In this note, I shall try to outline the conceptual framework needed to establish a sustainable, appropriately integrated global food system. It will attempt to sketch its diverse component systems, which in turn may be revised, or its new components may emerge when required. I hope this framework will be of some use in developing an integrated global food system.
The purpose of such a system is to enable the world’s population to have a reliable access to an adequate quantity of affordable food, the constituents of which are governed by the culinary traditions and the nutritional needs of the individual concerned.
I think this definition of its purpose is holistic and inclusive, for it takes into account the diversity of world’s culinary traditions, and the differences in individual needs not only with respect to the personal, but also the climatic and geographical factors that influence how one may meet one’s nutritional needs.
Method:
A holistic approach to the problem of establishing this system, has two aspects. First, it requires ensuring the sustainability and the adequacy of the already existing food systems and the emerging ones, and then integrating them into a unified whole insofar as it is appropriate to do so. This seems to be the sole means of ensuring its sustainability as well as its robustness, which depends on itsflexibility.
Elements of a Food System:
Before we consider how to achieve their sustainability and integration, it is necessary to distinguish between three logically distinct types of constituents of any food system, and the generic changes they may justifiably undergo.
The first type of system represents the means of obtaining animals, plants, or their productions. I will call it a primary system. Eg: production of fruits, vegetables, milk and eggs.
The secondary systems are concerned with converting some output of primary systems into some consumable. They may manifest themselves as simple systems like cottage industries, village butchers, or as large food processing installations. It is important to note a system becomes secondary not because of its technical complexity, but because it is concerned with turning potential food items into consumable ones through some process, which may be very simple or complicated.
The third type of system is concerned with making food output from the primary system available to the secondary system, and to make their outputs accessible to the consumers. This requires appropriate storage, communication, transportation and distribution outlets. These components constitute what I will term an adjunctive system. Its components are often shared by other unrelated systems.
Now, the adequate functioning of those three main systems depends on the adequacy of their own component systems. I have already mentioned that the components of adjunctive system may be components of the other two. For instance, storage of seeds and fertiliser, and market gardener carrying his produce to a stall illustrate this. In traditional terminology, it is a part of infra-structure.
Meanwhile, it is possible to identify several other sub-systems of the three above, which are essential for their adequate performance. The primary system requires the following sub-systems, whose adequacy is a necessary condition for its existence and performance.
I will call the first that which guarantees a person his tenure of production medium, which may be a piece of land or a body of water. It guarantees person a legal right to appropriately exploit a production medium in a way that would benefit him adequately. High rent and mortgage preclude this guarantee. Hence, one requires a legal system favourable to those who operate the primary system.
Next in importance is knowing how best to utilise a given production medium in an environmentally sustainable fashion. Only in a few areas is this a part of traditional knowledge. Hence, it is crucial to establish the requisite educational system appropriate to the area concerned.
I will call the third component the complex of material procurement systems. Depending on the degree of agricultural mechanisation and climatic conditions, it may be simple or sophisticated. It may contain any one or more of the following components.
They are the systems to acquire seed cultivars, fertiliser, water, mechanical or animal assistance for production, and energy needed by the sub-systems in use. Meeting this energy need may range from the provision of feed to working animals, to fossile fuel or electricity for farm machinery, etc.
It will be noted that each sub-system above consists of its own component systems. For instance, the water supply may require some components of the adjunctive system, viz., storage and transport via irrigation channels, etc. So, it would be reasonable to postulate that the components of the adjunctive system occur recursively throughout the primary system, irrespective of the degree of its sophistication.
Let us now look at the constituents of the secondary system. It requires a set of operators with the knowledge and skill to convert one or more products of the primary system into a household food item, appropriate material means required for this conversion, and the relevant components of the adjunctive system.
This knowledge and skill operators must possess, should emphasise the importance of their actions not compromising the integrity of their environment. This calls for an appropriate education and training system. However, one ought to remember the training involved here can range from knowing how to gut and fillet a fish for a customer to running a giant food processing plant.
As for the material means needed to convert potential food into marketable ones, these may vary widely. For instance, they may represent a filleting knife of a fish monger to a complex installation. However, their generic function is identical. What is important here, is that their use does not entail waste and environmental degradation.
I have so far avoided a system that embraces our three main systems as well as many other fields, viz., scientific research and its practical application. Its proper use will be crucial to the sustainability of a global food system, for unless research and its application are not strictly guided by the constraints my definition of a global food system imposes on them, as well as the revisions I shall next propose to the economic system, a sustainable global food system will become an untenable notion.
For better or for worse, establishment and operation of the primary, secondary and adjunctive systems have been subordinated to economic system, except in the case of subsistence farming which is becoming very rare. However irrespective of its political colouring, the prime mover of an economic system is the possibility it offers one to acquire wealth or power, or both.
