A much bigger picture for Localisation

A story of David and Goliath is also a story about localism in action.

Overcoming the odds

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Judith, 1598
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

What started out as a means of resistance by a small collection of individuals against a global system of industry dominated food,has blossomed into a resilience that can be observed and experienced on a daily basis in many western industrial nations. This arose during the 1980’s in the USA and in Europe as a result of the infernal hell of the industrial food complex. These individuals have changed and created many a community of whom its supporters are choosing local over the directives of global entities or corporate influence. Localisation in it’s true definition, was and remains a social and political movement that took on the opposing global industrial food system that has failed us. It is timely that June 21st 2023 has been claimed as an International Localisation Day. Yet despite the successes of this movement we are presented with a new challenge. This is we believe the time for participants of the localisation movement to identify its enemy and take localisation into a new era.  

There’s no questioning the sheer scale and size of this system – it operates on over 75 percent of the world’s agricultural land, using 90 percent of the fossil fuel energy, and 80 percent of the water – but it only feeds 30 percent of the world’s population

Farmers Markets erupted in a time when industry dominated our food landscapes and dictated how we farmed food and how we could access it. Its negative effects are everywhere and today we experience the downstream effects which go far beyond just food. We are captured by the centralisation of much of what we do and the language we use to navigate our way through life, as are those who proport to protect us

Our regulators have been captured by those companies they were established to regulate, and Big Pharma is more powerful, profitable and prolific than at any time in human history. 

Aided and abetted by our own levels of consumerism, corporations and industries have experienced unprecedented growth, power and marketing influence over many aspects of our lives. On a global scale it has become apparent to many that we have become so influenced and dependent upon these systems of industrial corporate control that many of us would struggle without them or struggle to recognise their sinister influence.  

Localisation at a grass roots level has been the canary in that goldmine. Yet despite attempts by industry to capture the localisation movement they have largely failed simply by how they define it. They may see it as something to market and profit off by manipulating us with their Green and Ethic washing but they can and never will capture the essence of what the localisation movement is about nor fool its customers for too long.

Despite the positive pushback by the localisation movement and others, outside, it is increasingly hard to ignore and navigate around the vortex of issues that loom down upon us. Doomsday prepping once the prerogative of end of the world scenarios by some religious organisations is now factored into institutions and industries long term projections which are then marketed to promote a new form of consumerism.  

Take corporate social responsibility. Today this is a way of doing business in many industrial nations; one that aims to improve a company's social impact by adopting a unified systems approach which use gender inequality and climate change to distract us from the problems with centralisation, more often than not at the same time as increasing growth and revenue for those at the top. It also helps industry when words of value are bastardised by marketing ploys in attempts to trick us. Changes in meaning operate like a form of sophistry. Future projections for 2030 or 2050 in real life transpire as green washing and ethic washing techniques to fool and capture us consumers in the present.

The prophecy for the future of food for 2030 or 2050, subject to ones preference, is being nutted out in many institutions and industries today. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, Ministry of Primary Industries have envisaged the future of food in their Future of Aotearoa New Zealand Food Sector. With a sweep of a Environment Social Governance systems brush we can expect a future of food that has a significant reliance on digital tech, and production of  GE foods which MPI claim have enormous support from the younger generation. Our lives as part of the 4th Industrial Revolution, will embrace AI  gadgets and gimmicks which will cater for the influx of people into the intensive living cities.  With the usual stakeholders in the industry pushing for more GE and Bio Tech and AI we can also expect to see the increasing effects of these industries upon other sectors like agriculture, medicine and health to name a few.

So by 2030, (WEF) think it is realistic to say that biotechnology will become a part of our life, from drugs, medicine and therapeutics to environmentally friendly chemicals, fuels and materials.

Coming soon https://www.nopharmfilm.com/

Big Pharma features in many of our lives already and not always for the better. With its appalling track record in genuine health  care as a result of prescription drugs they continue to successfully lobby governments. The controversial Therapeutic Products Bill currently before the select committee is a current example of how influential the pharmaceutical industry thinks it is in directing consumers choice.

The World Health Organisation also looks to the future with proposing sweeping and controversial changes to the  World Health Regulations for 2024. Changes that look to make a centralised source of governance over countries autonomy regarding how they respond to health crisis like another pandemic.

Critics blame the free market economy for the overinflated dominance of industries and are calling this failing system a form of corporate socialism. In short, it's a system where big corporations keep their profits, but the taxpayer suffers losses and so much more.

Many of us have consumed a lot of things we could really have done without in our lifetimes. Which makes us part of the problem.

Consumers of food ie those who do the purchasing world wide, are predominately women. Women also make up the bulk of the customers and operators of small businesses in the localisation movement. As well as being the main shopper they also do most of the housework and indeed remain the main caregiver of children and increasing numbers of of them are home-educating.

According to the International Monetary Fund if as many women as men worked or sought work the economy could increase its economic output by 35%. 

Feminists, Mary Harrington contends, failed to grasp a more subtle social transformation triggered by the Industrial Revolution. The modern market economy required uprooting people from the communal pre-modern order and re-fashioning them into “atomized trading partners. Both men and, eventually, women, were to be regarded as fungible interchangeable work units. 

Liberal feminism catered for women who wanted what men had. Economic freedom. This wave of feminism took off around the time the contraceptive pill appeared.  Such was the success of feminist rhetoric by the liberal feminists that many appear to have thrown the baby out with the bath water. The fact that it might be someone else’s baby doesn’t seem to bother them.

The contraceptive pill, Mary Harrington claims, was the first step in transhumanism.

The pill debuted 60 years ago. It was a game changer. Since the contraceptive pill women have become an integral part of the paid workforce. Women and men’s lives changed as did birth. Across many cultures the freedom to control ones biology has challenged and is challenging how we operate as a family.

The contraceptive pill is one of the most widely used pharmaceuticals on the planet. 3.1 million British women use it, making it the most common prescribed contraceptive. It works by mimicking the hormones released during pregnancy, and its main hormonal component is a synthetic oestrogen known as 17α-ethinyloestradiol - a compound that is disastrous for aquatic life. Its presence in rivers and groundwater disrupts the endocrine systems of a range of species, causing intersex conditions in frogs and fish and severely harming their ability to reproduce. It is also difficult and expensive to clean from waste water.

