Towards a Holistic Approach to Address the Global Nutritional Needs
I am happy to see the range and scope of this discussion has made it the very first of its kind to make a truly holistic approach possible. Naturally, its inclusiveness would impart to it a great deal of complexity, but it is this that makes it not only challenging, but also renders it the sole reasonable means of resolving an important issue without further environmental destruction and the severe consequences that entails.
In my comments below, I shall restrict myself to describing the possible generic causes of change in the consumption of food and food systems and how to promote appropriate patterns of eating as well as some means of ensuring the sustainability of environmentally benign food systems. I shall leave their detailed elucidation to other interested parties. My approach will avoid the use of jargon as much as possible while doing everything it can to uphold its epistemological integrity.
My purpose here is to enquire into some possible ways of ensuring our food systems are able to adequately meet the justifiable nutritional needs of the people, sustainable, robust and flexible, I shall rejected at the outset what seems to have been an article of faith with respect to the purpose of food systems, viz., acquisition of profit by meeting the demand for food.
This curious belief might have been justifiable only if there were two categories of people, viz., those who could live without any food and therefore may operate food systems to gain something else they desire, and the others who need food to live. This is patently absurd as intake of food is the sole means of satisfying our cardinal need nutrition ,which has logical priority over all others, hence, the justifiability of regarding the operation of food systems as a purely commercial venture becomes problematic.
Before we proceed, it is necessary to develop a set of sound conceptual tools required to deal with the problem. These are needed to link the changes in food systems to the following notions that constitute our frame of reference:
1. The capacity of our food systems to adequately meet our justifiable nutritional needs in a manner equitable to all.
2. Their sustainability.
3. Their robustness.
4. Their flexibility.
A food system is a mechanism people have evolved with the intention of satisfying one of their cardinal needs, viz., nutrition. Therefore, justifiability of its existence, depends on the success with which its use enables us to achieve that objective. We are familiar with the statistics from the FAO, which raises serious doubts about its success. As food systems have changed in step with human socio-cultural evolution, it is reasonable to suggest that some aspects of that evolution may be at least partly responsible for their current insufficiency.
I postulate that irrespective of their complexity, origins of the uneven success of a modern food system can be traced to two generic causes, viz., its appropriateness for the purpose it is intended to serve, and the ability and skill with which it is used. These will be discussed with a view to identifying possible means of enhancing the utility of food systems.
I further postulate that until recently, we have failed to pay sufficient attention to a food system’s appropriateness, and the importance of the ability and skill all users of a food system ought to possess. In the following discussion, I shall examine these in turn, and try to suggest some felicitous changes in them.
Appropriateness of a food system indicates how well its use under a given set of conditions, would enable one to satisfy one’s nutritional needs in an adequate and an equitable manner. The possibility of its use enabling one to achieve this objective, depends on the ability and skill with which it is used. Possession of this ability and skill implies that its users have an adequate degree of know-how required for the purpose.
The conditions in which a food system is in use, represents its operating environment. Therefore, we will ascertain what constitutes its operating environment with a view to identifying what changes in it would influence the appropriateness of a food system, and then proceed to the ability and skill required for its adequate use.
But before we undertake that task, we need to identify what may be justifiably constitutive of an adequate and equitable satisfaction of one’s nutritional needs. I shall avoid the pitfalls of dietary standardisation, and suggest as our objective, enabling one to have physical access to an equitably priced, balanced diet with reference to one’s nutritional needs. At the risk of being pompous, we will call it the universal dietary goal.
Thus, our purpose is to bring about an individual dietary change towards a balanced diet. This requires bringing about such changes in a food system that would enable its users achieve that objective in the manner described above. We will begin with a brief look at the generic dietary changes, and then go on to ascertain what changes in a food system would bring about the desired result.
Types of Dietary Change
It is a logical fact that a dietary change is ascertained relative to someone’s previous diet. There are two die mentions to a dietary change, viz., a qualitative and a quantitative one. Please note the term qualitative as used here simply refers to the diversity among the victuals consumed. It is necessary, because one cannot always obtain all the nutrients one needs from a single source.
