Growing doubts

THIS week sees the launch of Environment And Food, a book by UCC geography lecturer Colin Sage.

The brevity of the title should not obscure the stark content, which explains how the global agri-food system has created problems for the future, for all of us.

Sage’s argument is that “the global agri-food system is unjust, wasteful, and utterly unsustainable in its current form, and requires thorough restructuring not only to address these failures, but also to make it capable of adapting to the stresses of climate change, water scarcity and rising energy costs”.

It is tempting to dismiss this as yet another construct of doom — why should we be concerned when we have more food at cheaper prices than ever before?

Isn’t the application of agricultural and food science to food productivity one of the greatest achievements of humankind? Why burden ourselves with more responsibility when putting food on the table is an economic strain for many?

Because consumer responsibility is one aspect of a complex tangle of interests, where many food companies work at building profits above the interests of consumers, primary food producers and the environment. Those at the top — the farmers that produce the raw ingredients — and those at the end of the chain, us, the consumers, are increasingly distanced and dislocated from any understanding of how our food is produced.

Farmers are becoming hapless captives of an agri-food system that increases output above other concerns, most especially the long-term consequences for health, natural resources and social justice. Consumers are ill-informed and the expectation for us to make responsible food choices is not realistic. We have, as Sage says, “learnt to accept the retailers’ refrain that what we want is cheap and convenient food”.

All of this forces us to think hard about how people farm, how people get their food and how people use resources. The call to think is overwhelming, troubling and depressing. Sage’s new book is an accessible aid to making the task less demanding. Through seven chapters, he outlines the nature and development of the global agri-food system, especially since 1945.

Here, he says, the combination of global public policy and corporate interest has encouraged a liberalised market-driven system that has seen both developed and developing countries mashed into a global food network.

Through successive chapters he explores how agriculture and food processing has been modelled to produce more at ever lower prices. As a result, finite resources — soil, water, fossil fuels — are reaching exhaustion.

We have worked ourselves into a system of agricultural production, Sage says, that has not only left behind a toxic environment, but has threatened future food security for both the developed and developing worlds.

The challenges of climate change, water security and ‘peak oil’ make urgent the need to look more closely “at some of the least desirable features of the current system, and then work toward achieving some consensus for their elimination”.

Add to this the transfer and adoption of western food preferences among the emerging economies of Asia — most notably the growing demand for meat and dairy produce — and it makes coming up with a sustainable system not only urgent but critical.

The outstanding value of Environment And Food is how it explains that cheap food comes at a cost that has global and local consequence.

Cheap food hides the real cost of farmers going out of business, an environment left in potential ruin, the exploitation of migrant and often illegal labour and an ever-expanding array of processed foods that are not only nutritionally poor but often injurious to health. Cheap food gives the illusion of plenty. We are overfed and often malnourished, essentially food poor.

Little wonder then, says Sage, “that shopping for food may then reflect a desire to maximise calories and the satisfaction of ‘feeling filled’ for every pound, euro or dollar spent. Such cheap food may be more affordable, but is often the least healthy and may be a major determinant in obesity, high blood pressure and the onset of diabetes”.

Most cynical is the industry response in producing new goods that gloss over its failures — ‘low fat’, ‘no sugar’, ‘less salt’, labels that Sage says “give manufactures the opportunity to sell more with seemingly no cost to the waistline or cardiac health”. We have been manipulated to become decadent consumers — we buy too much, we eat too much, waste too much and this at a time when one billion people in the developing world are hungry or at least malnourished for part of the year.

The issues and challenges presented in Environment And Food are complex but they affect all of us — health, illness, water shortage and water charges, rising energy costs, refuse disposal. The book demonstrates the interconnectedness of the concerns of food and the environment, how we live and how we will live into the future.

The closing chapters are the most vital. They outline that while it is important to be informed, it is more important to know how to take action.

The rise of alternative food markets, farmers’ markets and the like is well known, but new initiatives such as urban farming, rooftop glasshouses, community farming and the idea of food citizenship seem to offer new ways of wrestling free from the control of the agri-food industry.

As a case in point, Sage selects the example of the Community Food Security Coalitions, which bring together 300 organisations across North America with the aim of building “strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times”.

Public demand for food strategies that are more sustainable and secure encourages the idea of food planning, which brings together a diverse range of people concerned with public health and social justice with a sound ecological base.

A move to taking back control must make secure, healthy food and the idea of food citizenship items of public debate.

Take Environment And Food as your starting guide. It deserves a place in every school, college, home and public library.