The world’s preppers are on high alert for what they see as the coming global catastrophe. Is this alarmism?
Not according to two New Zealand academics, Matt Boyd and Nick Wilson. ‘Abrupt global catastrophic risks (GCRs) are not improbable’, they note coolly in a recent report.
By GCRs, the pair mean nuclear war, extreme pandemics, technological catastrophes, massive volcanic eruptions, asteroid/comet impacts, or solar storms. Any one of those, they claim, ‘could massively disrupt global trade leading to shortages of critical commodities, such as liquid fuels, upon which industrial food production, processing and distribution depends’.
So while the preppers feast on canned food from their underground larders, what about the rest of us? If things go seriously – apocalyptically – wrong, what are our urban populations going to eat? Matt and Nick’s recent research report seeks to supply some answers.
First, some caveats. Catastrophe planning is always shaped by some assumptions about the state of the post-apocalypse world. Crop choices are no different, as plants are always affected by the conditions you grow them in. For example, with fuel likely to be in short supply, the researchers assumed that any crops would have to be grown as close to the city as possible – ideally in home gardens, allotments, parks, roundabouts, and larger city-edge plots, but if necessary, in the fields just beyond the city boundary. In these conditions, which crops would deliver the most calories and protein per square metre? And what if the climate changed – with the coming of ‘nuclear winter’ (a cooling of the climate that scientists think could follow a large-scale nuclear war, leading to crop failures and famine)? Were some crops better able to thrive in a cooler climate?
Matt, a research scientist, and Nick, a professor of (among other things) epidemiology, set about crunching the numbers, taking the city of Palmerston North (population 91,000) in New Zealand as their test case.
The result? Good news: humankind can survive, on paper anyway – by growing a basket of superfoods including peas, sugar beets, spinach, wheat, potatoes, carrots and rapeseed, carefully rotated to keep the soil productive.
If that sounds a little dull, the stats are startling. The researchers say that in this survival scenario, some of today’s staple foods are simply far too inefficient at delivering protein and calories to justify the energy outlay. For example, to deliver an equivalent amount of protein and energy, the production of milk required more than seven times as much land as potatoes. And that would be a luxury our energy-starved population could little afford.
Granted, you could grow a limited amount of your own energy – using rapeseed to make biodiesel from which to power the tractors and other farm machinery. But even with some homegrown fuel, and with their efficiently produced but plain fare, survivors would need to farm well beyond the city, say the researchers. Urban agriculture could feed only a fifth of the population. And even these crops will require huge ingenuity, effort and expertise from the population.
Which foods are best to grow during the apocalypse?
Provided the climate remained normal, says the researchers, the best crop for urban agriculture was peas. The post-apocalypse pea will be rather different to near-fresh flavour of the frozen peas we are used to, though. For the most part, the peas would be dried to make split peas, before soaking and cooking.
In this way, they resemble the subsistence food our ancestors ate – when they were a staple part of the medieval diet in dishes such as pease pottage, a type of a type of savoury porridge or pudding, cooked with water, salt and spices. The split pea contains an astonishing 25% protein, delivering you vital nourishment.
Supplemented by spuds, the pea is the ultimate apocalypse superfood – unless the world is gripped by nuclear winter. In that case, opt for spinach and sugar beets, bulked up with some wheat and carrots. Per 100g, spinach contains 3g of protein, 23 calories, and a whole load of other good stuff, including 34% of your daily vitamin C, plus vitamin A, vitamin K, folate, iron, and manganese.
Sugar beets deliver a hefty 43 calories per 100g. They are not commonly found on dinner plates, being generally grown for processing into sugar or used to feed cows and horses. But they are a close relative of beetroot and can be eaten as a vegetable in similar ways. Enjoy young sugar beets raw – grated or sliced into salads. Mature beets can be cooked for a softer texture – by boiling, steaming, or roasting. Beet greens are delicious pan-fried (if you can find any oil).
Wheat is another post-apocalypse staple. But it’s worth considering that many modern wheat varieties would not flourish without chemical treatments to protect them from pests and diseases, and the viability of the seed often diminishes with successive harvests. So really organised preppers may want to invest in heritage grain varieties, developed before modern plant breeding began in the 1900s. These yield less than modern varieties, but require much less coddling, fending off pests and diseases more effectively, and consistently deliver viable seed for the following year.
Find out more about the study: Resilience to abrupt global catastrophic risks disrupting trade: Combining urban and near-urban agriculture in a quantified case study of a globally median-sized city
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Main image: Getty
