The hidden costs of industrial ag are mind-blowing

The UN report linked in the quoted story actually covers all agriculture worldwide. But when you look at the second paragraph below, you know almost all the problems are originating with the greedheads of Big Ag.

Food systems are about much more than just food. What’s on your plate or in your bowl is important, of course, but food is linked with everything from labor rights and healthcare to social justice and the climate crisis.

But when consumers buy a cluster of tomatoes on the vine or a carton of eggs, the price does not necessarily consider that inter-tangled web of connections. These external impacts of food production—on human health, animal welfare, workers, biodiversity, waterways, or soil—aren’t always reflected in the market price.

The movement to calculate, value, recognize, and pay down these costs is known as True Cost Accounting (TCA), and we’ve talked about it before. But in a landmark report just published, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization took on the massive task of analyzing virtually the entire world’s food system through the lens of TCA.

This report estimates that the global quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems is approximately US$12.7 trillion.

It’s almost like a debt the food system owes to the world—a debt that, so far, it’s not making payments on. - Food Tank

Industrial ag is failing badly in Africa

This is pretty awful, and very, very underreported.

On September 5, the annual Africa Food Systems Forum, organised by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), (launched) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Government officials, experts, policymakers and business leaders will come together to discuss – in their words – “building back better food systems and food sovereignty”.

Sponsored by international philanthropic and bilateral donors and agrochemical and biotech companies such as Yara, Corteva and Bayer, the forum promotes hybrid and genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides used in the type of industrial-scale agriculture that has failed to deliver “better food systems” or “food sovereignty”.

This approach to growing food, involving problematic practices that harm soils, pollute the environment, and favour large landowners and big agribusiness, has been pushed on Africa in the past few decades. But it has not helped the continent overcome food insecurity.

AGRA’s work is a case in point. It has failed to deliver on its own promises to increase productivity and incomes for 20 million farm households while halving food insecurity by 2020. Of the 13 countries it has primarily worked with, three have reduced the number of malnourished people over the past 15 years: Zambia by 2 percent, Ethiopia by 8 percent and Ghana by 36 percent, still short of the 50 percent target.

In countries like Kenya and Nigeria, both of which have embraced industrial agriculture policies, the number of undernourished people has grown by 44 percent and 247 percent, respectively. Taken together, the population of undernourished people in the 13 states AGRA has primarily worked with has actually risen by 50 percent over the past 15 years. - IATP

What a great time to change our food system for the better

Unfortunately Big Ag, Big Meat, etc., still hold way too much political power. But there are grounds for hope.

Community groups and small enterprises have stepped up during the pandemic, utilising their networks to look after the vulnerable, and generally strengthening the fabric of social safety nets. This has happened despite years of cuts.

Organisations and initiatives, are going beyond their original purposes to deliver services and care, including food. Community supported agriculture schemes, food banks, and food hubs can do this because they are already networked locally and can rely on emergency helpers. Their adaptability means they are fleet-footed, and capable of picking up the slack of an inflexible, industrialised food system.

This is not to say that supermarkets should not be applauded for their recent actions. But they are inexorably linked to industrial agriculture systems. These pose a dual risk, potentially both triggering global crises and failing to deliver provisions. For our own welfare, we should ensure that there is more to the food landscape than industrial agriculture, large-scale processing, and mega-retail. - In These Times