The prestigious magazine Scientific American’s ‘Earth Talk’ column rightly states that ‘people will not be able to feed themselves without destroying the planet – unless we transform food systems globally on the scale of the Industrial Revolution.’ However, it may come to the attention of the educated elite that a careful study reveals that the proposed solution of transforming the food system on the scale of the ‘Industrial Revolution’ has actually created a fragmented food system. Therefore, it is not the right way to fix fragmented food systems.
Our current food systems destroy more than they value food production, which they borrow from the future to make a profit today, say researchers from Oxford University and the London School of Economics. Citing the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the researchers said that the hidden environmental, social and health costs of the agri-food system in 2020 were more than $10 trillion (ten lakh crore). Therefore, changing food systems – a sustainable rational and fair approach – would be relatively inexpensive. As Dr. Steven Lord of the Climate Change Institute at Oxford University, who led the cost analysis for the Global Policy Report published by the UK’s Food System Economics Commission, has said, if the food system continues as usual, there will be trillions of dollars in unsaved costs that will limit future economic growth and development.
An analysis released in January 2024 found that global obesity will increase by 70 percent by 2050, food systems will continue to emit a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and this will lead to a 2.7 degree rise in temperatures by the end of the century. This detailed report presents a vision of the future with interesting and surprising information, which lists the benefits of a sensible change. But the sensible word here is sensible, which I am not sure how much the world can change in food and agricultural systems. Before we go any further, let us see what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, that the global food system is broken and billions of people are paying the price. He went on to say on another occasion that more attention should be paid to people rather than to profit-oriented private companies.
This is a blow to profit-oriented companies, who are in fact the ones the world is looking to for a sustainable food future. Whether in Asia, Latin America or Africa, there is policy pressure on governments to transform food and agriculture, which is in fact a curiosity for corporate control over food, and this process is progressing at an alarming rate. While the need is to strengthen diversified and resilient agricultural systems, which means promoting agro-ecological and integrated farming systems while ensuring a guaranteed income for farmers, it also seems to me to be a mysterious and hidden attempt to bring in corporate farming through the back door.
Even after the withdrawal of three controversial farm laws in India, it is not as if the effort to increase the reach of corporate control over agriculture is dead or buried. The effort to create an enabling environment for corporate farming, at any given time and through any appropriate mechanism, has hardly ceased. Whether it is through increased budget support for digitalisation or new technologies or through the proposal to formulate a National Farm Code or set up a National Council for Agriculture and Rural Transformation (MCART) or the recent initiative to seek approval for the draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing, the underlying objectives of all these steps are clear, the aim is to lay the foundation for corporate capture of agriculture. By the time you are able to understand the impact of these policy initiatives, the ground will be ready for the final assault. What is missing in this process is that the standards that are being introduced one by one are actually responsible for the fragmented food systems in the world that the world finds itself in. These flawed prescriptions also come out of the corporate thought process. The World Economic Forum (WEF), which started as a jamboree for the rich and beautiful, has now emerged as a policy forum for governments. So it would be interesting to know how the WEF sees and fixes broken food systems? I was drawn to a paper (newspaper) titled Our food system is broken, here are three ways to fix it. This 2018 paper (which is now out of date, but tells you how the WEF sees this challenge) starts by looking at food systems as a business. The paper acknowledges that the food system is erratic, unbalanced and unsustainable and needs to change. The paper lists fundamental ways to change the way we think and act on food.
WEF The article states that if a CEO went shopping, how would he view the supermarket? There are many empty spaces in these supermarket shelves, which are dedicated to attracting foods with little nutritional value. It has been almost 6 years since this article was written and
There is hardly any space left on supermarket shelves anymore, and look what we have found to fill those empty shelves: a meta-study shows that about 89 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves are not nutritious and of poor quality. If this is what the processed food industry has given people, then it is time to fix it. It is part of a broken food system and it needs to be fixed immediately. In discussing who gains power and profits and who leads the world in the food systems it needs, the author finally points out that we know the members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Food Security and Agriculture and who they support. In fact, the benefits are too great to ignore.
We also know that the WEF How is the Global Future Council of the World Food Programme engaged and what does it have in mind when it comes to providing leadership on food systems? Whether the WEF likes it or not, the fact remains that the global food system is broken for reasons that multinational corporations are now aggressively trying to promote. The world needs to move away from industrial farming systems and not regret it later, as further attempts at such things will only further destroy the planet. Knowing that India needs to be doubly careful to chart a strong path for a sustainable food and farming future. It is time to move beyond the usual ‘cut and paste’ approach and present a vision that leads to a healthier environment, healthier food and happier farmers.