When one’s diet is sufficiently diverse to ensure an adequate access to the nutrients one needs, its qualitative aspect approaches a balanced diet. Its quantitative dimension is concerned with ensuring that it contains sufficient amount of each food item to adequately satisfy one’s nutritional needs.
Thus, a change in one’s diet may represent a qualitative or a quantitative movement away from, or towards one’s diet being a balanced one. We already know that more than 2 billion people have no access to a balanced diet for different reasons. For the sake of brevity, I shall not go into the qualitative and quantitative variations possible here.
Our problem then, is how to ensure our food systems are sustainable, robust and flexible as a means that would enable most of the world’s population to reach the universal dietary goal. But its individual aspect must take into account human food preferences usually governed by one’s food culture.
An important sub-set of one’s culture, Food culture is not simply concerned with culinary matters, it embodies the valuable empirical knowledge and skills acquired over a long period of time, that often reveals the crops and sources of animal food best suited to an area relative to its flora, fauna, geographical and climatic conditions. Thus, a change in a food system that enables one to obtain a balanced diet conforming to one’s food culture is very desirable.
Moreover, it entails a greater bio-diversity among cultivated food plants and household animals. The desirability of this needs no elaboration. Next, let us look at the structure of a food system, and then its operating environment.
A food system is a man-made tool, used with the intention of satisfying one’s nutritional needs. It is axiomatic that the possibility of satisfying a need entails the prior satisfaction of some other needs. For instance, beside digestion and uptake of nutrients, satisfaction of one’s nutritional needs depends on ingestion of food, its preparation if necessary, its procurement, etc.
Thus, the possibility of satisfying our nutritional needs depends on the prior satisfaction of a set of needs they subsume. A brief analysis would reveal that those subsumed needs are arrayed in a hierarchical network with multiple ramifications. So, the possibility of satisfying our nutritional needs, depends on our ability to adequately satisfy those needs they subsume.
We can conceive of the means used to satisfy those subsumed needs as discreet systems. Some of them represent natural systems we use, eg. ecosystems, while the others are man-made. Hence, we can distinguish between two generic system types involved in the use of a food system, viz., natural or ecosystems whose operation is gnomic, and others dependent on intentional and goal-directed human action.
Such human action intended to satisfy a need is governed by a set of cultural norms. Its general acceptance is motivated by the belief that
Undertaking it would enable the people to satisfy some need in a way more or less acceptable to them. Its use manifests itself as a social or an institutional practice. Such a practice manifests itself as a system in use.
A system in use may be reflexive, or it may represent an exchange of more or less commensurable values between two parties. For instanced, one may use a vehicle to transport oneself, or to transport someone else in exchange for a suitable reward. This respectively illustrates the reflexive and exchange type use of a simple transport system.
Cultural evolution has proliferated institutional practices in many parts of the world owing to our efforts to improve our means of attaining what we believe to be desirable ends. Our problem now is to identify the essential parts or the core of a food system, so that we could construe the systems that may justifiably constitute its operational environment.
The Anatomy of a Food System
We can envisage a food system as a composite of discreet sub-systems, where each sub-system may have its own complement of sub-systems, and so on. A sub-system of the whole or a part of a food system, may recur in any other appropriate portion of it. At a minimum, two logically inseparable components, viz., a yielder and an end-user system are constitutive of a food system.
The former is usually a biological system that yields the produce we partake as its end-users. It requires the existence of plants or animals. Their existence depends on the ability of ecosystem services or human help to adequately meet their own biological needs. Those include water, plant nutrients, animal food, etc.
A yielder system may show varying degrees of sophistication. It may be a forest harvested by a simple hunter-gatherer operation, or a huge mechanised farm. Here, wilderness and farm represent two yielder systems. In both cases, sub-systems it subsumes are only concerned with satisfying the biological needs of a yielder system, which may be collectively conceived of as a yielder input provider system.
