DP4: The day the farmer became industrial

The previous chapter outlined the truthful connections occurring in our systems, contrasting the “Micky Mouse Model” as representation of the World. If understanding development can be defined as aligning actions to the real system, I would like to suggest a practice to support the adjustment dealing with a central aspect among development issues: food security.  Vital for the strict interconnection which ties it with poverty: food security will not be improved without relief in poverty, while poverty will not be alleviated without addressing food security.

First of all, a little clarification on the meaning. When talking about food security I refer to the whole set of mechanisms which enable people to have granted the vital provision of caloric needs thanks to a proper allocation of edible resources, over time. I include into the structure elements which deal with production, circumstances of distribution, and considerations related to the end-use.

Some of my fellow students provided bright insights on the mechanisms which undermines food security. For instance:

• food wastage, at the end of the “value chain”;
• overconsumption, with the extreme of increasing obesity rate, again in the demand side;
• market and geopolitical mechanisms, disturbing, altering and impeding adequate allocation, instead of facilitating it;
• land management, pollution, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss;
• competition with energy supply regarding biofuels production.
• Lack of infrastructures and technology in the developing world;

The share of the problem is so immense that claiming to have the solution will represent really presuming assumption. Nonetheless, I would like to drive a reflection about the matter that may be seen as the most logical and accessible; I would start from the apparent simplicity of a question to which everyone should answer: how should we grow our food?

Industrial Agriculture

Ten thousand years ago humankind gave a huge step forward to start civilization thanks to the discover of what represented the solution to starvation: agriculture. Ten thousand years later, such precious art has been turned the cause of starvation instead of the solution. While yesterday the farmers were experts of nature secrets, today most of them turned to be petrochemical adepts; from the point of view of the most involved, agriculture seems to be doing great to help close the gap regarding hunger: for instance, since 1960 production of cereals has increased by 250%, even outpacing population growth. Consequently the apologue of food scarcity fails. We should instead wondering how then it is possible that absolute number of malnourished people, defined by minimal energy consumption, keep growing, as stated on the “Human Development Report 2010”. That recalls the numerous and complex issues causing poverty, few of which mentioned above.

Yet, the situation can be  even more troublesome: the way we produce food today is due to certain failure, calling for a catastrophe in a business as usual scenario. To have an idea, the following video couldn’t present it better: save and grow

My suggestion:

The food growing system of the future should attain:

• Sustainability – ­ecosystems shows us how a plant community advances, without the dependence of external agents as fertilizers and pesticides. Nature counts on diversity against the monoculture system of industrial agriculture; nature counts on symbiosis between species, as advanced in the system thinking theory everything holds a specific function which helps the system do better; nature draws on long lasting perennial plants, against annual crops, which loss resiliency and deplete the soil.
• Security – a system which meets the demand in a healthy way, while taking into account long-term concerns. Substances external to nature as the ones derived by petrochemicals are hard to phase out and accumulate in organic tissues causing illnesses. Ecological agriculture can use hundred of nitrogen-fixing species (i.e. legumes) to keep to soil fertile hand welcome micro-helpers insects to get the work done.
• Accessibility – current mechanisms distort farmers’ competition, lead the poor poorer and don’t contribute to reduce hanger. Instead, profits concentrate in the hands of multinational corporations which tie society to fossil fuels: when the depletion of resources will increase prices, more and more farmers will disappear and more people will be under the poverty line. With less % of population able to grow food, we will have less possibility to create solutions. By contrast we need local experts in a financially organized system which benefits the small producers and distribute locally to meet the needs of society, while safeguarding the health of the environment.

To conclude, my thoughts go back to the idea of limitation: maybe something is just not our call; maybe instead of trying continuously to invent something new which may occur in risks to human health, we can taking inspiration from what already exist in nature and does well since ever.

Maybe, instead of genetically engineering our food we need just to observe and learn how ecosystems do it for us. Humanity looks like willing to play God, modifying the principles of life, but the real secret of life, photosynthesis, remain mostly a mystery for us. Maybe the solution of our problems is already inside our systems, we just need to discover it.

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