Bio-tech is increasingly becoming a big industry. No doubt there are benefits. However the downstream effects of controlling our biology, changing it, playing with it at worst look to have enabled a growing line of thought that devalues the significance and value of the biological differences of women and men. Today some men and even boys with women’s backing, look to wanting what women have; their biological destiny. To even imply that biological sex exists or it might serve a purpose in our evolution is increasingly becoming regarded as offensive by some. 

The biotech, GE and AI industries that support transhumanism have New Zealander  Dr John Money to thank. He was regarded a pioneer in sexuality and gender. In the wake of creating the social construct of the word  ‘gender’ in 1955 changing it from its original meaning, which was biological in essence, he founded the first gender identity clinic at the  John Hopkins University in Baltimore amidst the women’s liberation movement of the 60’s. He gained an appalling  reputation resulting from his gender changing experiments. Yet this belief that gender is not biologically determined is upheld and taught in a wide range of contemporary settings from primary schools, universities, charitable organisations that influence cultures in developing nations and many western industries. Addressing inequality between the sexes as an issue of gender does not address sexism. Once again it is a form of sophistry.

If the pill was transhumanism then transhumanism is anti feminist, as if feminism has any humanism left in it. Without humanism and an increasingly unregulated undisciplined industry of pharma, bio-tech and digi-tech we can expect to see rampant exploitations in our communities. The womb was medicalized, sperm became legal tender and surrogacy enabled children to become marketable commodities. When the creche became the family, and boys and girls could choose their sex depending upon market preferences and pregnant people could claim a kind of couvade during their inequitable inability to chest feed then it is a very short trip from there to the intensive surveilled hell of the 15 minute city and probably an even shorter one from there to the doped out turnover of the retirement village.  Some might call this Total Industry capture.

You can’t have transhumanism without throwing out humanism claims reactionary feminist Mary Harrington.

To aide and abet such dystopic predictions, New Zealand currently has half of marriages ending in divorce and an extraordinary predicted high worldwide by the OECD of 75 % NZ single mothers by 2030. Families in industrialised nations are it appears continuing a demise that started some time ago. The family is going out of fashion in the old sense and is morphing into something else as birth rates plummet around the world. Even the infamous WEF has them catered for in their world in their new disguise .

Remaining families are in for a rocky ride if future projections are to be believed. They have already experienced a hard time navigating the changes in society since the industrial revolution. We are experiencing the demise of the family which has always struggled to survive in economically uninhabitable, hostile environments, ones they were not equipped for.

 Reactionary feminists claim the second wave of feminism has let women down big time.

The lack of revolutionary character and the dominant feeling of complacency about the prevailing oppressive structures end up being attractive to the elitist interests that underpin capitalism.

Women who are complicit in biological denial and when using their elitist positions on the back of a feminist movement which sought to emancipate women in society, have only exposed their willingness to abuse their new found power. By supporting industries and social policies that only feed into corporate gains that ultimately subjugate women’s role within the family and devalue that role by allowing men to own it, they trivialise women’s biological choices. These women and those men effectively undermine the family in Aotearoa New Zealand. Diversity Equity, and Inclusion are at their worst, useful tools to enable this.

Whereas DEI and ESG in theory look like a systems approach to address a predicament that unnatural working environments have created they are also being seen as a systems approach that operates like a social credit system. These constructed social norms that propose to change our western culture values look like a desperate kind of death throw of a declining culture. This system attempts to work as a means of managing human behaviour which is also subject to market forces. These issues enable government policies that support their cause to be adopted willy-nilly, with little democratic input from the people who voted them in. With the USA in decline the balance of power is shifting, but to what.

Without a doubt we are in a predicament as a society, as a culture whoever you identify with, and as community and as a family and as women and as men.

To not be aware of this trajectory we are on at the hand of corporate control would be like a farmer sowing his frost tender crops before a snow fall.

Resilience is a push back by the people. It is made up of unique ingredients; like ethics, values, principles and loyalty. These things are not easily captured by the corporate industry as much as they try. Some things cannot be captured by the market. Some things remain beyond the market reach and beyond the theory that reductionists mechanistic inhumane understanding relies upon. These special characteristics are normally associated with small closely knit groups of people who are independent of large organisations.   

Traits like honesty, empathy, or any other of the admirable qualities we strive to exhibit in our daily lives first emerged as tools of survival in enduring kin and small group relationships. Habits of cooperation and loving care were born in small settings and need small settings to remain operative. The everyday operation of big institutions – national governments, global corporations – habituate us to resentful subservience and anxious money-grubbing.

Just as others have their 2030 or 2050 predictions so too should the localisation movement. It need not be a pessimistic one or a compliant one. But it needs to be a vigilant one. It needs to be aware of the corrosion within; from those with a centralised incentive be it an economic or ego driven purpose.

Action or purpose at a local level matters in times like these. To ignore the reality is to risk being overwhelmed by the load of worldly concerns. Our best attempts to get out of bed in the morning or hold a meaningful conversation with someone let alone make food for others could become compromised in the face of adversity.  Instead a level of awareness may help us in the predicament we find ourselves in. The success of the localisation movement could be in part because of the realisation that Everything with a capital E is interconnected, and no problem is therefore beyond consideration in how things are.  It is this bigger picture appreciation that has been called Big Picture Activism and envelopes food to health, spirituality to community.

From farmers markets and consumer-producer co-operatives to local business alliances and community finance schemes, people are reweaving the fabric of local interdependence from the ground up. Out of common sense and heartfelt intuition, they are finding innovative ways to step out of the consumer rat race to live local lives at a human pace and scale.”

Helena Norberg-Hodge, Founder - Local Futures

Big picture activism has been mooted as the answer to globalisation. It makes clear that our problems have both an inner and an outer dimension, and that solving them requires working on both levels. This includes environmental and social issues.

The Inner path is your personal journey, as in be the change you wish to see in the world. Practice what you preach. Open your mind. The Outer path is your attempts to address these issues like the groups you work with and the community you support, without too much politics that just ruin everything!

We cannot deny that localisation is operating under an industrial cloud. But in contrast to the battle with nature that the industrial complex has, localisation embraces nature and all its supernatural forces. Localisation  embraces community, land, health and independence. It is not up for sale. It’s existence is dependent upon de-centralisation.

The common problem with a lot of industries is their relationship and their understanding of the natural  world.  The existence of biology it would seem continues to be a hindrance to progress and greed. It needs control. Who better to do that than the global industries who already control much of that which is natural like  medicine and  food.  