At present, there is no legal limit to the amount of wealth one may gain by engaging in economic activities. This is true in food production, right from the level of speculation in commodity futures to the sale of processed food. The profit seeking in food industry has created an artificial demand for ‘convenience food’ through advertising aimed at mind management across boarders.
The undesirable effects of this are fourfold. First, it depreciates the culinary traditions of an area, which are based on its geographic and climatic conditions, as well as the nutritional needs of its inhabitants, and are the results of centuries of experience. As a result, there will be no incentive to grow or raise what is best suited to a given area.
Secondly, introduction of advertised food from outside sources may be unsuitable to meet the nutritional needs of a given area. Thus, consumption of such may lead to deficiency diseases or obesity and it concomitants. Moreover, it may induce children to acquire unhealthy eating habits.
Thirdly, it may turn local agriculture so unprofitable resulting in an increased migration of unskilled labour to urban centres. Finally, abandoned and existing small farms may be acquired by agro-industry to produce non-traditional profitable food items in a manner that threatens our fragile environment.
Now, it is time for us to take into account the the state of environment for the sustainability of agriculture. It is axiomatic that the possibility of life on earth depends on two logically inseperable equilibria, vis., the equilibrium between the living and the finite mineral resources they require to live, and the equilibrium among the living species.
The equilibrium among the living species depends on their diversity and the the balance among their populations. While we already have depleted many previously fertile areas of those mineral resources, over exploitation is making growing inroads into bio-diversity and into the population balance among species.
Among its consequences, the critical ones seems to be erosion of top soil, loss of permeability of the soil leading to low level of ground water, silting up of streams and bodies of water, disturbances annual rain patterns, higher local temperatures, unseasonable winds, etc. All of these will have an adverse effect on the primary system, whose rectification in an environmentally sustainable way requires wise and enforceable laws, comprehensive reforestation, rain harvesting and underground storage, holistic education, etc.
Thus, it is clear that unless we have in place appropriate research into how to make the primary, secondary and the adjunctive systems environmentally sustainable and less resource consuming, and ensure the application of the know-how so gained, revise the current motive that drives modern economy, and take demonstrably effective steps to regenerate and preserve our common habitat, we can but make cosmetic progress.
I shall not describe all the necessary changes we need here except to underline that I do not advocate work to increasing yields by genetic modification as an option, nor yet any work that results in any reduction in the bio-diversity among food crops and domestic animals. I would rather plead for its increase, principally by resurrecting the previously cultivated varieties of plants, and by reintroduction of traditional breeds wherever it is appropriate.
I think some legal restrictions must be imposed on economic activities concerned with every food system for obvious ethical reasons. Of course, lack of access to food has health and security implications, which are too obvious to describe. It would be very timely to investigate the effect of large secondary systems on the well-being of the producers of raw materials and consumers, and the extent of potential food wastage and environmental degradation.
Traditional research has been solely concerned with increasing the yield, resistence to pests, and the cosmetic features of food items like colour, size, etc. Instead, it is time that we concentrated on reintroducing bio-diversity to agriculture, which embodies centuries of practical experience with respect to the suitability of what is raised in an area to its geography and climate, nutritional needs of the people, endemic pests, fluctuations in weather, etc. It is crucial to remember that the ‘new and improved’ often entail a greater financial outlay, where it is a major problem.
It is curious that inspite of many calls for energy efficiency, no noticeable action has been taken to do the obvious, viz., reintroduction of bulk transporters having low energy requirements to service the primary and secondary systems described above. .
I propose re-opoening of the xtensive canal systems in UK and Europe, and the use of modern and improved barges for this purpose. This may be applicable to other areas of the world, and surely, there are several river systems one may utilise for cheap and energy efficient bulk transport of non-perishable items. UK might now renounce Beeching’s folly, and take the initiative to promote inter-continental railway transport as one of the cheapest and environmentally benign ways of doing so.
Another area of meaningful research is appropriate storage. Here too, one may learn what is suitable from some traditional practices, while developing better methods where it is needed. Food wastage in storage has been a significant cause of hunger in many areas of the world. I shall not discussed the waste of prepared food here, even though it depletes what food is available to the consumers at home or elsewhere.
At this point, it is imperative to understand that even if we succeed in perfecting the primary, secondary and the adjunctive systems of a food system, its impact on the hungry millions would remain peripheral unless we restructure the current economic practice. Simply put, as it is today, it cannot meet the demand for food by those who can ill afford the asking price of food. Examples of food dumping to keep up prices are too well known.
Moreover, the economic practice within the food sector is hardly justifiable by any standard, for the operators of secondary and adjunctive systems derive a disproportionately excessive benefit from their activities than those who run the primary system and the end users of food. This is patently unfair.
