John Robb is concerned about the ability of global guerrillas to disrupt our far-flung food and fuel networks, causing major economic damage at a minor cost to themselves.
Thus, he praises starters, people taking the initiative the build resilient communities — like Stacy Murphy of bk farmyards:
You have the land. We grow the produce.
That sounds like sharecropping or tenant-farming to me — only with hipsters instead of emancipated slaves or peasants:
While any economist will tell you that self-sufficiency is the road to poverty, a certain limited amount of autarky makes sense as insurance.
When faced with the localvore’s dilemma, we don’t want to make the old food-miles mistake, but any supply chain should recognize the cost of overage versus the cost of underage — and the cost of having too little food far outweighs the cost of carrying a little extra inventory or planting edible foods rather than decorative plants in your garden.