Dependence on Foreign Oil or Foreign Food?

There is a well established saying that capital follows opportunity. One has to wonder where the smart capital of the future is thinking about traveling to as the environment for food production in United States becomes increasingly politicized. Particularly, what are the economic and personal consequences of dependence on foreign sources of the main foodstuffs consumed by people in this country?

The United States has done an excellent job of both preventing and containing the outbreaks of "export stopping" diseases, especially in animals. This is vital if exports are expected to continue to rise as a percentage of total production. A quick look across the pond to the United Kingdom brings back the economic, political and animal welfare consequences of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. In the most recent outbreak, the bug has been tentatively identified as a strain which is used by one of the vaccine makers in the UK but all of this is preliminary at this point. However, what is not preliminary is that Japan has announced the curtailment of imports of UK pork meat. In 2001 about seven million sheep and cattle were euthanized and burned in the fields. Stringent control of travel, a complete freeze on movements of animals and a big gamble not to use the foot and mouth vaccine proved successful fairly quickly but at a loss in the tens of billions.

Most other places throughout the globe which offer the possibility of next generation livestock production benefits such as low cost grain, moderate climate, low cost capital and reasonably stable political environments (to name a few), have compensating weaknesses related to infrastructure, established containment strategies for "export stopping diseases" and little local demand (meaning exports would be crucial to modern production development). Most people point to candidate sites in Russia, Brazil, and far Eastern Europe as key future development areas.

Imagine a scenario where the production leaves the U.S. and carcasses are imported. Not all the production of course would leave but let's say over 10 years, 25% of it relocates. An outbreak of an export stopping disease in one of these foreign lands would stop shipments of carcasses to the U.S. and the consumer cost of meat in the U.S. would go through the roof. Slow food would become very popular but also very expensive. I am trying to imagine a new, scaled up, and commoditized approach to locally produced food. Luckily, ingenuity is the hallmark of the capitalist system of production whether it is in food or other products and services.