Sustenance

Food for all.

Community

The primary provider of sustenance as a BASE service has to be the Community. The basic definition of Community is about where you live and that also means where you eat. But it is also true that food security and variety will require sourcing food from outside the local Community as well.
Sustenance needs to be available in various forms to meet different needs, these are reviewed below.

Standard Sustenance Equivalence (SSE)

Standard Sustenance Equivalence (SSE) is a metric that provides a metric for the management and distribution of Sustenance services.
The SSE is expressed in per person terms, and is calculated as the average daily cost of a basic, nutrious diet.

There are two components to the SSE:

• Cost
  • The cost of growing
  • The cost of distribution
  • The cost of preparation
• Quality
  • Nutrition minimums
  • Contaminant maximums
  • Prohibited contents
    Drugs, including alcohol
  • Medicines

Types

Emergency Sustenance

Communities need to be able to provide a limited amount of immediately available basic facilities to cope with short term needs and emergencies.
Emergency rations should be available to feed a small number of people who have either been displaced by distaster, such a fire, or find themselves without alternative nutrition.
The ability to provide expanded temporary sustenance to cope with larger disasters affecting large numbers of the Community should be part of the Region and State emergency plans.

Prepared Sustenance

To address the needs to those on the move or not able to prepare their own food for any reason, sustenance in a prepared, ready-to-eat form needs to be available. These forms can be available from commerical or public facilities.

Commercial Facilities

Any commercial establishment can be licensed to sell specific items of prepared food that are SSE compliant.

Community Centers

To address a variety of needs in their community, Community Centers can prepare food for consumption on premises or for delivery to local schools, institutions, public employees and the homes of those unable to move or otherwise needing assistance.

Home prepared food

For those choosing to prepare meals at home, SSE credits are available to purchase food items from commercial outlets.

Accessing BASE Sustenance

While undoubtedly the most efficient means of providing sustenance is as a service from a community center, there may be situtations where in order to accommodate a wide variety of sustenance needs, the mobility of citizens or a variety of sources, BASE Sustenance could be delivered as a credit to each Community member. The credit would stored in a distributed BASE services system and accessed by using the BASE Card (BASEC), the equivalent to a debit payment card, with verification via the xID system.
The account of every citizen is credited with one period’s SSE each period (a typical period will be between one week and one month). Unused funds are cleared at the end of the period, when the next period’s credit is applied.

Commercial Prepared

The BASEC can be presented at any commercial outlet for payment of prepared items that that outlet is licensed to supply as part of the BASE Sustenance service.
The maximum credit available for payment of prepared food is the equivalent to one day’s SSE.

Commercial Unprepared

The BASEC can be presented at any commercial outlet for payment of grocery items that that outlet is licensed to supply as part of the BASE Sustenance service.
The maximum available for payment of basic/unprepared food is the equivalent to one period’s SSE.

Public service access

At Community Centers and other public access Sustenance service providers, the BASEC card is presented and the SSE debited from the outstanding credit balance. With suitable reciprocal arrangements, citizens from other places should also have the same access, as necessary, to public Sustenance services outside of their own Community.