On Sustainability: Putting the Middle Back Into Our Food System
Many years ago I attended a lecture in Hamilton by my then hero Jane Jacobs, who was a leader and champion for progressive urban development and local economies. She was a pure gem to the world. When Ms. Jacobs was asked this extremely complex question: “What does a healthy economy look like?” she answered in the most simple but clear terms with the following words: “Lots and lots of small to medium business and lots and lots of middle class.” Her answer was so perfectly descriptive that silence befell the room as everyone absorbed the comment while clearly visualizing what she meant.
When it comes to our food system, Ms. Jacobs answer applies as well. There are many misperceptions that are common among the public and so-called ‘experts’ for that matter about our food production system due to a list of factors. Trends in health and animal welfare can often muddy the waters and polarise the discussion unnecessarily. In this series, we will discuss some of the major myths about our food production system, what true sustainability looks like and explore back to basic ideas for a more positive direction. The following are the major topics we will be focusing on this series with the purpose of empowering the reader to consider how the food system relates to them and how the choices we make every day influence the system itself.
‘Sustainability’
This is much used and abused term as it has been co-opted by advertising, governments and special interests to promote a vast variety of actions as ‘green’ or even progressive. Many definitions of sustainability have been invented in order to fit the goal of those who wish to benefit from the impression that their activities are such and could be called ‘ethics laundering’. The following was they key definition, from Norway’s then Prime Minister, of sustainability when world leaders in the 80s first started talking about the issues of excessive and destructive growth: “sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of needs, in particular, the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.” — Brundtland 1987
Brundtland set the stage for recognition that the world’s resources are not infinite and that the activities of humans have to recognize that we do not inherit the planet from previous generations but rather are borrowing from our children. First Nations have often spoken in terms of how making decisions now will affect 7 generations out. ‘Not net loss’ is another form of measurement. ‘Regenerative’ and building in ‘resiliency’ into our economy and environment while recognizing that a healthy economy cannot survive without a healthy environment, as all wealth and health stems from it. We will explore these concepts and provide comparative and contrasts of examples where ‘sustainability’ exist or doesn’t.
‘Local’ in terms of overused an ill-defined
It has become the trend in the culinary and food retail sector to label their offerings as ‘local’, ‘farm to table’ or ‘artisanal’ etc. This trend began when the term ‘food miles’ emerged in the 1990s in an attempt to raise awareness of the dangers and risks to food security, health and the environment posed by transporting foods extreme distances to markets. Carbon footprints to food were added later as another issue facing us in our now commoditized and corporate-controlled food system. Leaders in the culinary field responded by looking to source ingredients from producers that were located within their region etc.
The ‘100-mile’ diet challenge entered as well in the mid-2000s taking ‘local’ to another level. Many producers, restaurants, and wholesale-retailers began marketing truly local products but since then the definition of local had changed and also been hijacked and overused for profit reasons, therefore, greenwashing the movement and in turn, creating skepticism by consumers about what real local is. We will be looking more into the origins and intent of these terms, provide different definitions of them and how eaters can best determine which are fake and which are genuine local suppliers.
Food as a part of the Household Budget
We will discuss the myths that food is expensive in Canada and discuss value vs price-cost, perception vs reality and quality vs quantity. We need to look back at how Canada adopted the “cheap food policy” that began in the 60s along with the Green Revolution. Cheap food is killing us. It has also shaped society’s attitudes around food including what we think we should pay for a good meal at a restaurant. In this section we will delve into how restaurants struggle each day with food costs and how educating the public from all levels is key to the understanding value of good quality food in a healthy lifestyle and how it is worth paying for.
Growing Food, Biodiversity and the role of the Farm Animal
We will discuss the myths of GMOs increasing food in the world. Food waste is an international plague and is robbing those who go hungry for much-needed calories while contributing to increased carbon footprints within our food system. Growing mono-culture mass crops even for vegetarian diets is not
sustainable in the long-term and is also tied to significant social justice-labour issues. Putting the middle back in our food system is a critical part of this discussion including how animals play a critical role in soil health. To explore this topic properly we will discuss the notion that we do not have a food crisis but rather a soils crisis.
Putting the middle back into our food system is key to creating a more robust and resilient system that will be able to better buffer us from the extremes. Stay tuned the issues to follow, where I will take a deep dive into each of these topics.
Mike Nagy has a Masters in Environmental Studies, with a focus on Sustainable Fisheries and Local Food from Wilfred Laurier University, where he continues to expand his body of work as a Research Associate with the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems. The purpose of this series is to empower the reader to consider how the food system relates to their behaviour, and how the choices we make every day influences the system itself.