The end-user system consists of two components, viz., food procurement and a preparation system, and the latter’s output is finally partaken. Procurement of food may range from simple harvesting of nature’s productions to obtaining it in exchange for some action or thing of value. A harvesting system may range from plucking a fruit, to the use of a combined harvester.
Preparation system may depend on two sub-systems. The first is concerned with the need to remove what a social group will not consume from the output of a yielder system, and we will call it the refiner system. Its use may represent a gutting a fish, husking grain, refining sugar, etc.
The output from a refiner system may become the input of the second sub-system of the preparation system. Its purpose is to turn its input into what is actually partaken by a person. We will call it the culinary system. This term as used here includes most of the actions embraced by the term cooking except its preparatory steps like washing the ingredients, trimming away the unusable, boning, skinning, etc., which belongs to the refiner sub-system.
In the course of our social evolution, division of labour was introduced as a means of improving the quality and quantity of our productions, and reducing individual work load. As a direct consequence of this development, agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries emerged as endeavours requiring specific resources and skills. Continued improvements in those led to an increase in the output of yielder systems.
This increase in food production gave rise to the need to develop some system that would enable the early producer/end-user to make one harvest last until the next. As it is intended to enable one to engage in a sequential use of the output of a yielder system, we will call it a sequential use enabler system abbreviate to SUES.
There are three logically distinct problems associated with the sequential use of food. They are, movement of the output of yielder system to where it is to be stored, its safe storage, and finally, ensuring that it remains usable over a period of time. These functions are served by three sub-systems in a SUES. Use of these are not restricted to food systems. Moreover, their deployment in a food system may show a considerable variation in extent.
A storage system may represent a farmer’s own grain loft, a ham hanging in a kitchen, etc. It may use a packaging system to achieve ease of storage and more convenient subsequent use. baskets, jars, etc., are examples of this. A transport system may range from someone carrying his produce home on his back or a bulk carrier of cereals. It may serve to transport items to and from a variety of systems.
In order to counter the perish ability of food, one resorts to some preserver system. Its use may be as simple as drying or salting a fish for personal use or as complex as a large cold storage facility, where a storage system is combined with the preserver system provided by the cooling equipment. It differs from the preparation system in that its output is not intended to be ready to eat.
Meanwhile, the on-going social evolution has further extended the division of labour, which has continued to distance yielder systems and end-users. This development has induced the operators of yielder systems to utilise their output in a new way, viz., to exchange it for something else of equitable value, which a farmer or a fisherman needs, but may not be able to produce himself without excessive difficulty and inconvenience.
It is the convenience and the commensurability of the values exchanged that would justify this use of a yielder system, which the modern food systems are supposed to embody. Possibility of this exchange led to the emergence of a new procurement system, viz., end-user obtaining food in exchange for goods, services or money. However, it is crucial to remember that the purpose of this activity is not just personal enrichment, but equitable mutual benefit.
Continued social evolution and urbanisation have further extended the division of labour resulting in an ever increasing gap between yielder systems and the end-users. This has led to the expansion of the previous exchange mechanism into the modern selling system. It is interposed between the yielder system and the end-user and makes extensive use of SUES as well as some other sub-systems described below.
The selling system may be physically substantial or virtual. The former may be a wholesale or a retail system, and may be speculative or non-speculative. The former involves buying food cheap, waiting and selling it dear when scarce. In virtual selling, future harvests are bought cheap to speculate in commodity futures.
A selling system may use an enticer system to make its output eye-catching, or to make people believe that it is somehow preferable. A seller system may reflexively run the output of their procurement system through a refiner system using SUES before sale. Eg., cuts of meat, poultry, chopped and frozen vegetables. It may be a wholesale or a retail operation, and may or may not use a enticer system.
Meanwhile, in addition to the convenience it offers, the emerging awareness that partaking of meals could give one a satisfaction different from that experienced on simply meeting one’s nutritional needs, has made it possible to operate an end-user system with a view to exchanging its output for profit. Famous restaurants as well as the humbler street kitchens instantiate this merger of an end-user and a selling system.
