Food and Farming - the Future?

Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures, a UK government-commissioned study into food security, the first study across a range of disciplines, the culmination of a two-year study, involving 400 experts from 35 countries, has called for urgent action to avert global hunger and says the current system is unsustainable and will fail to end hunger unless radically redesigned.

According to the government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now.

"We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8.3 billion people. We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70% of the world's population will be living in cities at that time. We know that the world is getting more prosperous and that the demand for basic commodities - food, water and energy - will be rising as that prosperity increases, increasing at the same time as the population. We have 20 years to arguably deliver something of the order of 40% more food; 30% more available fresh water and of the order of 50% more energy. We can't wait 20 years or 10 years indeed - this is really urgent."

The food production system will need to be radically changed, not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably. The report says that "piecemeal" changes are not an option: "Nothing less is required than a redesign of the whole food system to bring sustainability to the fore."

As SOYMB so often points out, the experts and think-tanks can identify the problems and possess the knowledge and resources to provide the remedies. But given our current profit-orientated social system, there are going to be continual problems. But this does not mean that the potential is not there for us to solve them, once production is directly for need. For instance, when assessing 40 success stories from Africa the authors say the spread of existing best-practice could treble food production.

But they will utterly fail in their objective for food and agriculture to move up the political agenda and to persuade policy makers of the need of concerted action on many fronts. Despite the best intentions of everybody, capitalism can only do too little, too late. There exists within capitalism vested interests that stand in the way of achieving sustainability and to cause socialists to question the view that a change in priorities about food production is enough to ensure sustainability while capitalism continues to exist. The solution has to involve a fundamental shift in the priorities of society. But this is unlikely to happen without a change in the economic basis of society itself. Where there is short term profit to be made at the expense of long term sustainability we will continue to see problems. Capitalism is all about short term gain and realisation of immediate profit as the previous blog post indicated. The idea that capitalism can be humanised and changed by a series of reforms is almost as old as the capitalist system itself. The question of "how can we maximise profits?" currently gets priority. Food will only be produced if there is a market for it — i.e. people with the money to buy it. The needs of those without money do not count. The assumption that food will only be produced for markets pervades the debate about whether the world can be fed.

There are potential future environmental risks posed by fast developing, new technologies. These could arise from new means by which the genetic structures of the natural world might be altered (not to mention possible manipulation at the molecular level.) This further emphasises the need for democratic, social control of how the resources of our planet are managed. It is as the report says "Achieving a strong evidence base (of the safety or otherwise) in controversial areas is not enough. Genuine public debate needs to play a crucial role".

The solution is to change the economic system. In a socialist world, there will be no profit. Food production will be democratically decided. The human need for a livable eco-system will be considered as a normal part of all decision making. Socialism would allow us to develop and implement food production with two simple questions in mind: Which means will best meet our needs? Which methods are sustainable?