Ever feel like you’ve been cheated?

Sid

“Ever Get the Feeling You’ve Been Cheated?” was the question asked by lead singer of the then, infamous, Sex Pistols lead singer Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) on 14th January 1978 at the end of the band’s appearance at the Winterland in San Francisco that concluded their US tour. Lydon’s frustrations were borne of his sense that he was part of something that no longer had authenticity. Anyone who has ever considered what emerges naturally will be amazed at the way ideas evolve and the latent energy that accompanies the excitement of change. It is significant that the last song of the set was a version of Stooges classic “No Fun”.

Hell have no fury they say, than a woman scorned.

‘Scorned’ here means ‘slighted’, ‘ridiculed’, ‘spurned’, or shown contempt or disdain. A woman who has been treated in such a scornful manner is capable of such anger that even hell, the fiery seat of evil, cannot match it for its destructive power. Women need to reject market forces and reclaim their autonomy over their bodies and their families.

The predicament. We need to reclaim the language that is of value to us; family, Whanau, community, natural, organic and local. These are words that do not belong in corporate or government language. Localisation needs to reclaim what has been captured. A new age of Localisation? Downstream of the globalised industrial complex doom prepping there are already those who are revitalising the old Localisation movement.  It’s always been a David and Goliath story.  It started with the awareness that big food was destroying little food and our health, it took on the megalithic industrial food complex. Like then, individuals have realised the systemic problem with centralising of industry and its permeating presence in our lives. A presence that stifles the ability to make informed choices and make sound decisions in all aspects of our lives from food to farm, trade to leisure. This realisation is encouraging individuals to act, create support networks and strengthen communities with efforts that push back on the centralisation of everything we value.

This new age of Localisation for now and the future calls for us to become engaged and concerned in order to bring about a peaceful, broad-based, systemic change. This is a parallel system that operates alongside, outside and even within the existing centralised industrial paradigm. Localisation is possible at a local governance level or a regional level.

It requires us as people, as businesses, trades, health providers, teachers, as community, as councils to be independent from centralised decision making.

New Age Localisation needs a manifesto for the longer term if localisation is to keep a step ahead of capture by centralisation.

To use global market terminology, industry has provided localisation with an opportunity. It has given birth to what many consider a natural evolutionary response in times of crisis.

It requires us to become SIN. Skilled up, independent and in harmony with nature.

We can embrace a holistic approach that moves beyond single issues. This is no retreat to agrarian lifestyle, or a rejection of modernity nor a remnant of 60’s communes. This is about using tech smartly rather than it using us, its about listening to nature in terms of medicine and food resilience, it’s about trade exchange, and healthy communities and evolutionary purpose. It’s about living smartly and looking after those around us whose futures we care about. It’s about rejecting the market forces that undermine who we are as humans.

Ghandi: Be the change you wish to see in the world.                

There are links within the text which may relate to the references below which are in no particular order.

April 2023

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/05/dr-john-money-and-the-sinister-origins-of-gender-ideology/

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/268947-a-democracy-lost-to-corporate-socialism/

https://www.localfutures.org/big-picture-activism/

https://www.localfutures.org/unpacking-the-word-peasant/

 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/corporate-social-responsibility-csr-4772443

https://www.localfutures.org/rude-music-empathy-and-the-case-for-localism/

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/international-health-regulations-amendments

 https://geo.coop/articles/global-movement-localization

 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/03/16/a-roadmap-for-building-the-digital-future-of-food-and-agriculture

https://ifstudies.org/blog/feminisms-failures

https://www.britannica.com/topic/transhumanism

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197084.Are_You_My_Mother_

https://interestingliterature.com/2023/04/hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned-meaning/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/04/workforce-gender-gap-crisis/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/what-will-the-family-of-the-future-look-like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

https://www.oecd.org/futures/49093502.pdf

https://www.tsi.nz/news-recent/food-system-transformation-in-aotearoa

https://www.weforum.org/communities/shaping-the-future-of-food https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/55306/direct

https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/77468

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rising-prices-hit-kiwis-explore-the-data-behind-the-cost-of-living-crisis/PVEUNYFUN5BXBFVSK7M4OFK6ZE/

https://www.nopharmfilm.com/

https://fermentofeminista.medium.com/liberal-feminism-the-strand-that-keeps-us-tied-to-the-patriarchy-bcc3215b9359

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/what-is-biotechnology-how-will-it-change-our-lives/?DAG=3&gclid=CjwKCAjwge2iBhBBEiwAfXDBRy4LSePLTN8IeHVRIuRVdf2VKakdROkuTtty0F-rLg5lj2M-piS-XBoCkNsQAvD_BwE

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_problem_with_tables

Which rung are you on?

Climbing the Ladder of Awareness

When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global crisis, each of us seems to fit somewhere along a continuum of awareness that can be roughly divided into five stages:

1. Dead asleep. At this stage there seem to be no fundamental problems, just some shortcomings in human organization, behaviour and morality that can be fixed with the proper attention to rule-making. People at this stage tend to live their lives happily, with occasional outbursts of annoyance around election times or the quarterly corporate earnings seasons.

2. Awareness of one fundamental problem. Whether it's Climate Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution, oceanic over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism, economic instability or sociopolitical injustice, one problem seems to engage the attention completely. People at this stage tend to become ardent activists for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal about their personal issue, and blind to any others.

3. Awareness of many problems. As people let in more evidence from different domains, the awareness of complexity begins to grow. At this point a person worries about the prioritization of problems in terms of their immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems - for example, someone who is committed to fighting for social justice and against climate change may not recognize the problem of resource depletion. They may feel that the problem space is already complex enough, and the addition of any new concerns will only dilute the effort that needs to be focused on solving the "highest priority" problem.

4. Awareness of the interconnections between the many problems. The realization that a solution in one domain may worsen a problem in another marks the beginning of large-scale system-level thinking. It also marks the transition from thinking of the situation in terms of a set of problems to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At this point the possibility that there may not be a solution begins to raise its head.
   
   People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into tight circles of like-minded individuals in order to trade insights and deepen their understanding of what's going on. These circles are necessarily small, both because personal dialogue is essential for this depth of exploration, and because there just aren't very many people who have arrived at this level of understanding.

5. Awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life. This includes everything we do, how we do it, our relationships with each other, as well as our treatment of the rest of the biosphere and the physical planet. With this realization, the floodgates open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or acceptance. The very concept of a "Solution" is seen through, and cast aside as a waste of effort.

For those who arrive at Stage 5 there is a real risk that depression will set in. After all, we've learned throughout our lives that our hope for tomorrow lies in our ability to solve problems today. When no amount of human cleverness appears able to solve our predicament the possibility of hope can vanish like a the light of a candle flame, to be replaced by the suffocating darkness of despair.

How people cope with despair is of course deeply personal, but it seems to me there are two general routes people take to reconcile themselves with the situation. These are not mutually exclusive, and most of us will operate out of some mix of the two. I identify them here as general tendencies, because people seem to be drawn more to one or the other. I call them theouter pathand theinner path.

If one is inclined to choose theouter path, concerns about adaptation and local resilience move into the foreground, as exemplified by theTransition NetworkandPermaculture Movement. To those on the outer path, community-building and local sustainability initiatives will have great appeal. Organized party politics seems to be less attractive to people at this stage, however. Perhaps politics is seen as part of the problem, or perhaps it's just seen as a waste of effort when the real action will take place at the local level.

If one is disinclined to choose the outer path either because of temperament or circumstance, the inner path offers its own set of attractions.

Choosing theinner pathinvolves re-framing the whole thing in terms of consciousness, self-awareness and/or some form of transcendent perception. For someone on this path it is seen as an attempt to manifest Gandhi's message,"Become the change you wish to see in the world,"on the most profoundly personal level. This message is similarly expressed in the ancient Hermetic saying,"As above, so below."Or in plain language, "In order to heal the world, first begin by healing yourself."

However, the inner path doesnotimply a "retreat into religion". Most of the people I've met who have chosen an inner path have as little use for traditional religion as their counterparts on the outer path have for traditional politics. Organized religion is usually seen as part of the predicament rather than a valid response to it. Those who have arrived at this point have no interest in hiding from or easing the painful truth, rather they wish to create a coherent personal context for it. Personal spirituality of one sort or another often works for this, but organized religion rarely does.

It's worth mentioning that there is also the possibility of a serious personal difficulty at this point. If someone cannot choose an outer path for whatever reasons, and is also resistant to the idea of inner growth or spirituality as a response the the crisis of an entire planet, then they are truly in a bind. There are few other doorways out of this depth of despair. If one remains stuck here for an extended period of time, life can begin to seem awfully bleak, and violence against either the world or oneself may begin begin to seem like a reasonable option. Keep a watchful eye on your own progress, and if you encounter someone else who may be in this state, please offer them a supportive ear.

From my observations, each successive stage contains roughly a tenth of the number people as the one before it. So while perhaps 90% of humanity is in Stage 1, less than one person in ten thousand will be at Stage 5 (and none of them are likely to be politicians). The number of those who have chosen the inner path in Stage 5 also seems to be an order of magnitude smaller than the number who are on the outer path.

I happen to have chosen an inner path as my response to a Stage 5 awareness. It works well for me, but navigating this imminent (transition, shift, metamorphosis - call it what you will), will require all of us - no matter what our chosen paths - to cooperate on making wise decisions in difficult times.

Best wishes for a long, exciting and fulfilling journey.

Bodhi Paul Chefurka
October 19, 2012

Memoir for a market friend - the power of a dog

This is a memoir for our best friend Ruby - our market dog.

We have lost a dog. Ruby was a market dog since the market began in 2009. She was always up and waiting on Friday mornings. As she got older she was ready to go on Thursdays. Ruby our devoted short legged long haired Jack Russell died on Friday Feb 10th just after the market that day. 

In dog years she was old, around 15 of them. She had lost her hearing, was losing her sight and her agility for longer walks. Instead she preferred dreaming, hanging around familiar places, watching at the market and of course the children. We had become many of her senses, helping her through the day, until we didn’t.

Yes she was just a dog but she was so much more than that.

Her world view was at a different level to ours. Which may have explained why she loved children so much and they her. By the time we added her to the family, we were a perfect match. She was a good ratter in her youth and still manged to have the nicest of natures and the friendliest disposition of any dog we ever owned or knew.  She had lived a wonderful life.  

Ruby’s death was tragic and came totally unexpectedly. We knew her time was running out but we had not prepared for her to go just yet or in such circumstances. Like any sudden death of those we love, it caught us off guard and threw us into nowhere.

Her memory is part of her doggy legacy which is immense. Apparently dogs have been domesticated longer than rice. Her four legged fraternity’s effect on humanity is well understood to be of the close and emotional kind. It’s a powerful thing. Dogs have co-evolved with us for so very long, become attuned to our behaviours, language and emotions that they have become an integral part of our lives. Human cultures, reaching right back to the traditional hunter gatherers made everlasting bonds with dogs. We certainly had one with this little dog, as did everyone who met her. 

We are different people because of the relationships we have had with our dogs. Ruby taught us how to be calm, patient and loved. She responded acutely to our words and our actions. She gave us a sense of belonging, comfort and gave us an extra purpose. We needed each other more than we realised. Her absence is like children leaving home, it is now silent and still, different.  

Ruby, like so many of the other market dogs, loved being part of something happening, some action. The market is the place for great socialising. People, families with or without dogs gather. Many stallholders come to the market with their dogs. Dogs are part of our lives. Even though we have a no dogs at market policy everyone who’s anyone knows, some rules are there to break. Dogs are good at breaking rules. The happy dogs and happy people we see is a wonderful thing.

Good dog owners are not unlike good parents. Couples who can’t have children often have dogs, families with children have dogs. Dogs become family. They bond us humans. They bring us together whether we like it or not and they don’t harbour prejudices. They draw us towards people who would be otherwise strangers. With love and affection they in return respond to how we feel and how we act. You cannot hide your feelings from a dog. They remind you when you are angry, sad, and distracted. Their love is unmoored, non-judgemental. Like children, dogs  are a big commitment. They stop us doing some things, slow us down, and hopefully teach us humility. Good parents will do anything to protect their children. Dogs too will often go to great lengths to protect their owners.

Evolutionary biologists say from an evolutionary perspective, any pairing normally requires some kind of devotion. We love our pets, our pets love us, we love our kids and they us.  

We are now at a loss. Ruby defined us as a couple. She defined us as a family. She defined Us. She was the certainty, a reminder. She made our home a home. One of the last links. She who had been part of our daily routine for over a very long time, now suddenly gone.

