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48 comments on Report on First General Assembly of ASPO Switzerland, May 24th 2008, University of Basel
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I was also there and was a bit disappointed that not more time was spent on discussing the implications for Switzerland.
Luckily I got the chance to ask Colin Campbell a few questions personally in the break and asked him just that:
- how he thought Switzerland would do in a post-PO world
- what about agriculture/food supply (since Switzerland imports a lot of food)
- what we should teach our children
His answers were:
- He said that village life will become more important in the future and that the existing villages (and public transportation) is one of the advantages of Switzerland
- re food: he thinks that there are too many people in Switzerland ("some will have to go"), and worries that people might start to turn against foreigners once food becomes scarce. He mentioned that this is a topic that nobody wants to talk about, yet it is immensely important
- re teaching: we should teach kids basic practical skills
Questions for you guys:
- What are your thoughts on the food issues for Switzerland?
- How much do we actually import?
- How many people could Switzerland support in a PO world?
Chantal
Thanks, Chantal, for sharing this discussion with us.
I knew that Colin is thinking in these categories. He even mentioned it, albeit in a somewhat cryptic form. He talked about the agricultural revolution. It was mentioned that, before agricultural machines (all running on Diesel fuel!) became available, humanity was using slaves to work the fields. I don't remember his precise numbers, but he said something like: without the agricultural machines of today, we would now need 200 million slaves to plow our fields.
The comment about hostility toward foreigners is also very appropriate. We see this already now in South Africa (on the news within the last week or two). Switzerland is by no means immune to this. The Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) has as many followers in Switzerland because of their restrictive immigration politics. Many people say openly that they deplore the rise in crime rate here in Switzerland, and they blame the high percentage of foreigners for it. Food is, until now, not an issue, but it could very well turn into an issue in the future.
Your question is a difficult one. What we know for a fact is that, during WW-II, a population of 4 million people (little more than half of the current population) survived barely on a diet of 1800 calories per day (Wahlen's potato war). At that time, Switzerland had almost twice the arable land available that it has now (more of the land has been paved over in the meantime), and we had 14% farmers, whereas we currently only have 2% farmers.
Of course, the green revolution of the 1960s (nitrate fertilizers) has increased the yield of the land dramatically, but it takes lots of energy (though not necessarily fossil fuel) to produce the fertilizers.
Statistically, Switzerland doesn't have the highest population density in Europe, but practically it does. The reason is that only about 1/3 of the country is arable land. A second third are steep slopes at high altitudes that can only be used for grazing but not for planting. The final third is ice and snow.
I doubt very much that 7.5 million people can survive in Switzerland without massive food imports.
Francois,
Thanks for your reply.
Switzerland has an area of about 41.285 qkm. If we divide this by 3 and by 7.5 million, I get about 1834 m^2 for each person (of course this is by far not evenly distributed.... )
From what I read about gardening and sustainability, this might *barely* be enough for survival if everyone without exception would cultivate each m^2 of arable land...
Currently this is not realistic of course, and most people won't respond until there is a true crisis anyway, but at least it is good to know that in theory we could (barely) survive :-).
What do you suggest people do who live in Switzerland to prepare for PO (besides starting to plant a garden... :-).
Chantal
I would suggest you investigate "Aquaponics" and start stocking Lake Geneva!
Nick.
It depends on your circumstances. Switzerland is a peoples of renters. The majority of the Swiss live in rented apartments rather than in private homes. Such people can do relatively little ... not even plant a garden, except possibly on their balconies.
If you are lucky (wealthy) enough to be a homeowner, you can do much more.
These are items that often are worthwhile looking into, beside from low-energy light bulbs that everyone is talking about. Anything else (like replacing windows or improving insulation) needs to be analyzed carefully and requires an expert. I wouldn't do it, unless you plan to renovate your home anyway for other reasons.
Apartment dwellers can do lot as well. For instance:
1. get rid of that car (probably not a reasonable option at this stage for most of the people who live in single-family homes)
2. get rid of that freezer and eat real food instead
3. wear sweaters and turn that heating down (your neighbors will heat you anyway)
4. cut down on the washing
When energy rationing starts, people will have to do a lot more. However, the savings that you propose hurt, i.e., people won't agree to do those things, unless and until they absolutely have to.
I only propose savings that I would consider myself, i.e., things that make sense here and now, either economically, because they pay for themselves within a reasonable time frame, or because they increase my independence, i.e., raise my level of preparedness for the harder times to come.
Yeah, my comment was flippant but these are also things I have considered for myself.
Different people are prepared to do different things.
Keep in mind it's not a choice for everyone either. It would be swell if those who have choices made them so as to make it easier for those who don't but that's not likely to happen any time soon, is it?
I would welcome rationing actually. What I'm concerned about is the over-privileged pricing out everybody else.
It is railroads and not oil which enabled Switzerland to import so much food. The country imported food before the combustion engine became a factor and I don't see why it should stop importing food because of a decline in oil production.
If Switzerland had to feed itself for some reason, people would of course have to emigrate (as they used to do back in the day). Racist pogroms (how do you tell a foreigner from a citizen?) wouldn't be sufficient considering the likely magnitude of that shortfall.
But how useful is it base one's reasoning on national boundaries really, especially in the heart of Europe?
Of course ... as long as the food exporting nations still are able to produce a surplus that they are willing to sell.
Food shortage will not become a problem immediately here in Switzerland, because there is more elasticity in food production than in energy production. When the times get harder and people have less money, they'll reduce their consumption of meat and turn to eating more of the cheaper food items, like potatoes and bread.
As the demand for meat shrinks, the sizes of the herds will get reduced, and more vegetables will be produced instead, thereby increasing the ability to feed more people.
I hope it will never come to racist pogroms, but people aren't rational. Whereas each individual person is open to logic arguments, masses rarely are. In times of hardship, it is natural for humans to turn around and look for a culprit to blame. The Swiss are no better than other people in terms of xenophobic tendencies.
It may be neither "useful" nor "rational," but in times of hardship, people remember their roots. National identities become stronger, not weaker in such situations.
This may have negative consequences (like in the case of racist pogroms), but it is not purely negative. It gets neighbors to band together and help each other out.
In other words, as long as there's no war, revolution or general societal breakdown in Europe...
Capitalism can create a surplus at arbitrary production levels by starving the locals and history is replete with cases of famine-striken countries exporting food.
In any case, we seem to agree on the bottom line: that the viability of Switzerland as we know it is being decided abroad.
There has indeed been a relationship between the size of the herds and the availability of cheap grain for import in the past. The way I see it, it's more of a supply story than a demand story though.
It's only one of the things that could happen. I noticed some comparisons with WWII in this thread and they're somewhat valid but look at what happened in WWI with the general strike!
There's no such thing as a nation of neighbors.
In any case, what we face is an economic problem. Whatever people end up identifying with, these feeling are not convertible into wheat bushels... international trade is what's going to make these bushels happen.