In the not so distant past, general preparedness and self sufficiency was an everyday part of life. Explore ways we can cultivate resiliency today with Organic Growers School, AmeriCorps member Jillian Wolf and Sara DeFosset, as they facilitate this discussion on how we can maintain a reliable food system. We’ll look at how our community can have strong, steady responses to emergencies we may face and how can we best prepare for and eventually thrive in the face of disruption to commercial food production/distribution. Panelists Amy Meier (MANNA Foodbank), Kiera Bulan (Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council), Amber Weaver (City of Asheville, Office of Sustainability), Carolina Arias (Bountiful Cities/Asheville Buncombe Community Gardens Network), and Pat Battle (Living Web Farms) give us a variety of perspectives to help answer these questions.
VIDEO: Food Security & Disaster Resilience
In the not so distant past, general preparedness and self sufficiency was an everyday part of life. Explore ways we can cultivate resiliency today with Organic Growers School, AmeriCorps member Jillian Wolf and Sara DeFosset, as they facilitate this discussion on how we can maintain a reliable food system. We’ll look at how our community can have strong, steady responses to emergencies we may face and how can we best prepare for and eventually thrive in the face of disruption to commercial food production/distribution. Panelists Amy Meier (MANNA Foodbank), Kiera Bulan (Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council), Amber Weaver (City of Asheville, Office of Sustainability), Carolina Arias (Bountiful Cities/Asheville Buncombe Community Gardens Network), and Pat Battle (Living Web Farms) give us a variety of perspectives to help answer these questions.
Give seeds to make foods to Venezuela. Produce seed bearing fruits n vegetables not suppress or eliminate them like seedless grapes or watermelons etc corporations create for control.
This is such an interesting and valuable conversation. Thanks you for this discussion. I am working out in Candler with Pisgah Elementary. We have been slowly getting a school/ community garden going for the last couple of years. I would love to hook up with a few of the speakers to think creatively about resources.
2:06:40 Pandemic flu did happened two years late as corona virus spreaded worldwide… Luckily I have my vegetable garden set up few yrs ago… Thanks Pat
I had no idea there was a such thing called Gaia Theory. I've had this similar belief system Since I was very young. I just ordered his book! Thank you for the talk, I wish I had the skills to bring people together in my own neighborhood. Everyone simply seems Content to be on Facebook, I'm not. Making In person personal connections now I think will make all the difference later on In a survival scenario.
I have worked in this field for almost 35 years. In order to have a disaster you have to have a hazard, an exposure, vulnerability, and consequences that exceed the local capacity to satisfactorily and effectively manage those consequences. Emergencies by contrast are identical to disasters in all but one important aspect, sufficient capacity. The goal of emergency management is to reduce unmanageable disasters to manageable emergencies. This can be done by increasing the resistance and resilience of the target group to the consequences, by increasing the local capacity to manage the consequences or by eliminating or reducing the probability of the occurrence of the hazard, the exposure, the vulnerability or the magnitude of the consequences. The goal is to break this chain of events that ultimately results in harm. The best way to go about this is to first identify whom (not what) it is that you want to protect (known as the target) and the critical life-support infrastructure that supports the target. This is constant for every hazard. Note that we are always protecting living things, NEVER non-living things (least we mistakenly come to value the later over the former). Both are important as impacts to non-living support infrastructure can result in harm to the living target. The next step is to identify the range of hazards to be considered. Next, map out the support system for the target. Next, assess risk to the target system at each stage of the chain of harm. (Be as specific as possible as that will make the formulation of effective strategies easier). Identify the weak or missing links that are most vulnerable and if damaged or would result in the greatest harm to the target. Next, identify and assess local management capacity and gaps in that capacity associated with these specific weaknesses. Next, identify opportunities to address those gaps. Next, identify strategies to implement those opportunities. Assess the cost effectiveness and political feasibility of those strategies. Next, select a multi-pronged suite of strategies with a high probability of near term mid term and long term success. Obtain funding to implement those strategies. Implement and track and tweak the plan. Evaluate the effectiveness. As new hazards emerge the entire program may require periodic reevaluation. As you can quickly see, building resilience and disaster risk reduction involves a significant group of stakeholders and requires the ongoing commitment of those stakeholders. It is not easy which is why it is rarely attempted. I commend your effort and I hope that my comments are helpful to get you started on the right track.
A few more things. Harm is different than damage. Only living things, people and the species that comprise ecosystems, can be harmed. Non-living things can only be damaged, and, due to dependence upon such things, it is often that damage that leads to harm. Hazards are different than threats. Only living things, humans and the species that comprise ecosystems, can threaten as the act of threatening requires agency. Thus a terrorist or a snarling wolf can threaten but a hurricane cannot. The latter merely represents an energetic phenomenon. To qualify as a hazard, the phenomena in question must be capable of causing direct harm to the target or indirect harm to its life-support system. Thus a hurricane is not a hazard while the force exerted by its high winds is. This is important as we cannot prevent or reduce hurricanes or its winds but we may be able to reduce the occurrence of the wind’s force, exposure to that force, vulnerability to that force or the consequences of the same. I hope that helps.
It is also important to realize that it is often our cultural response to natural phenomena that makes them hazardous. For example, the elevation of flood water in the Amazon may fluctuate 20 feet. This is not considered to be a hazard to local residents. In fact, they count on it! They farm during low water and fish during high water. In contrast, a mere 2 ft fluctuation of water in America can produce a disaster. Mayan and Incan structures have been subjected to numerous earthquakes, many of far larger magnitude than those which have struck the US, yet, even though no one maintains them, many still stand. In contrast, even the forces associated with moderate earthquakes in the US cause extensive damages. Haiti is exposed to hazardous hurricane force winds and seismic shaking almost every year, yet, due to socioeconomic and cultural reasons, it lacks the capacity to manage those hazards. But even if it did have the economic resources to enhance its capacity, like its wealthy neighbor, the US, it would likely still lack the ability to culturally adapt to the presence of those energetic phenomenon. What’s stopping Haiti (or the US) from erecting windmills to harness these energetic hurricane winds and build underwater cities to avoid their damaging forces? Don’t neglect culture. Our lack of ecological understanding of the environment in which we live makes us our own worst enemy. By preventing this local adaptation, the forces of urbanization and globalization are making this ecological ignorance much worse. Ditto for the growing dependency on government and corporations (rather than upon ourselves) to meet our life-support requirements. The most effective long term strategy will be one that increases ecological literacy, self reliance and local adaptation to harness these potentially harmful energetic forces and concentrations that prevail within that environment and repurpose them to create benefits rather than harms.