Ruby had a smiling face. She was honest. Having a happy four legged little bundle of white hair with the bushy eyebrows greet you was a joy. You could not help but notice. She was always happy to see every one of the two legged kind. She had an unbridled eagerness and enthusiasm, always. Her trust in us was unfathomable, her love was constant, dependable and given with no strings attached.   

But behind Ruby’s friendly exterior lurked a more reserved character usually only exposed to her own kind. She had over time experienced unkindness from black tall dogs and being of such short stature and deaf never heard danger coming. Consequently she became wary of the other four legged kind. She like Laurie Andersons dog Lollabell, in her beautiful heart wrenching Eulogy to her husband Lou Reed and her dog, Ruby developed an almost agoraphobic fear of that which comes from above. Open spaces with other dogs were dangerous places. The market place is an open space. What could have become a problem for Ruby with her anxiety issues and diminishing use of her invaluable senses, was not. Instead we became her senses and helped her, until we didn’t.

The space Ruby filled is now a bottomless abattoir of sadness. A void. Grief is immense and we are reminded of her absence everywhere we go, everything we do. It lurks in places we are familiar with, places that once comforted us have become empty and and silent.

No more little white movements out the corner of your eye. Just deathly quiet and still.

We look around and can’t see her. Her little white blur is not there wandering around the house to remind us we belong here, we are needed here.

She is not there to greet us when we come home, she is not there to wait for us. She no longer sits waiting at the door to be let in and out and in and out, she isn’t there at the exact time indicating it’s feed time, my man has lost his companion; she is not there when he starts up the vehicle eager to go for a drive, to do deliveries, or to just get in the car and go nowhere. She is not there eagerly waiting for the little people like Ollie and Pops and Percy when the sound of their little steps heralds their arrival, and she won’t be anywhere when people ask ‘Where is Ruby’. Even our hunter, the second hand cat senses her gone. There will be no little children to come up to pat her, no smiling strangers will lean in and let their dog say hello.

Her absence makes us look lonely, our walks pointless, our trips to the beach senseless, and going to the market uncomfortable, as though we have forgotten something. Empty handed. Lost.

All our routines, habits and responsibilities are surplus to requirements. We are left in limbo. We don’t need to say her name anymore. Her leash is limp, her collar slack, car seat empty, food bowl dry, beds are cold.

We were her senses. We swore to watch for her in the driveway when she was inclined to go on one of her ghost like auto pilot wanderings, sniffing the same old places with the only sense she had in full working capacity, her nose. She, oblivious of what was happening around her and unable to hear. We knew the driveway and all the vehicles were a danger for her. We talked about it and shut gates, and kept an eye out.

We never saw tragedy waiting for us when we arrived home from the market, we never saw it and we near heard it and neither did our loving little friend Ruby. Her pointy backward facing ears, of which dog whisperer Cesar Millan would have been most proud, would it turns out be her downfall as would our fatal moment of distraction.

Dying it seems serves no other point other than to leave those who love us, suffering, afloat without a rudder. All one is left with is grief as a life buoy.

Death and grief are things my culture does not do very well. When it happens it reminds you of the times it has happened before, but only then. In between those times we are usually oblivious of it. We don’t even have the ability to easily recognise someone who is grieving, suffering as a result of a close death, person or animal, no arm band, no black mourning. It’s as though it never happens until it does.

According to Tibetan Buddhist teachings on death, one is better to feel sorrow but not to cry. Our bowls are full of tears.  

Ruby cried when we left her, once, in a kennel. The owner told me. Meanwhile we visited an old family burial compound in Indonesia. They are common features of many villages.  It was in the Hindu tradition; decorative, brick and stone shrines; to mark the passing of family relatives and even much loved animals. They are sited close to the family home.

The family is celebrated as a tight unit in Hindu and Buddhist tradition, as is the family home. The old live with the new. The family shrines are personal expressions of family’s ties to those places. They matter. Change is an accepted part of life in Buddhist cultures, death is one of those changes. The significance of this is probably lost on most of us Westerners who have the tendency to shift relentlessly from house to house during a lifetime, to scale down, scale up, move on and harbour habits along the way like discarding our relatives to rest homes and dogs to homeless shelters.

Where is Ruby? Samsara is Sanskrit for rebirth in the Buddhist culture, and upon death if we do not reach the nirvana of release during our lives we will have to endure the go-around again; to be reborn at death in another form.

Nirvana is then the ultimate goal when we die, to be free, from suffering. But it depends how we lived. Kind of like a social ranking; the ‘three poisons’ if practiced will hinder our chances of making it there. They are greed, aversion and delusion. To avoid this we need to be less greedy, less judgemental, and aware, not to be confused with woke. Otherwise upon death we continue the suffering by being reborn, again and again and again and dying, again again and again.

We know our grief will wane, but her absence will always be there in those places she use to fill. Those spaces will finally be filled by Ruby’s wonderful legacy. We like to think Ruby will be in Nirvana about now. She got a free ticket. She met all the criteria for a life of rest and freedom from suffering. She was so generous with her love it was contagious and rubbed off on all who ever had the honour of meeting her. We never had a nicer dog.  We were lucky.  

Ruby’s cries were haunting, child like as we tried to help her in her final moments. A moment of inattention was all it took. We were not there to keep her safe. She was put to sleep an hour after closing time at the market. She had had a wonderful day as had we in her company.

It felt like the only purpose of death was to make us suffer, but no, we have come to realise after many loved ones have left us; people and animals, that the purpose of death is to release love.

Ruby we realised, was a Bodhisattva; she acted by some deep compassionate generosity of spirit within her. If you are fortunate enough to meet this kind of generosity, you know it. You cannot help but be embraced by it. She was able to express it and although generosity of spirit seeks results, expressing it does not require them. This made her a great teacher.

Understanding this makes her next journey and ours just a little more bearable. It makes the places that are empty just a little more welcoming and it provides us with hope.

We have built a shrine for Ruby, close to us, at her home to remind us.

How to create a cashless economy quickly

Have you noticed a lot of banks are reducing opening hours and there are fewer ATM’s around? Perhaps you have found that the banks are even making it difficult to bank money at all.  It’s becoming a common occurrence in many towns throughout NZ.  Cash is, if you listen to the mainstream media lately, rapidly going out of vogue and we are told it is us the consumer who is leading the country down the path to a cashless economy.

