Update 2: October 22, 2019

There are big ideas afoot to confront the Ravenous Superthreat head-on, like irrigating the Australian desert with solar-desalinated ocean water. Alongside this are more subtle ones oriented to ecological stability; this week, for instance, has seen no fewer than three Superstructs proposed (1, 2, 3) to address the challenge of maintaining bee populations.

As solutions continue to arise, however, so do the challenges. We're getting reports of continued battles on the home front for personal food security -- and SEHIs in California are advised to guard against robotic food collectors, a.k.a. RFCs, raiding community gardens. Such thefts certainly aren't a problem for producers only, increasing reports of grocery store robbery have surfaced as food prices rise.

At the same time, however, we've noticed SEHIs the world over beginning to ask some deeper questions about this Superthreat. What's really wrong with the food system we have, and how can we fix it? Taking a page out of food expert Michael Pollan's book, Oregon-based Empiricuswonders how to effect the decline of oil-based farming and has launched a 'struct to address the issue. SEHI KathiVian has proposed an ambitious collaborative project, Food Webbies, to model the whole world's food economy from the bottom up. And the single most discussed issue to date has emerged as the systemic consequences of disrupted food supply -- food riots scaling up to become food wars.

Many Ravenous-related Superstructs are oriented toward enabling local food production, and examples this week include the Victory Garden Support Organization, and Self-Sustainable Interconnected Communities. However, a lively debate has transpired on this approach, with some arguing against the viability of decentralised gardening as a basis for food production. At the personal level, there are the experiences of urbanites like SEHI Elizabeth Merritt who, after some work on an Italian vineyard found herself "utterly unsuited for the mind numbing exhaustion of manual labor". Some SEHIs hoping to convert their yards to food production have found both soil quality and neighborhood support lacking. Then there are system level arguments, such as that of SEHI Ruud Dirven in Amsterdam. Ruud asked, in effect, what if the small-scale, backyard and community-level efforts (in which many of us are investing our greatest hope) prove insufficient for our 2019 population of over 7.5 billion people? In that case, mass starvation may be unavoidable. In response, SEHI Platonic Jensen this week wrote an impassioned defence of small-scale farming:

"The drive to localize food, to make each person a gardener... is not a question of producing more food. It's a political decision. ... This is the real reason to go local, not for economic reasons, not for environmental reasons, but for reason of power over what you depend on. Because if someone else controls the food production, they may decide not to feed you. So here's my [scenario]. Every person on earth has access to the tools, the land, and the knowledge required to produce their own food."

Fortunately, GEAS models do indeed indicate that, serious though the challenge may be, this situation is not beyond our capacity to fix. What is becoming clear, however, is that no single solution can, or will, address this problem adequately. It needs to be approached from all sides, which, encouragingly, is exactly what's happening, with ideas both new and old.

Ingenious food production techniques and uses of space are springing up: semi-nomadic SEHIPlaNetweaver reports on a hopeful surge in algae production in England, a boon both as foodstuff and fertiliser; Mountain View, California-based Neal Gorenflo notes that condominium space is being reclaimed for chicken farming; and China-based SEHI shanghaiz describes one of the more inspiring large-scale solutions we've seen, organic protein vat plants are taking off, feeding as many as 40,000 people per facility.

At the same time, there are Superstructers emphasising that many of our oldest, wisest, and simplest strategies will keep their place alongside audacious invention. It could be, as SEHIMarilyn in Stockholm suggests, that our values themselves -- what we believe we need and want -- are the social technologies most in need of our thoughtful attention.  And writing from Nova Scotia, Canada, SEHI mudmama movingly retells the age-old fable of stone soup, reminding us that the spirit of community may ultimately be our greatest resource.

As more and more SEHIs join the effort, our capacity to make a difference through new connections is increasing exponentially! For those unsure where to begin, try the weekly missions posted at the Ravenous Superthreat Hub. And in light of mudmama's timely reminder of the power of storytelling,keep submitting your stories -- remembering that the immediacy of images and short videosshowing your solutions to 2019's most pressing problems can really boost our Survivability scores. Also, now that many key Superstructs are in place, we can look forward to reaping the rewards of increased SEHI collaboration on existing initiatives.

~futuryst (Stuart Candy, Honolulu, Hawaii) & mrjudkins (Josh Judkins, Wellington, New Zealand), 21 October 2019