Lately, this use of end-user system has been industrialised to a great extent in affluent countries. It involves procuring what is needed by the cheapest means, running it through a culinary system, whose output is channelled through a SUES into a seller system as frozen industrial food ready-to-eat after it has been warmed up. The ubiquitous frozen pizza is an unsavoury example of this.
A food system then, may manifest itself as a set of systems consisting of some of those outlined above. Some of them may be run recursively. Apart from enticer, industrialised end-user and modern virtual selling systems, its other sub-systems have been with us since antiquity meeting identical needs, and only how they satisfy them have undergone changes.
Since everyone is aware that one needs food, it is difficult to see how may one justify the inclusion of an enticer system in the core food system without claiming that its intrusion is justified because it is justifiable to profit at the expense of the operators of yielder systems and end-users by claiming to help the latter to satisfy some putative need for information.
Now we can envisage a core food system as a set of sub-systems, where input to a yielder system is our point of departure. Its output serves as the input of some other suitable component system and so on until the end-user procures the final output of the food system. In most cases, input to every sub-system is procured in exchange for money, and the total expense of those exchanges is borne by the end-user.
It is reasonable to maintain that core food system is among the earliest human activities that evolved into an institution. During this process, it made use of various emerging systems, especially those included in SUES.
So, a food system can be seen as one whose sub-systems are distributed in a hierarchical network of other systems.
Therefore, the appropriateness and the adequacy of a food system can be influenced by the systems outside as well as constitutive of it. The former represents its operating environment, while the latter indicates it internal environment. We will begin by considering the external environment of a food system.
What systems are constitutive of a core food system is relative to the level of social evolution of the place where it is in use, or the socio-cultural norms that have diffused into it, or it has grafted onto its own. In all events, socio-cultural norms do not always embody a mechanism to ascertain the possibility of conflict arising among the systems used by a social group, nor yet how to resolve them in a holistic fashion. We may describe the result of this lack of system integration as system incoherence.
Hence, it will be reasonable to suggest that general system incoherence and inadequacies in its users’ ability and skill to use a food system are chiefly responsible for the current state of global nutrition. System incoherence will have adverse effects on both gnomic (ecosystems) and the man-made ones.
Meanwhile, when a holistic system integration does not obtain, system incoherence may bring about the following.
1. Non-sustainable use of natural yielder input system (ecosystems services), eg. water, soil nutrients.
2. Non-sustainable introduction of ecosystem service supplements, eg. irrigation, use of fertilisers and pest control.
3. Ad hoc increase of yielder system output by actions that reduces the bio-diversity of food crops and household animals.
4. Failure to control the introduction of more wasteful systems, eg. food waste in transport, storage, catering, and homes.
5. Failure to introduce better systems or system improvement, eg. wastage in food storage.
6. failure to deploy strategically essential sub-systems like cheap transport and storage systems.
7. Failure to control superfluous systems that burden the producers and end-users, eg. food advertising and speculation in commodity futures.
8. Failure to deploy the essential elements of a food system with reference to the actual location its end-users.
9. Failure to allocate the resources a food system requires owing to their inappropriate allocation to other systems.
10. Reduction of ecosystem services a food system needs owing to inappropriate establishment and operation of other systems.
These ten factors imply that we over use yielder input provider system, waste food, and add unnecessary extra cost to the food available to the end-user and deprive those operate yielder systems fair reward. Moreover, less than optimal deployment of storage and transport facilities will have an adverse effect on the nutrients in most fruits and vegetables by the time they are on sale.
We can identify three distinct sets of man-made systems in the external environment of a food system, viz., that lays down the policy governing the establishment and operation of systems in use, that which is necessary for policy formulation and implementation, and finally, that which ensures that policy is adequately implemented.
Policy is the prerogative of a government, local, regional or national. So, in order to avoid the ten undesirable consequences described above, general policy of a ruling body ought to integrate all its policies including that on agriculture into a unified entity.
