Food - are we facing a Crisis or an Opportunity?
About a 2 minute read | Updated September 2025
There's a reason the words "Food Crisis" are making headlines, but it might not be the reason you think.
More...
If you try Ecosia-ing (as opposed to googling) a phrase like “food crisis 2025,” you'll find plenty to read about.
And it's not a distant, far-away thing. In Australia where I live, " 1 in 6
Australian adults and 1.2 million children are living in food-insecure households"1
So I do acknowledge the reality of the situation.
I don't recommend spending too much time and energy reading about the global food crisis online, though, and here’s why:
The more you read about “food crises” (or any other crisis), the more worried and anxious you’ll get (ask me how I know).
Food sovereignty, in small steps
Are you now thinking, “How do we stop them?”
My answer would be: we don’t. We sidestep them by developing food sovereignty.
And I know - you're right. Developing food sovereignty is a big task. But it can be broken down.
Consider where you're at with food sovereignty. If you’re not even sure you know what the term means and you currently rely entirely on the supermarket for all your food, that's your starting point.
Start where you are, with only one criteria: KEEP IT SMALL. When we want to make changes that stick, bigger and faster is definitely not better.
A pot of herbs or salad greens in a sunny spot on the balcony would make a fine start.
If you add one more pot (or one more square meter of garden if you’re growing in the ground), at manageable intervals, you’ll move toward food sovereignty in a more steadfast fashion than if you start too big, get discouraged, and give up.
And don’t forget neighbors and friends and their unused potential food growing spaces, and community gardens.
I know you’re busy. Me too. How do you find the time to grow your own food? Your answer will be unique to your circumstances, but keep in mind that as food and fuel prices continue to rise (and they will) it makes less and less sense to drive to the supermarket frequently.
Here's one reason why "food crisis" is making headlines
The thing about being chronically anxious, besides that it just isn't good for you, is that it makes you much more willing to consider things you otherwise wouldn’t.
Like what? Well, for example, allowing the companies that already control far too much of the world's seed supply to do even more damage to biodiversity than they already have.
Or allowing even more use of chemical, industrial farming techniques until the whole industrial food system topples.
When that happens, the would-be Saviors will step in front of our faces and say, “So now we need to move all food production into labs where we can control it all, so we will no longer have to deal with the vagaries of Nature.” And at that point the more worried and anxious people are, the more likely it is that we'll step aside and let them do it.
This is why "food crisis" is making headlines: it's because the corporations that stand to profit from lab grown food are the same ones that control most of the media you see.
They want us to be worried and anxious about a food crisis. It makes us more open to suggestions we otherwise would reject without needing to think about them too much.
Meat from a Petri dish, anyone?
[…] Back to navigation […]