Good news… at least relatively speaking. In the event of a catastrophic event like a nuclear attack or solar storm, an average-sized city’s (surviving) population doesn’t necessarily require a huge amount of nearby farming space to sustain itself. While the findings detailed in a study published May 7 in the journal PLOS One may seem a small comfort, emergency preparedness research can offer urban planners and government authorities valuable information on the critical role of local farming and how to plan contingencies for an absolute worst-case scenario.

Assessing Global Catastrophic Risks and the Critical Role of Local Farming

Certain nightmare events will be nearly impossible to endure as a species. For example, total nuclear war could easily render the planet inhabitable for the vast majority of life, including humans. The same can be said for an efficiently evolved supervirus or massive asteroid strike. While these are horrific to consider, more localized catastrophes like a dirty bomb’s radioactive fallout or a major solar storm frying a regional electrical grid are arguably more likely. But as scary as those still are, immediate survivors could endure and recover if they adopt strategic urban and near-urban agricultural practices.

“Abrupt global catastrophic risks (GCRs) are not improbable and could massively disrupt global trade leading to shortages of critical commodities, such as liquid fuels, upon which industrial food processing, processing, and distribution depends,” the authors wrote in the study.

Previous work frequently examined urban agriculture techniques such as community, home, and rooftop gardens for resiliency planning. However, catastrophic risk consultant Matt Boyd argues that people need to broaden their scope if they hope to weather any potential dystopian lean times.

“During a global catastrophe that disrupts trade, fuel imports could cease, severely impacting the industrial food production and transportation systems that keep our supermarket shelves filled,” Boyd said in the study’s accompanying statement. “To survive, populations will need to dramatically localize food production in and around our cities. This research explores how we might do that.”

Read the full article about local farming in urban areas by Andrew Paul at Popular Science.