Formulation and Implementation of Integrated Government Policy
Regardless of the political level, possibility of integrating the policy on food systems into the general government policy, depends on the political willingness of the government to undertake it, and having the necessary technical competence at its disposal. Although very important, such political willingness is not a given, but I shall confine myself to some technical aspects to be considered in bringing about the desired policy integration.
1. Development of holistic policy integration tools, which will take into account the health, educational, security and cultural implications of food, its passage through a food system, its availability and affordability, etc.
2. Development of a coherent means used to ensure the that the integrated policies are implemented and in use. Legal norms and their enforcement are concerned with this.
3. Formulation and implementation of all policies depend on education in its broadest inclusive sense and research. Every policy formulation is based on some current knowledge, including the means of determining whether it is complete and the best available.
4. Scientifically defensible use and supplementation of ecosystem services (vide my comments on FSN forum discussion on ecosystem services).
5. Increasing the available ecosystem services through environmental regeneration.
6. True appreciation of the danger posed by the current human population growth to every living thing including man himself.
7. Enhancement of bio-diversity among cultivars and household animals.
8. Distributed food production, i.e., prevention of the disappearance of small farms owing to economic pressure, and their being absorbed into large agro-industrial units.
9. Active policies to halt urban expansion which increasingly makes it difficult to provide fresh and adequate supplies of appropriate food stuffs to many cities.
10. Action to retain and sustain sources of food as close as possible to population centres.
11. Giving priority to the development of adequate food storage capacity at strategic locations with respect to demand, and expansion of cheaper and environmentally benign water and railway transport of food.
12. Retention of traditional crops and household animals, and their improvement in a way that does not diminish the local bio-diversity.
13. Supervision and control of the composition of food systems in order to ensure that the operators of yielder systems are adequately rewarded, and the end-users receive value for their money; wastage of food during storage, transport, and industrialised refiner and end-user systems, substantial and virtual speculation in food, and advertising are the main causes of an incommensurable exchange of values between the producers and end-users of food.
14. Promotion of the synchronous and adequate performance by the sub-systems justifiably constitutive of a food system to increase the flow of food to lessen its loss due to spoilage.
15. Priority and equity in economic policy such that operators of yielder systems are not deprived of a fair exchange of values, and active protection of their financial interests.
16. Reduction of surplus food production to cut down the excessive use of yielder input provider systems, while implementation of 15 above will compensate the farmers.
17. In view of the current global population, encourage labour intensive agriculture, and discourage its technology intensive counterpart, especially when introduced owing to the desire for short-term gain or prestige.
18. Giving due priority to the energy demands of agriculture, which arises from the use of appropriate technology.
19. Introduction of compulsory standards on industrial food and drink, and the establishment of impartial test laboratories to determine compliance.
20. Agricultural research policy to support bio-diversity and the rational use of ecosystem services, and that on dietary research which would sustain the diversity in food culture.
21. A trade policy that does not adversely affect national agriculture or the availability and affordability of appropriate local diet.
On Policy Implementation
My remarks on the necessity of ensuring a commensurable exchange of values between the agriculturalist and the end-user may prompt some to attribute to me certain political tendencies. A brief look at the average diet of a former Soviet citizen and that of a slum dweller in many a democracy, should be sufficient to convince one that no political dogma has enabled us to attain the universal dietary goal.
Irrespective of its capability, no political system has taken into account the impossibility of using the finite resources of the world ad libitum to meet the justifiable and unjustifiable demands of an ever growing population, and the untenability of believing that scientific progress would enable us to do so without paying a price that would make life not worth living.
I think it is time to ask ourselves a few blunt questions and try to answer them honestly. As financial gain seems to be ingrained in many approaches to the present problem, let us ask ourselves, is it fair that the operators of a top-heavy middleman systems should gain more than those who actually produce food by depriving them of their just gains, and burdening end-users?
