Something needs to change in how we produce and consume food. Indications that this view is widely shared come from sources as diverse as the proliferation of farmers’ markets in the US, Monsanto’s Sustainable Yield Initiative, community supported agriculture (CSA) as a new business model for getting fresh produce to consumers, and the emerging interest in food and agriculture on the campuses of universities not traditionally focused on the sector, like MIT. But what needs to change? How is the food system best revitalized to meet present and future needs? Here are some ideas.
So, let’s get down to it. WHAT IS NOT WORKING?
Our Food – We live in a time when the material and process we use to sustain ourselves is connected to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. We face a public health crisis related to food, which is ironic given food’s potential to heal, protect, and fortify the human mind and body. The challenge is that the ingredients to feed ourselves healthy food are expensive, and the means and know-how are no longer an ingrained part of our culture; as a result, fresh and healthily prepared food is available to the few, not the many.
Diversity in the food supply – Let’s talk about the crops first. Billions of people depend heavily on a few commodity crops, like corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat. Though our food supply has geographic diversification, our current system supports a limited range of non-commodity production, especially in the US where subsidies heavily influence farmers’ decisions about what to produce. I don’t know enough about the history of commodity agriculture to tell you the extent to which the narrow focus of our mainstream food supply has contributed to our environmental woes. I do know that biodiversity in fields, reduction of runoff from fertilizers, and replenishment of soil nutrients do not happen with mono-cropping.
Then there’s the question of diversity in our food companies. Among commodity traders, the ABCDs (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus) have significant influence. Through millions of channels around the globe, they consolidate control of the commodities and trade them on the global market. The companies buying these commodities consider themselves highly differentiated in their product offerings: General Mills, Kellogg’s, Kraft, PepsiCo, ConAgra. But when I look at the Fortune 500 food companies I don’t see companies that are producing the kind of wholesome, nutritious food I want to buy. I see a lot of consolidation, especially when I look at the ingredient labels on my food: how many of these companies sell products that don’t include high-fructose corn syrup purchased through ADM or Cargill? What should we make of the fact that the biggest food companies are buying essentially the same products from the same few global traders?
Transparency – I have to admit, I’m over the “food miles” conversation. It sits wrong with me because it implies that the fewer the miles traveled, the better the food. But it fails to account for mode of transportation, speed of transportation, farmer well-being, or the fertilizers and pesticides used in the fields. We live in 2010! Why are we still using proxies like “food miles”, “organic”, and “local” in place of data? The answer is easy: We don’t have that data. Even if we did, it wouldn’t allow us to weigh the tradeoffs that are inherent in any natural system because we don’t have the tools to transform the metrics for environmental, social, economic, or other impact, into meaningful information off of which we can make optimal decisions. We’re suffering from mixed and conflicting messages, with no way to sort through it all.
Huge waste – What are we thinking? The NIH tells us that on average we throw away 1400 calories per person per day. Yet, the food we buy does not come from a limitless place; we’re up against capacity constraints. Plants need nitrogen, potassium and phosphate to grow, and farmers add these in fertilizer form to replenish the nutrients in their soil. However, we are running out of phosphate. That’s right. Our supply of one of the necessary inputs to plant growth is reaching its limit. We need to find a new balance for supply and demand, especially considering the environmental degradation that some farming practices cause. Does our lost connection to the land and the people that produce our food make us insensitive or immune to the challenges and limitations at the source?
The kitchen – Are we even equipped, as a population, to eat well? Certainly there are some among us who devote time and effort to eating freshly prepared foods. I probably spend eight hours a week in the kitchen, even at my busiest times, because I simply refuse to eat out for my daily meals. I make five servings of oatmeal every Sunday so that I have breakfast for the week; I make a main course that provides leftovers for days; I keep baking potatoes, frozen broccoli, sautéed spinach, yogurt, carrot sticks, and peanut butter on hand for quick lunches and snacks. I do well, but it takes a lot of time. And I care immensely, don’t have kids, and can afford weekly loads of groceries. Is there a way to retain the efficiency and time savings we believe we’ve achieved with fast food, but re-instill the nutritional and social value of our food?
Attracting the next generation of farmers – Okay, okay, I know some of you are going to say that young people are starting farms for the first time in decades, which is true. It’s great that a new generation of farmers is taking up the calling, but they’re hardly a blip in the numbers. Around the world I have encountered an aging farmer population. Two things are going on. In one scenario, large farms in developed countries have made enough money to send their kids to college, to get MBAs, and to become investment bankers, which makes rural farm life seem less appealing. A second scenario is that small farms in both developed and developing countries eke out a living and young people go to the cities to find more lucrative work. Furthermore, in countries like the US, land and equipment investments are huge barriers to entry that keep out just about anyone who might be interested in starting a large-scale farming operation. If Daddy wasn’t a farmer, chances are you’re going to have to start small and stay small. How many industries in the US can say that these days?
Consensus about the urgency of our agricultural challenges – We’re becoming more and more divisive on the question of how we eat. We have companies that role their corporate eyes at the very thought of an organic food system, and we have organic farmers who can’t talk rationally about what the big food companies do. We have rallying cries from journalists and activists, but entrenched subsidies that make wide-scale change a long shot. I don’t think we’re going to be able to solve these intricate, global challenges without collaboration. We’ve got to get out of our corners and forge a path to a healthier food landscape for everyone.
Why are the factors that compromise the healthfulness and unintended consequences of our food so difficult to resolve? One reason is that these are huge challenges and success is not clearly defined. What would a truly restored, regenerative food system look like? How do we begin to design and create that regenerative system? Please share your thoughts!
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