Food security alert: collapsologists call for local strategies

Alexandre Boisson and Stéphane Linou, two experts interviewed by France 24, come from completely different horizons. Stéphane Linou is municipal councilor of Castelnaudary (in Aude, Occitanie), risk management consultant and author of the book-survey "Food resilience and national security" (self-publishing).

Alexandre Boisson is a former police officer from the President's Security Group. He left the police in 2011 and created SOSMaires.org to advise elected officials on the risks to come.

In this cross-talk, Alexandre and Stéphane share their thoughts on food security in times of crisis and provide local, political, ecological, administrative, economic and also military solutions.

>> Read also: Food security alert (1/3): collapsologists recommend breaking with agricultural globalization

France 24: Is your hypothesis on the city as the ideal level for managing food security validated by what we have just experienced?

Alexandre Boisson:  The crisis is not over. However I insist on the fact that one should not wait for the drama to say that Cassandre was right. It is urgent that the big cities coordinate now with rural communities in order to have food suppliers within a radius not exceeding 100 km. More than half of rural French communes have less than 500 inhabitants. And these municipalities can overproduce for cities currently unable to strip their streets or unbutton their spaces in order to find areas to cultivate. Cities need food "spare wheels" in the event of a systemic crisis.

Stéphane Linou: We have to reconnect the cities to their hinterland. Moreover, the big urban centers are called to deflate with the increase in unemployment and the energy contraction: people will be tempted to invest in the countryside to produce their own food. It is a matter of security and defense. Internal security can be impacted by possible "hunger riots" here! In fact, food will experience a "scissor effect" in the coming months: rising prices and falling incomes due to growing unemployment. For current and future precarious populations, vegetable gardens must be set up now.

For external security, we must avoid "hunger riots" in fragile countries, knowing that religious fundamentalism arrives more easily in places where people are hungry. In France, as elsewhere in the world, agricultural models must take the path towards production methods that allow soil regeneration, with the benefit of adequate and funded technical support.

I would add that the reforms of the common agricultural policy must henceforth include the subject of the prevention of disturbances to public order linked to the extreme relocation of the agricultural productions essential to Europe. Going towards more autonomy in European regions implies first maintaining "security exports", while stopping export-dumping which destabilizes foreign markets and produces migrants in the medium term.

What lessons has this Covid-19 crisis brought to Senator Françoise Laborde's draft resolution entitled "Food resilience of territories and national security", which has not been adopted? Can you recall the main lines?

Stéphane Linou: This motion for a resolution of December 12, 2019 was a first step towards the treatment of this subject by parliamentarians. Based on my book-survey of the same name, it alerted the government to our food and security vulnerability in the event of force majeure and proposed to implement a strategy of "territorialization" of food production, to establish a mapping production flows and developing a risk culture. He urged the government to present a bill to save agricultural land, to initiate a review of the military planning law and to integrate the notion of food resilience of the territories into the law of modernization of civil security.

On December 12, when the senator defended this draft resolution in the Senate. Only 16 votes were missing for the text to be adopted! However, we received the support of the LREM parliamentary group, which validated the analyzes and orientations. Our action was prescient and it may have inspired the President of the Republic, on March 12, 2020, when he declared that "delegating our food" was "madness" and that it was necessary to "regain control" in this field. We hope that the actions will follow his words.

Why do you think, Stéphane Linou, that only the military and the peasants have a long-term vision of food security issues?

Stéphane Linou: I would rather say that the "berets", the "caps" and the "kepis", that is to say the peasants, the prefects and the military, "run the store" and have a long time in mind , unlike the policies that just pass. Alas, the three categories mentioned are not listened to in their alerts, and the politicians, today become slaves of "short time" and followers of the religion of "all deregulated", even for what concerns the essential, not play their role in defining and protecting the strategic area of ​​food.

The link between food and security is however the oldest subject in the world! I have been working to dust off all this for 20 years. It seems that we are dealing with a blindness in the face of the vulnerability of the food supply… It is all the more curious since in the past, guaranteeing the conditions of a minimum of food security was a pillar of the legitimacy of the leaders . In this logic, food security should meet needs through a resilient chain, from land to consumer, through producers, storage, processing, transport and distribution ...

It is therefore time to question our "Achilles heel food", where even the countryside is currently unable to provide food for rural people! The era when farms were numerous, autonomous and diversified, is over and is now part of the images of Épinal. However, there is no public order without perennial and completely secure access to food…

How to carry out this inventory of the strategic food resources of our country which you wish, Alexandre Boisson?

Alexandre Boisson:  This inventory must be carried out by the municipalities. Then the data must be centralized in the prefecture. From there, it is necessary to assess production efforts to ensure food security. A minimum carbohydrate nutrient level over a minimum of two weeks must be established so that our food system never experiences too long a breakdown that could harm public peace. 

How can the brigades responsible for maintaining the soil, according to one of your proposals, act in the current context? With the borders closed, farmers struggle to find arms to help them. Why can't we motivate citizens to perform agricultural tasks?

Alexandre Boisson:  It is now up to the Head of State to order a French food resilience plan. This implies the engagement of the army in this national defense effort. Military analysis is crucial in this type of operation. Indeed, it is also a question of maintaining peaceful relations with the countries which we supply in agricultural matters and countries on which our agriculture depends. It is not a question of building a French food resilience with a wet and entirely local finger, against the rest of the world. Certain food flows, if they were no longer delivered, would cause destabilization of states and growing insecurity both outside our territory and inside. For example, wheat delivered to North Africa. It is therefore necessary to ensure that certain agricultural holdings, which could be strategic, are not requisitioned by a mayor without the advice of the prefecture.

But neither is it about sending our soldiers to plant potatoes! There are many civilians just waiting to be trained, coordinated. These civilians must be made aware of their own security by the Territorial Joint Defense Organization (OTIAD) responsible for coordinating civil and military defense means in one of the seven defense zones spread throughout the national territory.

The municipal civil security reserve, which helps municipal teams in the event of a crisis, then makes it possible to provide all the goodwill. With the Covid-19 crisis, health authorities must also monitor these operations.

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