Whereas cash can be the lubrication; the oil and grease that keeps smaller communities operating and functioning, cash can also be a cost to banks and financial institutions.    

In my world there are two financial communities; one is local the other globalised. One is small, the other industrial in scale.  One is as much social as it is economic the other digital and about consumption.      

These two communities both rely on monetary exchanges in order to survive.  To date the local and the globalised economic systems have co-existed relatively harmoniously.  Yet these methods of monetary exchange are based upon starkly different ideologies.  The ideology of localisation is based on local production and consumption of local goods and most importantly about local community. Globalised communities in contrast are based on deregulation, market control and monoculture. Ultimately globalisation moves towards a digital currency and cashless economy.       

At a local level cash by its very nature can mean independence; once its spent its gone and it is convenient.   It means we trade, sell, share with people we know, save, pay our taxes, keep within our budgets, meet with community, socialise, help out, offer kids part time work, pay our taxes again and for some of us just get by so we don’t have to rely on welfare or go mad because we are lonely.    On a global level cashless means convenience too, its quick, instant, it means choices we might not otherwise have, and a dependence and reliance on a system that can ensure our safety at the expense of some privacy and surveillance maybe.  There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. But it is hard to see how excluding cash won’t damage local culture, unless that is the point.     

So who is really making the push for a cashless economy?

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand regulates banks. Its primary responsibility ‘is to ensure independent management of monetary policy to maintain price stability.’ But as Peter Northcote Senior External Relations Advisor for the Reserve Bank of NZ informed me  ‘  One of the issues RBNZ has is that it has little statutory power in respect of cash – other than to issue it to meet the needs of the public.  There is a Reserve Bank Bill before parliament which will broaden and strengthen our role in the cash system, including establishing the stewardship role mentioned in many of the documents’.   Sadly this Bill dated 20 July 2020 did not make it past the submission process due to pressure from the independent Banks.

 There also seem to be some contradictory statements being made on their website. 

Retailers it says, are ‘not obliged’ to accept cash, and yet the Reserve Bank of NZ will ‘preserve the benefits that cash provides’ and ‘build capability and potential for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)’ . The RBNZ urges banks to ’consider their role in supporting the needs of their customers’.  It is unclear how reducing hours of use, increasing the obstacles in order to bank cash and reducing the proximity of ATM’s is supporting the needs of their customers. When asked if the Reserve Bank wants to get rid of cash the answer is no. The Reserve Bank believes that cash will be around for some time. Yet ‘The Reserve Bank wants to build a strong and shared understanding of what any problems with less cash will be, and then what – if anything – should be done about that’. The worrying thing about this last statement is by the time the cash runs out what will have been lost in the interim?  Despite claims that Reserve Bank of NZ has undertaken and is undertaking extensive and wide ranging public consultations with consumers on their money usage and preferences; the results may well be more about the conditions participants have had to adapt to rather than what they would have preferred.       

This looks like a self-fulfilling prophecy of going cashless.  The writing is on the wall and the signs have been here for some time.

Reducing bank hours with the obvious conclusion that they will finally close as opposed to renting space they don’t use, and closing down ATMs simply makes using cash difficult. If it is hard to get and use we will have no option other than to use our cards and online money systems more often.  Then we will be told ‘consumers choose cashless instead of cash’.

There are convincing arguments from the financial institutions why we should embrace the virtual world of money exchange.  It is modern and no one wants to be otherwise. It is convenient too. We also spend more online and with our cards as opposed to using hard cash so banks and financial institutions prefer this. Financiers worldwide have also woken to the realisation as a result of the globalised economy that if they can control money they can control the economy.  Remember the call during Covid – ‘get out there and spend’? Spending money is integral to a digital monetary system as it is traceable, accountable and can be controlled.

Cash in paper and coin is also expensive to manage. Banks find it labour intensive, hence reducing bank employees handling of it. It is preferable for financial institutions to take money we have earned out of our wallets, out from under the mattress or out of the bank where it is not currently gaining any traction and put it into places where they can manage it more efficiently. Banks have become commercial businesses and less like the holders of a social license.   They have started behaving like any unregulated business that has a monopoly on the market. They can start asking the consumer to pay them for their services!  From this privileged position they don’t have to be socially responsible because they are relatively unregulated. The only thing stopping them from being entirely free to conduct themselves as they wish, is the Government.  Removing cash is one step closer to a centralised digital currency, which would be the coup d'etat.  One only needs to look at China to see how pervasive a digital currency can be on a social level.  Creating one’s own global digital currency is all the rage these days from Facebook to Bitcoin.   We are on the move towards cashless if we like it or not.      

 “Paper currency has become a major impediment to the smooth functioning of the global financial system,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.   

The two monetary systems currently in action in New Zealand may become one sooner than we think if current overseas trends are to be taken into account.  Perhaps an unintentional result of creating the move towards a cashless society by independent banks means the emergence of what are called ‘de facto regulations’.  This could be seen as a good thing by some financial institutions. A de facto regulation comes about when a particular group of market participants has control over how that industry works to the extent that their dominant position enables them to dictate who can be market participants in the future.  An example of this is the supermarket duopoly in New Zealand.  By dominating the food delivery systems they can make it near impossible for small food producers to operate efficiently. Consequently the industry system looks and is in effect more ‘efficient’.   The  same case with banks, by making cash hard to access they create a society that cannot access cash and one that is more reliant on digital and therefore more efficient, modern and safer. The fact that the supermarkets in NZ  and the banks are  poorly regulated industries; is quite possibly the crux of this whole downward spiral towards a monoculture of consumerism and all its associated problems. 

The argument to go cashless has had an unforeseen helping hand.  The pandemic of our time has enabled retail outlets worldwide to decline cash as a means of contactless money exchange.  The belief that cash is potentially covered in pathogens is not new.  Although it is also not scientifically proven that  Covid can be transmitted via money and it is often overlooked that the digital Pin Pad is in fact more infectious, misperceptions stick.  The highly competitive card companies along with big retail companies would relish the cashless economy on a world wide scale. Despite the RBNZ attempts to ensure cash is available during these times, the best marketing ploys couldn’t have wished for a better opportunity than a pandemic as an excuse to push misinformation to enhance the case for a cashless transactions instead of cash. 

