TABLE 2.
Needed Policy and Social Changes to Support a Smooth Food System Transition as Oil Prices Rise
| Policy and Social Changes | Promoting change |
| Planning and preparing (many of these are ongoing) | |
| Conduct monitoring, including surveillance of food prices, nutrition, food security, and equity. | Planning bodies, academic partners, with government funding |
| Develop and use planning infrastructure. Convene stakeholders, set standards, develop plans. | Local, state, regional, national, international government bodies; food policy councils; interagency work groups; emergency planning |
| Scrutinize proposed solutions for unintended consequences including through use of Health Impact Assessment, and develop interventions to address these. | Planning bodies, academic partners, with government funding |
| To recruit a new generation of farmers, efforts are needed to make agriculture a more desirable and economically stable profession, including through policy efforts to stabilize farm prices, subsidizing both farm and health insurance. | Farm Bill,92 health care policy |
| Educate and communicate with the public, policymakers, farmers, and others about future oil scarcity and benefits of early adaptation. | Media, governmental communications |
| Addressing short-term consequences of rising oil prices | |
| Ensure as equitable distribution of food as possible as prices rise, including through expanded food assistance programs, expanded funds for home and community food production and distribution, and possible new mechanisms such as rationing. | Farm Bill; additional local, state, federal, international policies |
| Provide aid to support adaptation and crisis response internationally, where food security impacts will be more dire. | Farm Bill, federal agencies |
| Restrict the concentration and market power of the major food corporations and retailers. | Farm Bill, enforce competition laws, regulate fair prices |
| Adaptation 1: Reduced oil in food production | |
| Incentivize lower-oil food production methods and farm transitioning | Farm Bill, climate policy carbon offsets |
| Make available information and technical assistance for farmers. Provide training to new agricultural workers and retrain existing ones. | Farm Bill, economic stimulus and green jobs programs |
| While ensuring an adequate safety net and transition plan, move away from incentives for high-oil food production, including relevant policies in Farm Bill; funds for infrastructure and marketing to support industrial production. | Farm Bill, climate policy, trade policy, check-off programs |
| “Internalize the externalities”—require firms to pay more fully for costs such as environmental and social impacts. | Environmental policy enforcement, legal challenges, ecotaxation |
| Fund agricultural and economic research to optimize and regionally adapt low-oil agricultural methods and systems, including developing appropriate plant and animal breeds. | Farm Bill, state land grant university funding |
| Adaptation 2: Increased food system energy efficiency and renewable energy | |
| Regulate and incentivize energy efficiency in farm, cargo, and consumer vehicles and equipment. | Climate policy, energy policy, transportation policy, Farm Bill |
| Invest in research and incentives for renewable energy transitions. | Climate policy, energy policy, Farm Bill |
| Adaptation 3: Changed food consumption patterns | |
| To the extent possible, work to ensure availability and accessibility of healthy food to enable meeting dietary needs. | Farm Bill, food policy councils, CDC, state and local health departments, planning departments, agriculture departments, etc. |
| Support consumer education and social marketing about relative oil inputs in different foods and about making lower-oil food choices generally. Link to public health cobenefits. | CDC; state, local health department funding; foundation and corporate-sponsored campaigns; HHS/USDA interagency working group to increase visibility of adhering to DRI for total protein and reducing animal protein |
| Provide incentives for purchasing lower-oil foods to provide demand-driven incentives to shift the food supply. | Tax or subsidy incentives through state and local governments |
| Support psychological, communications, and behavioral economics research on effectively, relatively painlessly shifting oil-relevant social norms and expectations, and individual behavior, while avoiding alienating the public. | CDC; state, local public health budgets |
| Challenge food industry formulations, placements, and marketing that make it difficult even for motivated consumers to avoid overconsumption. | Legal challenges, voluntary programs, FDA regulation |
| Adaptation 4: Reduced food transportation distance | |
| Develop regionally adapted nutrition guidance for year-round foodshed eating under dietary guidelines. Develop food preservation–safety information. | CDC authorization |
| Support re-regionalizing efforts including development of local production, processing, distribution, marketing infrastructures, and maintenance of food reserves for emergencies. | Farm Bill, food policy councils |
| Integrate agricultural change with regional and urban planning. | Food policy councils, zoning policy, other planning policy |
| Transition away from reliance on food imports and exports. | Trade policy, marketing and social norms efforts |
| Government and other institutional purchasers shift their purchasing to help stimulate development of re-regionalized food economies. | Legislation mandating governmental purchasing changes, incentives for local/regional purchasing and disincentives for nonlocal/nonregional |
| Plan for and continue to support food aid in areas of critical need; plan for cross-foodshed emergency support. | Bilateral and multilateral aid policy, planning policy |
| Study and model food production and delivery systems and impacts of policy decisions on health outputs associated with food. | Farm Bill, state and local governments, CDC authorization |
| Promote worker safety and health in changed conditions, including through training, regulation, research, and mandating OSHA oversight of all agricultural workplaces | OSHA standards and enforcement, OSHA policy, NIOSH funds |
Note. CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; DRI = dietary reference intake; FDA = United States Food and Drug Administration; HHS = United States Department of Health and Human Services; NIOSH = National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; OSHA = Occupational Safety and Health Administration; USDA = United States Department of Agriculture.