Forecast 4 — Food for free

A copy of the article / resource / link / book title, author, chapter etc.

This time I am referring to Mark Boyle's book, The Moneyless Manifesto!http://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/book/food-and-water/

There are three general ways in which you can eat food for free – wild food foraging, the various forms of growing (ideally some Permaculture approaches I will look at in this chapter), and [dumpster diving]. If you live in the city and this is all new to you, once you start looking you’ll be surprised to realise how much food there is going unused (nettles, for example are highly nutritious and great for a soup), you’ll see growing spaces everywhere and, if you’re prepared to do it, the bins of supermarkets would keep you and your friends feasting every night for as long as you wanted. 

From the produce you get from some mix of these three methods, you can also include bartering to the list. This is particularly useful at harvest time if your allotment or back garden has a glut, or if you’ve had a bounty from the bins, though in such circumstances I prefer to just give it away for free to neighbours.

Your analysis of the article in regards to its impact of the future

As food scarcity increases, the need for knowledge of wild edible foraging, permaculture growing, and perhaps even dumpster diving will become more important. Being able to provide for oneself without money is the indicator of a carbon-neutral, or even carbon-positive lifestyle (no waste produced, everything reused). Even dumpster diving is a carbon-positive action — as the food causes less pollution in our digestive system than in a landfill.

The global impact, national impact, and local / personal impact

Cultural deskilling as a result of development and separation from the land and each other leaves more people dependent on industrial methods of survival — accelerating this development further. Reclaiming lost methods of food gathering, growing, and medicine (plus a political/economic paradigm shift...) is the surest solution.

Self-sufficiency and transition movements are becoming more prominent in the United States. More people are interested in living simply and being able to meet their needs without money.

I'm slowly learning more about foraging and growing food, myself. My ability to identify plants and confidently eat from nature and gardens has increased significantly. In the meantime, I eat as locally as possible. I imagine my future livelihood dealing with food growing in some sense.

Forecast the range of impact over the short term (the next 2 months to 2 years), to the long term (next 20 years to 20 + decades).

Short term: Slowly increasing interest in eating from nature and our own backyards
Long term: Political, economic, and environmental changes will encourage self-sufficiency


What could you do, or could be done to create the greatest positive impact on the future

Do everything Mark talks about to an extent you're comfortable with? Or purchase from the people in your community who do. Look for the actual free, healthy lunch. You may start noticing food in places you never noticed before. I'm joyful every time I find a mulberry tree, a raspberry bush, or a tasty garden weed like wood sorrel.

What could you do, or could be done to create the greatest negative impact on the future

Eat a diet of only food shipped across the globe, grown with extensive chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, and increase non-composted food waste, I suppose.


“Which region of the future” does this related closest most to or does this fit in between – or perhaps a region of the future you’d like to define for yourself.

"Eco-tech." Elements include: conscious non-consumption and limiting of technology — shifting to naturally provided ways of fixing problems.

Questions

Did you ever eat from your backyard or nature growing up? Do you have plants you can identify from doing so?
How can we give more people in metropolitan areas the space to grow their own food AND incentivize them to do so?
Other comments?