February 26, 2015

Only Agroecology Can Tackle the Global Food and Health Crisis

"The recently published Global Nutrition Report shows almost all countries face high levels of malnutrition and diet-based ill-health", writes Julia Wright. This reveals deep problems with the dominant industrial model of food production, and the need for new agroecological approaches to feeding the world."

Only agroecology can tackle the global food and health crisis

by Dr Julia Wright, February 23, 2015, The Ecologist

"The recently published Global Nutrition Report shows almost all countries face high levels of malnutrition and diet-based ill-health", writes Julia Wright. This reveals deep problems with the dominant industrial model of food production, and the need for new agroecological approaches to feeding the world. Malnutrition isn't surprising, given that the chief goal of the majority of players in the food system, from farmers upwards, is not to produce nutritious healthy foods for the people, but to make a profit.

The current global food crisis is simple and complex at the same time.

Simple because all we need is sufficient, healthy food to eat and to share, for our medicine and to commune with nature, simple because it's technically possible to have an abundance of healthy food.

Yet we have made it a complex issue. We overeat, we don't have enough to eat, we sell and buy cheap 'food like substances' whilst watching the rich and famous - who we aspire to - choosing not to eat these foods.

We mechanise farms to reduce labour costs, we worry about the lack of rural jobs, and we go to gyms for exercise, fuelled by sugary 'energy drinks'. We refine carbohydrates and become addicted to them yet we apply no regulation to manufacturing or accessing these 'drugs', we overeat again ...

Globally, we produce double the amount of calories required for the current population, or 4,600 kcal edible food per person per day, which is the right amount for the future peak population of 14 billion. So in one sense there has been success with the prevailing food system in terms of producing sufficient quantity of food.

However the world isn't 'being fed'. In fact the recently published Global Nutrition Report shows that almost all countries are facing a serious public health risk due to malnutrition. This issue - of food quality - is inarguably the major fault in the food system that the industrial agricultural sector has avoided addressing."...
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