Farming Must Adapt To A Changing World

“Don’t blame population growth: We have enough resources for everyone if we choose to distribute things better. We already grow enough food for over 10 billion people, we just waste 30%, and feed large chunks to our cars, power stations and livestock.” Duncan Williamson, food policy manager, WWF UK

How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on peoples’ well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of the economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change and economic inequality. Every year two million people die from unsafe food and water around the world. Food safety experts warn these deaths may be caused by human design, and nowhere is this trend more prevalent than in China.

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Feeding the people of the world puts a lot of stress on the environment. Farming takes more than 40% of land and half the planet’s available freshwater. We may need to raise productivity by 70% by 2050. The simplest way to grow more food is to use more land, but it would come with a major environmental cost. Climate change, too, is putting a lot of strain on our food supply. The challenges and dilemmas we are facing today include how to grow more using less in a sustainable manner; how to optimise the entire food value chain reducing the carbon footprint from field to fork; protect the environment and support biological diversity and better the lives of rural populations. Scientific findings have shown that rising temperatures increasingly affect food crops. It is projected that, based on a scenario of an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, without taking into account changes in rainfall patterns, production of major food crops would decline. Consumers has grown to assume that supermarket produce departments will always overflow with abundant varieties of fruits and vegetables but before those commodities are processed, transported and displayed store-shelves, they begin in the fields of farms — not through some miracle of spontaneous generation. And there would be no harvest without the toil of men and women but above all, without a healthy eco-system.

Just as some foods are better and some worse for people, so are some ways of producing food better for our world as a whole. Flooding fields for rice production in a drought. Using antibiotics that develop resistances in livestock. Using pesticides and herbicides that are bad long-term for the soil and have been linked to colony collapse in bees and cancers in humans. Little things like that.

Some experts argue that increased productivity is just a part of the solution, and rather the real solution lies in “global food justice.” This includes creating access to food, finding alternative sources of food, changing food habits to more environmentally-friendly ones, establishing a global food bank for the impoverished, and global food planning.

Today, one U.S. farmer produces enough food to feed 155 people. Tomorrow, all U.S. farmers will face demand that will require they produce even more food, on the same or fewer acres, with fewer inputs. If global agriculture has to produce 70 percent more food over the next 40 years than it does today, can a single U.S. farmer produce enough food for 264 people? It is perplexing that with the introduction of new technology at an ever increasing rate, the public welcomes and uses the new technology in every aspect of their lives except in the business of food production. Taking away the opportunity for farmers to use these new tools of production, and recommending that they go back to farming the way it was done before the 1930's will only limit current production. There’s nothing unexpected about environmentalists or Big Ag farmers lobbying politicians. But science is science, and should be heard. If it can be shown that some ways of growing food are as good for the Earth as good foods are for our bodies, why should we hold back progress? As food plays such a central role in human survival, this change will inevitably entail a reconsideration of every aspect of the global system we live under from land use to time management and working hours, and those with vested interested can be expected to resist such change.

Climate change is the spectre at every feast, the unstoppable rot that undermines every positive development. The failure at Copenhagen in 2009 bleeds indistinguishably into the fudge at Durban in 2011 and on into the feeble compromise in Lima in 2014, which sets us up for the bigger disappointment of Paris in 2015. And even if by some miracle we get a useful agreement in Paris next year, nothing will actually be done until 2020. The world’s investors—both big and small—think primarily in terms of making good returns on their money. And, over the years, investing in the fossil fuel industry has been considered a safe bet.

In October the Pope told a meeting of Latin American and Asian landless peasants and other social movements: “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.

“The system continues unchanged, since what dominates are the dynamics of an economy and a finance that are lacking in ethics. It is no longer man who commands, but money. Cash commands. The monopolising of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness,” he said.

We can only concur. Accelerating global problems cannot be solved in a society obsessed with production and consumption, affluent living standards, market forces, the profit motive and economic growth. If the 9 billion people of the future were to live as Australians do now, we would need about 72 billion hectares of productive land – about nine times the total on Earth. If the expected 9 billion people were to enjoy the ”living standards” forecast for Australians by 2050 (assuming 3% yearly economic growth), the world’s total consumption would be about 30 times as much as it is now. Yet despite the present unsustainable levels of production and consumption, we remain determined to increase them as much as possible, without any end in sight. The supreme goal is economic growth, but few people seem to recognise the absurdly impossible implications. It is difficult to see how anyone aware of these basic numbers could avoid accepting that people in countries like Australia should be trying move to far simpler and less resource-intensive lifestyles and economies. It is also now clear that increasing the GDP in a country does not improve the quality of life or make people any happier.

So let’s shift to the simpler socialist way of life, liberating ourselves to enjoy a far higher quality of life than we have now. Socialism is a radical new economy: one with no growth and not driven by market forces. This does not mean we must have centralised, bureaucratic, authoritarian, distant, Big Brother state. Most of the decisions that matter would be taken at the level of the town assembly. Democracy would be participatory or delegatory, as opposed to representative. Central governments could not possibly run our small local communities. That could only be done by the people who live there, and who understand the local needs and opportunities. People would work on voluntary rosters, committees and community work groups to maintain infrastructure and provide services, (running administration without any politicians or bureaucracy, via elected citizens’ committees and popular assemblies.) Towns and districts will collectively take basic control of their local productive systems. We would develop as much self-sufficiency as possible, producing much of what we need from local resources. People would not work for money and only for one or two days a week. In capitalist society we work far harder than necessary.

A return to homes with gardens and city centre allotments so there would be almost no need for food packaging, food transport or marketing. From field to fork, the average dinner, today, has traveled 1500 miles. Relocating our workplaces from the suburbs back to the neighbourhood once again, permitting us to get to work by bicycle or on foot rather than time-wasteful and energy consuming commuting distances. Surrounding the town would be a regional economy in which more elaborate items would be produced, such as glass, hardware and machine-tools. A few items, such as steel, would need be moved longer distances from bigger factories, located near their ores or mines.

Living more simply does not mean deprivation or hardship. It means being content with what is sufficient, and seeking enjoyment from non-material pursuits. Living in ways that are frugal and that minimise resource use should not be seen as a burden or sacrifice that must be made to save the planet. These ways can be sources of great life satisfaction. Neither does it mean turning our backs on the modern world. A sustainable socialist society would let us keep all the high-tech ways that are socially desirable. We would have far more resources for science, research, education and the arts than we have now because we would have stopped wasting vast amounts of resources on non-necessities. Socialist sustainability comes from doing more with less.  We can continue to increase goods and services while consuming less. We do not need to return to lower technology existence but we need to eliminate unnecessary consumption. Imagine the waste of resources that exists in the production of armaments and then the waste through the destruction of actual war itself.  

Turning these ideas into reality requires overcoming the power of the capitalist system. Humanity didn't conquer the world through competition. We work best when we work cooperatively. Once upon a time it was the despotic kings who forced us into slavery, but we overthrew them, so let’s get together and abolish the tyranny of wage-slavery. Some may believe this vision is a fanciful utopia. However, it is no more unrealistic than those who hold the pipe-dream that capitalism can continue on its course without reaching the cliff’s edge and the fall of humankind.