The price of oil
It’s not been widely reported, but the price of a barrel of crude oil has shot through the $100 mark over the past week. What does this mean for us as a society and, in particular, food production?
We are all highly dependent on oil for every part of in life in an industrialised country. Organic agricultural and horticultural systems require oil for manufacture of inputs, to power machinery, in packaging, processing and of course transport. There are many hidden inputs of oil that have indirect effects of the costs of food production too.
A constant increase in the price of oil will have serious impacts on large scale food production and centralised distribution systems. In fact, it will probably be the best thing for local food because labour-intensive food production will be able to compete on price much more effectively with oil-intensive food production.
This will also help to create a demand for skilled labour, and that’s a great thing for Organic Futures. Keep an eye on this Crude Oil Price Forecast - notice that at the moment the one year forecast is for $135/barrel. This will start to effect big changes in food and farming by simple market forces.