our unfolding food emergency
By members of the Climate Coalition Food Resilience Working Group of Montgomery County
The Montgomery County Council was uniquely visionary in 1980 when it protected 93,000 acres , nearly one-third of the county , for agricultural purposes . Now is the time to create more opportunities in the Agricultural Reserve for robust food production .
Stepping into a supermarket in 2020 or 2021 was a surreal experience — and wearing masks was only one reason . Empty shelves glared out at us . Where were the neatly shrink-wrapped packages of chicken ? Why were there no eggs to be had ? Peanut butter was in short supply , as were coffee and milk . There were many factors behind these shortages , but according to the Center for Strategic Studies , “ The US food supply chain is highly efficient with low levels of redundancy , meaning that a seemingly small disruption in one part of the system can have cascading effects and cause food shipments to be delayed by days or weeks .” 1
COVID-19 showed us how precarious our food supply really is — and serves as a foretaste of what our climate-impacted food future may be . Our region supplies less than 5 % of the food we eat ; everything else travels from hundreds to tens of thousands of miles to reach us , making us vulnerable to far away and more frequent disasters .
Recent floods in California — which produces half of US fruits , nuts and vegetables — drowned many acres of produce . Drought this year and last in the Midwest and Great Plains has hurt pastures and corn — which feeds much of the nation ’ s cattle , driving meat costs higher . Last year ’ s hurricanes continue to affect this year ’ s citrus crop in Florida . Georgia lost its entire peach crop this year to a late spring frost . Recent catastrophic flooding in much of Vermont and western Massachusetts destroyed crops across that region . Extreme heat across Texas and the Southwest means that many fruit trees and vegetable plants cannot pollinate , and therefore cannot grow fruit . Beehives are melting in Arizona . Our own Eastern Shore — indeed the entire Delmarva peninsula — is facing loss of more farmland to saltwater intru-
4 plenty I autumn Harvest 2023