Using cash at a local level could suddenly involve unforeseen consequences.  There will be inevitable stigmas that are the result of using cash.  Once we get over the potential for it to be contaminated it will be seen as ‘dirty’ money for other reasons.  Using cash could allude to being seen as old fashioned and not the modern way to go. People with cash are not welcome by retailers who have the right to refuse their money; cash is suspicious and infers association with the criminal world of the shadow economy or a tax evader.   Yet more justifications not to use it.           

Globally things are threatening to move fast with digital payment systems. Sweden with digital krona, UK and China have been ramping up the push for a cashless economy for a number of years.   Each competing to get there first. Over the last 12 months, more than 60 countries have experimented with national digital currencies, up from just over 40 a year earlier, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

If this is not the path that the  Reserve Bank of New Zealand wants then it needs to ‘be given the teeth’ to quote  Peter Northcote,  to ensure the independent banks cannot dictate whether we go cashless or not. 

‘RBNZ doesn’t make the law that governs what we and banks can do, we have to work within our statutory mandate, however the bank has a strong demonstrated commitment to making sure that the benefits of cash are preserved’ Peter Northcote RBNZ.

The future of cash as we know it is questionable. So too, is the justification being used that we consumers are leading the charge to go cashless. The decisions and directions that the Reserve Bank of NZ are able to make be it in form of regulation will affect not only the Ohoka market’s future but all community markets’ futures. How banks are allowed to operate should be dependent upon how concerned we are and how loud our voices are in protest. Customers at the market have relied upon us for over a decade to provide them with cash via our EFTPOs system.  Even though many of use electronic payment systems and are happy to adopt more modern convenient ways to exchange money, we also appreciate the flexibility and convenience of hard cash when we have it.  It is an option. Future decisions that reduce options will affect our local communities and the many livelihoods associated with the farmers market and so much more. 

We have continued to adapt to events over the years, some of which potentially could have been damaging to the market. It is hard to envisage a totally cashless world. If it does eventuate It will be significantly different from the one we have now.

Thanks to Peter Northcote for his response and interest.

Author: Barb Warren Manager of Ohoka Farmers Market

Some interesting and relevant links:

http://www.eclipse-experience.com/mindset-blog/homeless-cashless-economy-innovation

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/cyber-crime-cost-new-zealand-6-5-million-in-three-months-stats-show

https://business.rediff.com/report/2010/aug/13/the-myth-over-dirty-money-busted.htm

https://www.unbiased.co.uk/news/financial-adviser/cashless-uk-may-come-too-soon

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/ecny-china-charges-ahead-with-a-new-digital-currency-20210302-p576wv.html

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/underground-economy.asp

https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/notes-and-coins/future-of-cash

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-the-shadow-economy-and-why-does-it-matter-1488769322

https://www.impactboom.org/blog/2019/12/17/helena-norberg-hodge-of-local-futures-on-the-drive-for-local-economies

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43645676 (Swedes reject going cashless 2018)

https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/notes-and-coins/future-of-cash/the-future-of-the-cash-system

https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/notes-and-coins/future-of-cash/cash-use

https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/news/2020/07/introduction-of-bill-marks-exciting-new-phase-for-te-putea-matua

 ‘Cause where's all the good times and the pocket full of I.O.U.s!
Take the cash, don't let them pay you in kind,
Take the cash before they change their minds,
And let's see the colour of the money - take the cash!… Wreckless Eric 1978

Colour of your money: If you say that you want to see the colour of someone's money, you mean that you are not prepared to sell them something or do something for them until they have proved that they have the money to pay for it. She never entered into conversation with a customer until she'd seen the colour of his money.

We cannot live on Supermarket alone - It's time for local food resilience

LOCAL FOOD RESILIENCE

Protectionist measures by governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN’s food body has warned.

How are you coping in this state of emergency?  Governments are trying in their own ways to combat the spread of Covid  19. This means that our Government is authorised under the Civil Defence and Emergency Management Act 2002 to provide food and shelter to those affected by the emergency, which may become important if commercial supply chains start to fail.

For a government and its associated agencies to have unprecedented powers over its citizens is a totally foreign concept to many of us. [1]We have never lived like this. But here we are into week 1 of what we truly hope at worst is only one of 4 weeks. Some very big decisions are being made and we have to hope that they are the right ones.

Who wouldn’t hope that every decision the authorities make today will be in our best interests for tomorrow.  But, just how back to normal will look is really dependent upon how long we are shut down. We always talked about the need for a resilient food system.  Well that time is now. Faced with the stark reality that Government decisions have meant we have no other option than to get our food from the supermarket is challenging to say the least.  

The response to the pandemic was so quick it caught many off guard. Businesses that feed us were forced to literally shut their doors. Markets which provided local fresh foods closed, online services provided access to specific foods and health products were shut down.[2] Trade has effectively stopped.

Foodstuffs and Woolworths now have a complete monopoly over the distribution of food that otherwise would be sold by smaller businesses. 

We don’t want the virus to spread and we don’t want people to die. But at the same time we need to have access to good food.  The restrictions in place risk destroying many small food businesses if they go on for too long. For reasons not totally understood we have suddenly become totally dependent upon supermarkets at the expense of the small food producers.  The globalised food system which we have enjoyed to some extent was always unsustainable. Now we get to see how resilient it really isn’t.

Supermarkets are part of the globalised food system and look to be buckling under the strain.   The bones of industrialisation are laid bare. The highly centralised commodity based supermarket sourcing system means that our food system is now in a state of crisis and we are left dependent upon two companies. The Food and Grocery Council who represents Foodstuffs and Woolworths and their supplier processed food companies also provides advice to the Government.  We can only conclude that the Government is not listening to other independent food retailers and certainly not those voices that represent the local food movement. In fact many of been lumped in the non essential basket. Supermarkets have in the past been unashamedly competitive in the way they go about their business; competing with each other and with great effect putting any smaller independent businesses out of business.

