How will we grow and distribute food once gas hits $20 a gallon?

Question

What about when gas becomes unavailable?

Answer 1

Much peak Oil literature has already dealt with this question.

Essentially as Gasoline prices get "high enough" people will little by little be pressured into creating garden spaces as they used to historically, to supplement their food supply.

Local farming will have more value due to reduced transportation costs, and modern Fertilizer based farming will be replaced with more natural systems of fertilization including crop rotation, animal waste spreading, compost spreading and denser farming.

Our cropland is capable of much denser farming than is currently being utilized due to cheap oil. As manual labor becomes more necessary for farming we will see farming start pairing multiple crops together to ease the effort of planting, watering, weeding, getting to and from the crops and harvesting.

Systems for highly efficient and sustainable farming already exist and are being practiced in small amounts already. As Oil becomes more expensive the economics of these systems will become more readily apparent and likely small farms will return to popularity.

Answer 2

The latter point of the question is moot, as the $20 a gallon gas will inevitably bring about alternatives, lest all of society fracture and collapse.

It will probably be a reliance on electrically-powered vehicles that are charged daily from energy produced by a combination of coal, solar, nuclear, hydro- and geothermal.

Answer 3

If gasoline prices reached twenty dollars per gallon, then prices for all goods and services that have anything at all to do with transportation will increase to match.

If gasoline becomes unavailable, then alternative fuels and power sources will have already been utilized to take over. Modern transportation isn't just a luxury of getting from one place to another quickly. Our economy and social stability rely on it. If it were to shut down, our society would follow suit.

Answer 4

Fortunately for us, the Amish have maintained the skill of farming without modern fossil fuel powered machines. Many of us would have to return to the task of farming. I think I recall that before oil was discovered, over 80% of Americans were farmers.

Answer 5

by then people would figure out how to go without gas. When a crisis hits, people adapt - and not before.

Answer 6

i'd get that garden hoe out of the garage if i were you, and start weeding the back yard (your new vegetable garden) asap. also buy a gun. your neighbors will be trying to steal whatever you grow. get the picture....?

Answer 7

sustinance farming. no more centralized food production.. back to animal, and manual labor in local feilds. i agree with the gun thing, and do feel that this world is coming.

Answer 8

Start riding bikes. That'll solve our obesity problem.