How can food systems work with the planet and biodiversity, rather than raiding and pillaging it?
This is the question recently posed by Professor Tim Lang of the UK Council of Food Policy Advisers. The council was set up to address the impact of approaching climate change, environmental degradation and water and oil scarcity on global agriculture.
For example, global meat consumption is expected to rise 53% by 2030, yet 51% of the world’s greenhouse gases are emitted from the way we raise animals for consumption.
Something needs to change in the way we feed ourselves. Business as usual in our food system cannot continue. We have a choice between letting this unconsciously unfold into tragedy or consciously choosing to become more future compatible.
At the recent Economics of Peace conference, Andrew Kimbrell, of the Center for Food Safety, proposed that the answer to this question has to come from a deep understanding of the way that nature works: that we need to create an economy based upon natural principles. From his study of what he calls salmon economics he proposed the following:
Indigenous societies were never based on market economies but on a mix of reciprocal service and exchange, redistribution of resources, and gift-giving in local situations. These societies based their economic behavior—redistribution, reciprocation, gift-giving, and localization—on the archetypal patterns of the natural systems around them. To survive we must follow their lead, and without delay. We must learn and integrate the great economic lessons of the salmon.
Another leading proponent of the relocalization of agriculture, Michael Pollan, gave a superb speech along similar lines at this years Bioneers, saying that agricultural policy reform in the US needs to be a top priority so we can make a systemic shift to become a sustainable civilization:
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