An urgent call to action on food-relocalization

I'm cross-posting this from GD. As I was posting it there I realized how utterly critical this issue may turn out to be, and how soon we may need to have it addressed. If people end up reading this in more than one place, then I will be a happy man.

I've had a realization this morning about the absolute urgency of getting local food programs underway as soon as humanly possible, due to the probable effects of the onset of Peak Oil, climate change and the economic shitstorm we're in.

We need, as rapidly as possible, to undertake the following changes in our food supply system:

• Shorten the distance between farmers and eaters as much as possible;
  
• Give food production back to small farmers;
  
• Stop cutting big agribusiness so many sweetheart deals in legislatures;
  
• Re-introduce farmers' markets everywhere with bans on non-family-farmed food.
  
  But especially:
  
  
• Encourage community gardens everywhere that plants can be grown, above all in inner cities. If there are municipal ordinances against them, start work immediately to get them repealed. That includes ordinances against small-scale animal husbandry (chickens, rabbits and goats) within city limits.

I've suddenly realized I'm absolutely passionate about this issue. Take a look at how Cuba survived being cut off from Russia's oil supply in 1989 - if it hadn't been for the government's encouragement of universal urban gardening many, many people would have starved to death. Now remember that the world has hit peak oil without any preparation whatsoever. What are the implications for the people living in our cities unless we do the same thing?

Detroit is apparently already a laboratory for this. I heard scholar and community activist Charles Simmons speaking last weekend about the situation in Detroit. He compared the situation in the inner city to Greece. Fresh food is by and large not available, most food is the unfood that's being sold in liquor stores. But they now have 1200 community gardens that will be feeding people this summer, and more are on the way.

I suspect this is urgent. We need to get practiced at this, because it takes a couple of seasons to learn how to garden. But even before that, we need to make sure it's legal in our areas. The last thing we want is bureaucrats coming around and uprooting the arugula.

This is something we as individual citizens can do something about for ourselves, without waiting for anyone above us to clue in. It's critical, and the time to start is now.