We are however finding out how unsustainable the system is. The most immediate problem we are experiencing is supply. The ‘just in time’ system that supermarkets and many businesses operate under cannot sustain us through this crisis.  Supermarket spokespeople have referred to this inappropriately as an unexpected early ‘Christmas’ rush before Christmas.  But it’s not Christmas. [3]

The Medias positive spin on ample supermarket supplies comes in the wake of customers experiencing social incrimination for buying too much and empty shelves.  In times of crisis governments consolidate resources. One week into this state of emergency we have rationing by supermarkets and sorry sold out online services. This contradicts the ‘plenty of food’ mantra.  We have heard that ‘essential workers’ will have priority to food at Supermarkets that are already experiencing shortages of some lines of food.[4]

The other significant problem is trade. Trade is and always will be important for our economy. Trade affects supply. There is the risk that countries will enforce trade restrictions on food as they did during the 2007-08 food crises. Restricting trade of some foods may seem a totally reasonable thing for Governments to do to ensure they can feed their own populations. But trade restrictions mean those who need food may go without. [5]This will impact on our small businesses dependent on imported ingredients and products.   [6]

When we hear Food Spokespeople say New Zealand has plenty of its own food it is unclear what that diet may consist of. [7][8][9]  [10]  Empty shelves indicate another problem. We import a lot of food we have come to take for granted. As a result of this Pandemic decisions are being made globally that will have enormous impact on our access to food. This only makes local food production and access to it even more essential.

We can expect to see a spike in food prices as a result of  COVID-19 disruptions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. We can expect food shortages. How the government decides to manage the regional and local access to food is at this point not clear. But we know they have extraordinary powers to do so and will take advice from Business leaders.

Under the State of Emergency Governments have the power to consolidate and redistribute commodities and resources like food.  Many of the businesses associated with the relatively recent local food movement and all the small independent artisan businesses that operate in shops have been hit so hard by this consolidation of food distribution that they may not recover.

Resilient food communities were based around the foods readily available locally. Businesses that were part of those communities strengthened those communities.  It is the small local food producers who immortalised the food resilience concept.  Food resilience was supposed to be all about very short distribution networks; trace ability. The latest reasoning that prevents other food retailers like butchers, bakers, vege shops  to operate because ‘alternatives are available’ at the supermarket may possibly apply in the short term response to the Covid 19, but any long term use of this  reasoning would be illogical.  Attempts to reducing the potential spread of the virus are obviously commendable even if supermarkets unfortunately become the source of the clusters.

Farmers and Food Markets feed a significant percentage of the population; usually from the food grown and produced locally. Markets are outside and generally market customers choose market food from their growers because they cannot get the quality or variety from the supermarkets. Growers also supply cafes, restaurants and other small businesses.   Customers know who their producer is and the producers know who their customer is. Handling of food is minimal. Traceability is obvious.  One would hope that these markets will be able to resume business as usual for their local producers as soon as it is safe to.     

The local food movement is an entire food chain, it is a distribution network and it is in complete shutdown.  Food is right under our noses and yet it is largely inaccessible. At the same time we are faced with limited alternatives at the supermarket. Home resilience is really kicking in.      

As long as this situation of shut down is short, we can I think hope to show just how resilient this local food economy in New Zealand is.  Once we are free to do business we can hope that there will be a greater appreciation of local food. But there will be implications for independent food producers & small business because of the break in trade and supply distribution. [11]How we handle this as individuals will call on some resourcefulness and hopefully Government assistance. We need the  Government  to prioritised small local food production by way of subsidising the growers and producers who produce for local economies. This would be a step towards creating greater food resilience.   

Our food system is undergoing a challenging time and what we do after the virus has gone could help make it stronger and more resilient or we could make the same mistakes again. To do the latter would be business as usual.  This should be the time for deglobalisation.  [12]

It would helpful to be hopeful in the face of such potentially challenging times.  If the Government values the local food movement and wishes to make our country more sustainable in food production and create a more vibrant food culture then financial assistance to those independent small food producers would be a great start.[13] If not we can only hope that people will wake up to the fact that it is no fun being dependent upon the supermarket for food. It may change their shopping preferences. It needs to be said that the supermarket model of business is part of the food system problem. The focus needs to be on the local.    

Our food communities need to be resilient more than ever. Right now they are in peril. We cannot live on supermarket alone.  Nor do we need to. Let’s do it better this time round.

Barb Warren OFM

.

[1] https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/03/coronavirus-what-emergency-powers-the-government-will-get.html

[2] Our Government has said that: [2]Butchers, bakeries and similar small-scale food retailers are considered non-essential, as similar products are readily available in supermarkets

Farmers markets are not considered to be an essential service, as alternatives are available

[3] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12319450

[4] https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/supermarket-shelves-cleaned-out-as-new-zealand-hits-20-covid-19-cases.html

[5] Current examples of trade restrictions taking place involve Kazakhstan who according to a report from Bloomberg has banned exports of wheat flour, of which it is one of the world’s biggest sources, as well as restrictions on buckwheat. Vietnam, the world’s third biggest rice exporter, has temporarily suspended rice export contracts.

[6] https://www.economist.com/china/2020/03/14/covid-19-is-making-it-harder-to-grow-food-in-china

[7] According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture there are currently, some 820 million people around the world experiencing chronic hunger – not eating to live normal lives. Of this, 113 million are coping with acute severe insecurity – hunger so severe that it poses an immediate threat to their lives or livelihoods and renders them reliant on external assistance to get by.  Then there are the children. In Latin America and the Caribbean, school meal programmes benefit 85 million children. Some 10 million children depend on them as the meals constitute one of their most reliable sources of food each day. Here in New Zealand children in 30 primary and intermediate schools receive a free lunch every school day, the lunch programme is part of a trial, extending to 21,000 children in 120 schools by the beginning of 2021. How can we be sure these kids are eating enough if they are not able to go to school?

[8] The food supply chain is a complex web that involves producers, agricultural inputs, transportation, processing plants, and shipping. It includes small food producers, and businesses, restaurants and charities that feed homeless, vulnerable, school lunches. It includes transport, labour, agricultural supplies, animal feed, slaughterhouses, machinery, packaging and distribution networks and every person who is involved in some shape or form in food. 

[9] https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/a-glance-at-nz-trade-after-the-coronavirus-outbreak-25-march-update

[10] https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/supermarket-shelves-cleaned-out-as-new-zealand-hits-20-covid-19-cases.html

[11] Where will our coffee, tea, pasta, oils, olives, peanuts, beans, almonds, flour, wheat, rice, soy, come from if the normal trade routes are non-existent?  These shortages affect not only customers but also the producers.

[12] https://www.localfutures.org/coronavirus-and-the-death-of-connectivity/

[13] https://www.farmaid.org/blog/how-will-covid-19-affect-my-local-farmers-and-food/

https://covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-level/essential-businesses/?utm_source=business.govt.nz&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=special_cv_edition