It is difficult to see how one could justify currently legal and lucrative activities like speculation in commodity futures, stockpiling and release of food according to price, creating conditions that turn small farming unprofitable, compelling farmers to switch over to cash crops, aggressive and insidious marketing of unhealthy food, etc. These and many other ills can be justifiably laid at the door of modern economy.
In order to bring about changes in the economic system supportive of food production owing to its importance for all, it is essential to impose unambiguous and enforceable norms on the economic practice that shall be able to ensure its harmlessness to our common environment, and to ensure that the farmers and buyers of food receive the equitable economic benefit, which has eluded them for so long.
What I have suggested thus far, represents structural changes in several systems, all of which are essential for the operation of an adequate global system. I have not touched upon all systems required for the purpose, but the possibility of bringing about those changes, depends on there being the requisite political will and indeed, the know-how.
If they should obtain, realisation of that political will depends on formulation of appropriate policies and their effective implementation at a variety of levels, ranging from the global to national and local. The keywords in the whole endeavour is holistic policy formulation and its effective implementation. Assuming this will obtain, we can now consider how to assemble an adequate global food system.
Integration of Food Systems:
Appropriate integration of the local food systems into a national system, which in turn will be linked into a global food system, seems to be the only logical means of achieving our objective. National systems may be integrated into the global one either directly or through a regional system. Marked similarities in the output of the primary systems of countries will favour a regional link-up among them.
Irrespective of the level at which food systems are integrated, its purpose is to increase their capacity to produce sufficient quantities of affordable food items appropriate for a given area, and increase their availability at an adequate number of outlets located there. As far as I can see, this goal is complete insofar as one’s nutritional needs and culinary preferences under given economic, geographic and climatic conditions are concerned.
Moreover, it embodies the belief that man represents an individual who is entitled to decide what one may eat and drink with reference to one’s personal tastes and nutritional needs under those conditions. After all, the abstract entities like state or universal good will do not feel hunger, while too many individual humans do.
I shall now outline some guidelines on system integration that applies across the board. They fall into two logically distinct categories, viz., system type and the output type. In a rational integration, there is a complete congruence among the system and the output types of the systems involved.
For instance, we can conceive of cereal production as constituting a subset of the primary system. However, we can identify several component systems in this subset, viz., production of wheat, rice, oat, rye, etc., each of which have common and different requirements with respect to their cultivation. So, it would be reasonable to integrate only the similar components of this subset, i.e., cultivation of similar grains.
One may now ask, how could one integrate say wheat cultivation carried out as it was done during the Pharonic times with that of US mid-west today? This objection is irrelevant, for two reasons. First, in both cases, system type is cereal cultivation, and they have the same output type, hence, they are fully congruent.
Secondly, our purpose in their integration is to ensure an adequate supply of the cereal to those who want it at an affordable price. So far, we have believed in simplistic solutions that embody increased production like developing ‘high yield’ varieties, ‘capital intensive’ agriculture as the panacea to world’s hunger, which unfortunately only seems to have had a placebo effect on the malady.
System integration I have envisaged does not turn farmers redundant nor yet entail harm to our environment. Both of these will merely increase the number of hungry mouths. We already produce enough wheat to satisfy the existing need for it, provided that we are willing and able to husband it in a rational manner. I shall expand on how to achieve this, because it is applicable across the board to food production.
Assuming that the structural changes we have discussed have been undertaken, authorities would have access to suitable transport and storage facilities to stockpile a supply of wheat obtain in order to meet future shortfalls in its domestic production. Moreover, they would also have in place, a system for its equitable distribution.
Authorities mentioned above, may be local or national, regional or global as described earlier. Achieving our objective here, depends on having the following:
- Formal instruments required to empower the concerned parties to carry out the structural changes and system integration at relevant levels.
- Means to ensure reliable access to required know-how and material resources appropriate to the purpose.
- A world-wide mechanism to monitor and ascertain the global annual production of key food stuffs with a view to facilitate their equitable availability.
- International mechanism to stockpile and release key staple foods in a way that will make them available where there is a shortfall at an equitable price. This may be distributed at global, regional and local levels as it is required.
- Actively enforced legal guarantees on the tenure of production medium of small farmers, and financial incentives to encourage small farming and preservation of agricultural bio-diversity.
- International promotion of world’s culinary diversity as an important aspect of human culture by actively using all the media tools at our disposal.
- Establishment of extensive rain harvesting and its underground storage in semi-arid areas, and intensive reforestation with endemic species.
In conclusion, let me emphasise that unless the structural changes mentioned earlier accompany the seven actions above, it would not be possible to undertake the latter in a meaningful way. I hope that this sketch of a plan may be of some use towards developing a global food system which many a million of hungry mouths have long waited.
Oslo.
12th April, 2015.
Lal Manavado