Provided that the necessary political willingness obtains, in addition to the requisite legal instruments, implementation of policies that embody the 21 points above, may require the following:
1. Development of know-how to make integrated policy.
2. An ethical and legal debate on the defensibility of regarding food as just another consumer good.
3. Means to undertake and continue comprehensive international environmental research, whose findings would provide crucial guidelines on making agriculture policy.
4. General and formal education that includes understanding the notion of balanced diet, relevance of food culture and our dependence on the environment.
5. An energy efficient and adequate transport system that uses water and railways to a much greater extent for the movement of food and other goods.
6. Establishment of agricultural cooperatives to run distributed food systems.
7. Establishment of banks for agriculture providing easy financial help to farmers, rather than government subsidies, which in the final analysis is using tax-payer’s money to pay the former a fair price the middlemen have denied them.
8. Economic research on how much each sub-system operator in a food system gains relative to the food producers, and how much end-users must pay each middleman.
9. Establishment of laboratories to approve or ban the sale of industrial food items.
10. Schools to train people in producer and end-user centred agriculture.
11. Research and funding to take appropriate steps to minimise wastage in food systems and among end-users.
12. Suitable re-settlement of migrants to over-crowded urban centra.
13. Introduction of water conservation by underground rain water storage, covered irrigation canals, etc.
14. Tax benefits to those who produce food in an environmentally benign way.
15. Public education with a view to making youth understand the crucial importance of agriculture and to attract them to engage in food production.
I hope the above far from exhaustive list clearly indicates the line of action envisaged here. As I noted at the outset, each point is open to further study and expansion. I shall now take up the question of users’ ability and skill required to use a food system successfully. En passant, let me mention that every operator of its sub-systems and the end-users of a food system are included in this group.
On Users’ ability and Skill
In the kind of food system I have advocated, operator of a yielder system will manifest the possession of the required ability and skills by the following:
1. Avoid as much as possible the unsustainable use of ecosystem services and the excessive use of supplementary yielder input provider systems like the use of fertilisers, etc.
2. Attempt to enhance the local ecosystem services by strategic tree planting, hedge planting, apiculture, etc.
3. When involved in harvesting a natural yielder system like fishing, avoid over harvesting, which has become a grave threat to the livelihood of fisher folk in less affluent countries due to over-fishing by affluent ones.
4. Possession of know-how concerning what is best suited to one’s location, and the willingness and ability not to subordinate them to reductive considerations related to output divorced from other factors.
5. Engagement in political activities to ensure oneself an equitable gain and refusal to allow the middlemen to reap the reward due to oneself.
6. Agricultural know-how relevant for the purpose.
As for the operators of other systems, we face several problems. Among the most troublesome is the ownership of the sub-systems in use. It is not always clear who uses whose sub-system in a food system. Very often, a seller may resort to quick but expensive transport to beat his rival to a market, which often entails an adverse effect on ecosystem services.
As they are motivated by desire for gain, sellers sometimes resort to some bizarre use of refiner systems. For instance, fish from a country in Scandinavia is now flown to China for processing and packing it, and then returning it by air. The environmental consequences of this advanced practice and its influence on the quality of fish can be easily imagined.
I think SUES and enticer system as a part of seller system requires a thorough impartial scrutiny in order to ascertain their effect on the environment, hence the ecosystem services, quality of food sold, wastage, etc. Even though this is a perfectly reasonable proposal, it is likely that the vested interests would do their utmost to thwart such an enquiry.
I shall limit myself to what end-users must possess to procure the components of a balanced diet, because it is here that they can have a significant effect on the so-called market forces in a way to compel the sellers to meet a real human need rather than an artificially created demand. Provided that one is willing and able to operate the preparation system with sufficient skill, The possibility of an end-user procuring a balanced diet depends on the following:
1. Awareness of what constitutes a balanced diet for oneself and its overall importance for one’s well-being.
2. Understanding and an appreciation of environmentally benign agriculture and the food culture of an area.
3. Awareness of the adverse consequences of wasting food.
4. A belief in fair play especially with respect to the actual producers of food, which may motivate one avoid as many intermediaries as possible when one is procuring food.
