Is livestock production prepared for an electrically paralysed world?

Last Thursday I had the pleasure to stand in front of the elite of agricultural sciences and say “We are all going to die!”

After a short pause I continued with “... what we do with the time before we die does matter!”

This was my introduction to the invited talk at Tervise loom ja tervislik toit 2013 [Healthy animals and healthy food 2013] on how livestock production might prepare for an electrical paralysed period. 
August last year I published an opinion on the subject in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture that seemed to create quite a lot of publicity nationally and internationally. To my surprise I had suddenly become an "expert" on something I had meant to be a concerned comment for those wiser than me. Apparently few others had given this topic a thought - what happens to our food production in an all out power shortage.

I was very moved by the massive positive feedback following the talk I gave, from students to professors. It was a feeling of actually moving a thought or two, perhaps even moving a single opinion even.

I decided to put up the article and the presentation here on the blog for those who could not attend or people interested in the subject. And to those that listened - thank you!

Presentation [English] [Estonian]

Article 
LassenB. 2012 Is livestock production prepared for an electrically paralysedworld? J Sci Food Agric. Oct 19. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.5939. [Epub ahead of print]

Other sources (not given in the article above)
Grigas, A. 2012. Legacies, Coercion and Soft Power: Russian Influence in the Baltic States. Chatham House, London, UK, 16 pp.
Solar storms on National Geographic Magazine.