Back in the seventies we were challenged by a series of energy (or at least oil) crises, but now we see the energy security issue linking ever more tightly to food security, water security, climate security and so on. Indeed, when I sat down with Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC recently, he argued that the biggest mistake the founders of the sustainability movement made was framing the agenda as one for future generations. That was true enough then, he suggested, but today we are living through the early stages of the potential system crash theBrundtland Commission warned us about.
And all of this came to mind as I trawled through Appetite for Change, a new report from SustainAbility, backed by Nestlé, IBM and Sodexo. Apart from suggesting the title some time back, I was not part of the project team, so came to the analysis as an outsider. But the conclusions generally resonated powerfully with Lester Brown’s – and indeed my own – in terms of the growing need for system change.By way of an aperitif, SustainAbility notes that “in just the past couple of weeks, one of the worst E coli outbreaks in history has killed 37 people and made more than 2,600 ill, academics concluded that climate change will have more negative consequences for agriculture than expected, and the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation released a guide warning world farming needs a major shift to more sustainable practices as intensive crop production since the 1960s has degraded soils, depleted ground water and caused pest outbreaks.”
Industry and food system experts interviewed for the report conclude that the food industry is failing to address the true scale of the problem, warning that there is “a startling lack of consensus on the path forward.” The sector may be at an inflection point, but it isn’t at all clear that it knows what to do next.
One thing I found surprising is just how unprofitable much of the food industry can be. Sector executives often settle for lower margins than those in other sectors, while most producers “literally find farming a ticket to poverty – half of the world’s malnourished are themselves farmers.”
Growing unease about food futures is driving some dramatic trends. Until 2008, for example, investment in farmland globally had been running at around 4 million hectares a year, whereas by the end of 2009 it had soared to over 56 million hectares. Seventy per cent of those land acquisitions took place in Africa, generally with little or no links to local markets or interests.
By contrast, SustainAbility concludes, a sustainable food system would be “reliable, resilient and transparent,” producing food within ecological limits, empowering food producers, and ensuring accessible, nutritious food for all. On the evidence presented, however, this looks like pie in the sky for most people on this small planet of ours.
One of the most striking aspects of the global food market is that while almost one billion people are undernourished, another billion are what the industry likes to call over-nourished – or obese. I recently heard the Mayor of Arlington, Texas, a city of some 400,000 people, explain that 20 years ago 20 per cent of young people there were obese, a proportion that has now grown to 40 per cent, with no solutions obvious – except, though he didn’t say this, getting Arlingtonians out of their cars, away from their TVs and back to more traditional, healthier diets. More