5. Awareness that what one nutritionally needs and what one’s taste may recommend may not coincide, and that if ignored could have undesirable consequences like obesity or deficiency diseases.
6. Awareness that one’s taste in food and drink is acquired, hence it can be influenced in different directions by external forces like advertisements, which are not intended to enable one to procure a quality balanced diet.
7. Understanding that neither its high nor its low price will always indicate the quality of the food one purchases, nor yet it reflects fair trade.
The importance of the seven points above in enabling an end-user to be a consumer responsible for the well-being of himself and his fellow men, and our common environment needs no clarification. The knowledge that enables one to pay attention to them has to be acquired. Thus, attainment of the universal dietary goal requires an appropriate universal end-user education in it its broadest sense.
At this point, one may object by pointing out that the present argument is based on several assumptions that are problematic to say the least. The rest of this discussion will be devoted to dealing with them. The foremost among them will be the wide-spread poverty that will prevent many millions from procuring food even if a food system as outlined here should obtain.
This is quite true, and policy integration with a view to enabling the people to satisfy their fundamental needs has a long way to go even if the political will and the technical competence needed for the task are not a problem. In addition, it is vital to emphasise the necessity of immediate and effective population growth control unless we want hunger to become an insoluble issue.
In the meantime, an integrated policy would strive to reduce internal migration of the poor to urban centres. I strongly urge decision-makers to visit the ever-growing squatter settlements in South and South West Africa, India, Indonesia, and several Latin American cities, etc., etc. Here, we are talking about nearly a billion of unskilled poor, driven by unrealistic expectations generated by reductive government policy, or by ‘rogue aid’.
We need to face some less attractive bits of reality if we want to enable as many as possible to procure a balanced meal. Until now, our thinking about the problem is governed by the dubious dictum, people need money to eat, so find gainful employment for them, and then they will not go hungry. All traditional ‘development schemes’ embody this naïve idea.
This is splendid indeed, if 0.00% unemployment is not a mere fantasy. Social support might offer some limited help, but this is not an option for most non-affluent countries where the incidence of hunger is greatest. Labour-intensive agriculture and prohibition of using food as a mere article of trade whose availability and price is governed by the desire for unlimited gain, may serve to mitigate world’s hunger to some extent.
Another kind of objection will underline that during the past 50 or so years, several generations have been ‘taught’ that ‘fast food’ and ‘industrial food’ are not only edible, but consuming them is also a sign of belonging to an advanced social group and sophistication. But, a myth can be unlearned as one may see in EU’s very successful pilot project, “We Love Eating.”
I will conclude with the greatest objection, those who run the current economic system will do their very best to retain the status quo at any cost. True again, it has never been easy to get people to abandon a primitive system in favour of a more reasonable one. Economic system enables one to make unlimited gain, and financial gain is power.
Those who successfully run economic system gain power more or less bloodlessly, just as their medieval predecessors did employing armed henchmen. Both groups engage in take over battles with equal ferocity bar the blood letting. But, the resource sequestration their activity entails the same deprivation to the others. Thus, we have only replaced the feudalism of force with a little genteel economic feudalism.
Today, we have less resources left, but billions more mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, and care in sickness, and heads to be inculcated with what makes us human. And there is just not enough of the cake to go around when the slice of the cake available for the poor gets smaller and smaller while the number of mouths wanting just a little bite grows greater and greater.
This is primitive indeed. We boast about our superiority over our brutish ancestors whose motto was supposed to be, might is right when it came to everything from eating. Cannot we show our superiority over them neither by competition using brute force or high-priced lawyers, but rather by cooperation for common good as befits civilised people?
It is with profound regret I conclude my comments with this plea, because unless we undertake a radical revision of our current economic system, every other action could only bring a temporary relief to some of the hungry billions. Understanding this makes one less sanguine than one would wish, still, I hope my suggested approach would be of some use.
With best wishes!
Lal Manavado.
Lal Manavado