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Warning - this is a large pdf and a very long but well written paper. But...

For those without the time, suggest read the exec summary and summary chapter 6. The message is clear on the fragility of the UK food industry. Better get stockpiling and growing some more.

http://www.continuityforum.org/files/pd ... SECTOR.pdf

While well written by a Business Continuity specialist, bet she's not even heard of Peak Oil. Yet.

Fascinating stuff and I particularly like the sentence:

"The fundamental problem is that it is the very efficiency of the nation?s food and drink supply chains, under normal circumstances, that make them so vulnerable under abnormal ones."

The same is true of any system. What you need is a bit of inefficiency, a bit of 'slack'. Like Orlov's Russia, in fact.

But you get a sort of 'prisoners' dilemma' where nobody wants to be the first one to build in the slack, because 'under normal circumstances' that would make them less competitive. Time for the government to, erm, govern(?) and make them do a bit of this (eg stores of essentials to the value of x% of their throughput?).

RenewableCandy wrote:Fascinating stuff and I particularly like the sentence:

"The fundamental problem is that it is the very efficiency of the nation?s food and drink supply chains, under normal circumstances, that make them so vulnerable under abnormal ones."

The same is true of any system. What you need is a bit of inefficiency, a bit of 'slack'. Like Orlov's Russia, in fact.

But you get a sort of 'prisoners' dilemma' where nobody wants to be the first one to build in the slack, because 'under normal circumstances' that would make them less competitive. Time for the government to, erm, govern(?) and make them do a bit of this (eg stores of essentials to the value of x% of their throughput?).

I agree. I think the slogan should be something like "No efficiency without resilience" or "Resilience Rules" (ok, they don't roll off the tongue but...).

This idea of ever greater efficiency creating ever more brittle systems that are increasingly vulnerable to unforeseen parameter changes, like an energy outage, extreme weather event or terrorist attack, is covered well in the Upside of Down by Thomas Homer Dixon. It's funny (strange) to think of Orlov's Russia and compare it with N Korea's systems failures (as described in "Eating Fossil Fuels") - does N Korea's calamitous collapse mean that it was too efficient previously?

I noticed the study at work - I'm involved in Business Continuity planning. And I also have a copy of Upside of Down - not a bad read. He covers some BC planning scenarios (immediate 30 day disruptions) and longer term impacts such as PO and environmental collapse.

My own feeling is the BC planning thing has only emerged to offset the bean counter's (BAU-based) cheeseparing efficiency drives, and also to counter an increasing overreliance on fragile technology. For example, even in the 80s you didn't have everything including simple financial transactions all depending on a power supply as we do now. And networked computers, stock management systems, etc etc. Often there aren't the people left in place on the ground with enough authority to revert back to paper records anyway.

Like many other businesses, the food industry has fallen for these same JIT systems, and the study clearly shows most firms haven't given much thought to what their true priorities should be during a disruption, or where their critical dependencies are. No profits in any of that, certainly not in holding buffer stocks - until it goes wrong...

When trying to get people to think about even the possibility of disruption, I find the reaction is often 'can't happen here', or just to give it lip service. Some might quickly forget or even cover up a failure when it does happen. Seems no different to the typical response to the prospect of Peak Oil, I guess. Perhaps we're an unusual crowd, in that we personally plan for major bad news, possibly several years out - and not even big business does that - most seem to firefight through to the next Quarterly Report.

But the main thing this shows is that we shouldn't count on being able to buy essential food - even next week. Low risk, for sure - but high impact.

I printed out the Exec Summary to read later but have stupidly left it at a friend's place.

I think you are right, that there is a limit to the effectiveness of BCP (business continuity planning) if it is constrained by BAU thinking. The whole thing about BCP is that it's about thinking outside the box, imagining very different circumstances. If the highly-paid BCP consultants doing it are too invested in BAU, they ain't gonna be able to do it. Even if they manage it, they will feel obliged to self-censor, to tailor their message to the BAU-limited thinking of their clients.

The purpose of BC is to get back to BAU asap, hence it focuses on immediate impacts. It's tactical in nature. Getting the management sheeple to accept even that possibility can be challenging. PO is a long term trend, its even outside the thinking of the supposedly more strategic risk manager types.

But for we few individuals here with our 20 year planning horizons, we have a clear vision of the future. Any wonder it feels like a religion! I bet if I got to evangelise PO at a BC conference, the folks there would 'see the light' (going out!) and would start to think a bit further out for themselves, not just looking at news feeds.

Interesting possibility that with a good bit of BCP and some real good luck, a business may be the one to stay up-and-running during a temporary event (e.g. widespread power cuts). Depending on the nature of the business, that might turn out to be a really good selling point (along the lines of the Windmill theatre strapline "We Never Closed!").

I have a sneaking feeling some unusual suspects are cottoning on to this: Wal-Mart have been demonstrating an unlikely interest in Renewables of late, for example.

RenewableCandy wrote:Interesting possibility that with a good bit of BCP and some real good luck, a business may be the one to stay up-and-running during a temporary event (e.g. widespread power cuts). Depending on the nature of the business, that might turn out to be a really good selling point (along the lines of the Windmill theatre strapline "We Never Closed!").

I'm sure that is one of the the key motivations behind BCP. The problem is whether businesses can really grasp the scope of the change necessary to make their businesses resilient. It isn't just a question of back up power or disaster recovery centres. If there are non-local power cuts affecting the business's customers and if, say, the business or business's customers sell a constantly updated, digital product (the ultimate just-in-time delivery), BCP should involve a critical examination of their whole business model/marketing strategy. That would fundamentally conflict with the rest of their business strategy.

Part of the Transition Town movement is trying to get businesses to plan for PO. It will be interesting to see over the next few years how successful TT initiatives are in this.

My MP has asked for an explanation of Transition West Berkshire and he owns a very large agricultural estate, run organically. He's also going over to biomass heating and I'm trying to get him interested in Terra Preta. He's in a position to feed half of Reading as well as West Berkshire if he went over to gardening rather than farming post PO.

Just hope there's time to get enough people converted before Doomsday.

Mean Mr Mustard wrote:While well written by a Business Continuity specialist, bet she's not even heard of Peak Oil. Yet.

Well, %^$?&* me, I know the author,


Peter.

Perhaps it's time we forget HMG and go chatting up the large landowners about growing food. After all there's already Prince Charles!

Round here we've got Castle Howard (just East of York) and Harewood House.

And before I hear any screams from Stage Left (I too am somewhere on Stage Left btw) some of these characters are more friendly to this kind o'thing than you'd ever dream. For example the chap who let CAT use his land (and since sold it to them), and the Hunt Night Out I encountered while collecting for Greenpeace in the pubs of Bath, who gave us more moolah than anywhere else!

My wife and I run two food shops, the conclusion I have come up with is to have an eye on the future and be flexible and prepared without forgetting about the present, if you like, a business plan for now and another for later. We could not simply go down the route of preparing our business for the peak as we would likely go out of business before hand. The customer is still king and we have to provide what they want and at the price they expect it.

Neil