into account the likely impact of disrupted oil supplies on the U.S.

A late 1998 study by Gartner Group, a very highly regarded technology research/consulting firm, estimated that 50% of companies in Kuwait, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates would have Y2K failures. For comparison, Gartner Group estimated 15% of U.S. companies would have failures.

Multiple sources are now reporting that the Y2K status of large numbers of embedded microchips governing oil pumping, processing, shipping and refining processes are unknown. In fact, oil companies have reported publicly that they have adopted a "fix on failure" policy with respect to embedded systems in refineries and at oil well heads, reinforcing experts worries that there are too many unknowns to predict that all is well with oil. We are dependent on foreign oil sources to the tune of 55%. You can’t disrupt 55% of the life supporting "blood flow" of the U.S. without significant impact. You can’t disrupt 45%, 35%, 25% or even 10%, for that matter, without disrupting the U.S. economy.

Bottom line? If we think we are food secure here in the United States and other industrialized countries simply because we have gas in the car, frankly, we are delusional. Despite the appearance of an endless bounty of food, it is a fragile bounty, dependent upon the integrity of the global oil production, refining and delivery system. That system is entirely dependent on the thread of technology. Modern, technology-based agriculture produces both food, and seeds for n
ext year’s food, just-in-time. There are precious little reserves of either food or seeds to sustain any protracted interruption.

In the warm, sunny and food-abundant summer and fall, the "dumb" gophers, squirrels and ants know enough to store food for not-so-abundant days. Our grandparents and their grandparents knew how to grow and preserve their own food to ensure their survival. What makes us think that we are different—that we don’t have to look ahead to leaner days when we might have to depend only on ourselves to eat? Technology and the incredibly rich tapestry it has made possible has created a false sense of security for so many of us. The thread is flawed; the tapestry is now fragile; famines are possible. We must take that seriously……Geri Guidetti, The Ark Institute
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