Production-Consumption Cycle
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ood is one of the most basic objects of consumption and production. As such, it offers a valuable entry point in exploring the challenge of achieving sustainable production and consumption patterns throughout society. This challenge is essentially the task of establishing sustainable development as the world’s method of providing “a higher quality of life for everyone,” for both current and future generations. [1]
For many people, the topic of sustainable consumption tends
to refer mostly to the over-consumption by affluent populations of limited
natural resources, and the over-production of wastes and pollution resulting
from that consumption. Too often the discussion of "sustainable
consumption" surrenders to a reductionism narrowing the focus to separate topics
such as ecoefficiency or personal lifestyles without linking these as parts of a
broader system of production and consumption.
In the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, the UN General Assembly agreed that "the need for integration is important in all sectors"[2] and proceeded to identify poverty/production and consumption patterns as "overriding" cross-cutting issues to be highlighted in each year of the planned five-year program. Making consumption of food, water, shelter and other basic needs sustainable requires not simply changing individual behavior and preferences, but also the system of investment, production and distribution for meeting those needs.
Seen as a cycle, moving from consumption (C) to investment (I) to production (P) and distribution (D) back to consumption, each of the various stages can be analyzed both in terms of their impact on sustainability (S) and quality of life as well as the policies and changes needed to orient them towards these priorities.
This paper examines some of the points within this cycle which many NGOs have identified as crucial obstacles/opportunities requiring attention and action in the transition to a sustainable food system.
Consumption of food
As with other areas of consumption, achieving the sustainable consumption of food requires confronting problems of both under-consumption and over-consumption. With over 800 million people hungry or starving, the under-consumption of food is one of the world's most urgent albeit shamefully neglected issues. Hidden behind the cruel myth that it is part of the human condition, hunger cries out as a salient indicator of the unsustainability of the global food system. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes this situation as "a continuing travesty of the recognized fundamental human right to adequate food and nutrition, and freedom from hunger and malnutrition," especially so "in a world that has both the resources and knowledge to end this catastrophe."[3]
The over-consumption of food is also a serious issue. In the past eight years, obesity has increased in the United States by 50%, accounting for 18% of the population. This trend appears in both developing as well as affluent industrial nations. In addition, vast numbers of people – in the North and South -- regularly and willingly consume foods putting them at risk of heart disease, cancer and other illnesses. These are all dimensions of the unsustainable consumption of food.
These consumption patterns -- together with their interdependent investment, production and distribution patterns -- not only undermine the quality of life but also have other negative environmental, social and economic impacts. Policies and programs to counteract those impacts are not necessarily straightforward or easy. Because of the interdependencies involved, solutions require not just analytic but integrative approaches.
At its 8th Session in 2000, the Commission on Sustainable Development is discussing, among other topics, food and sustainable agriculture. In addition to exploring progress in promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development (Chapter 14 of Agenda 21), the session reiterates the priority of sustainable food security -- particularly for both the urban and rural poor. The U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) describes food security as "access to the food required for a healthy and productive life." This priority includes pursuing the 1996 World Food Summit goal of halving the number of undernourished people in the world by the year 2015.
However, the need is to achieve sustainable consumption of food by all people. .
The United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection defines sustainable consumption as including “meeting the needs of present and future generations for goods and services in ways that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.“[4] The 1994 Oslo Symposium offered another definition: "the use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations."[5]
Sustainable food consumption can be defined as access and use by all present and future generations of the food necessary for an active, healthy life, through means that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. Sustainable food consumption thus implies sustainable agricultural production and distribution.
While global food production has been increasing, the need and demand for food is increasing at a faster rate. With global population increasing from 6.1 billion to 8.9 billion by 2050, the need for adequate food security strategies cries out. The situation in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is particularly dire. Observing the shift in developing countries away from traditional food staples, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) warns "changing consumption patterns in much of the world will make this challenge even more difficult."[6]
Under-consumption of food
According to the FAO, the number of hungry people in the developing countries declined from 830 million in 1990-92 to 790 million in 1995-97 -- an annual decrease of eight million hungry people. However, this is hardly sufficient to reach the World Food Summit target. To achieve the Food Summit goal of halving the number in hunger, the decrease must reach 20 million per year. Specific attention needs to be concentrated on Sub-Saharan Africa, where between 1969-71 and 1995-97, the number of undernourished people has doubled, from 89 million to 180 million.[7]
Hunger is not only the problem of developing countries but also exists in the industrial and countries in transition, where altogether 34 million lack sufficient food. In the United States, 10% of households are hungry, on the edge of hunger, or worried about being hungry.
Under-consumption of nutrients
The problem of unsustainable food consumption goes beyond that of hunger and access. The problem of "hidden hunger" -- deficiencies in vital micronutrients such as iron, iodine, and vitamin A -- strikes at 1.2 billion, leaving a devastating wake of illness. The WHO claims that "nearly 30% of humanity . . . are currently suffering from one or more of the multiple forms of malnutrition."[8] Problems linked to malnutrition claim the lives of 40,000 people each day, with 19,000 of these deaths among infants and children. Worldwatch points out that "roughly half the population in all nations -- wealthy and poor -- suffers from poor nutrition of one kind or another."[9]
Overconsumption of food
The third category of unsustainable food consumption
involves the over-consumption of food. "Worldwide, the number of
overweight people now rivals the number who are underweight," says Gary Gardner
and Brian Halweil of Worldwatch.[10] This
situation brings serious risks to health, such as cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, and cancer. In the last decade, obesity has increased in England
from 10 percent to 16 percent. In the United States the figures are worse,
with 55% overweight and the share of the population who are obese climbing from
15 to 23 percent since 1980.
The problem of overconsumption of food is also not
restricted to the industrialized countries. Gardner and Halweil also point
out a similar increase in China; between 1989 and 1992 the share of overweight
adults climbed from 9 to 15 percent. In Brazil, 31 percent of the
population are overweight; in Columbia, the figure is 43 percent. The WHO
warns that obesity in both developed and developing countries has reached the
level of an emerging "global epidemic," and "should be regarded as one of
today's major principal neglected public health problems."[11]
Food safety
For food to contribute to consumers' health, it has to not only be sufficient in quantity and nutrients but also safe. Thus, a fourth obstacle to sustainable food consumption is the problem of unhealthy food additives, toxic residues, and other byproducts of chemical-intensive food production and processing. In 1962 Rachel Carson sounded the alarm about the impacts of DDT and other chemicals on ecosystems and human health. Today, consumer and health advocates continue the fight with industry and government over appropriate standards and methods of preparing, preserving, flavoring and other types of food processing which might pose heath risks.
More recently, health advocates express concerns about genetically modified (GM) foods and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). GM foods present a risk to the public, says Consumers International, through "adverse allergic reactions, build-up of resistance to antibiotics and the potential for new, or more virulent, toxins in foods."[12] Of the top twelve POPs, nine are agricultural pesticides.[13] These toxins have a special affinity for the fat tissue of living organisms wherein they bioaccumulate up the food chain, magnifying their effects -- such as disrupting or interfering with the body's endocrine system -- at each link. This effect reaches its peak in animal products (meat, fish, milk, cheese), the source of 90% of bioaccumulative POPs in humans.
Growing concerns about food safety are a major impetus to the rapid growth during the 1990s in organic food sales. In Western Europe, the United States and Japan, consumer demand for organic food has grown by about 25% per year.[14] In 1997, sales of organic foods came to $10.5 billion. This year, sales of organic food should reach about $20 billion. By 2005, the market share for organic food should expand in some countries to 5-10% of overall food sales.
Consuming sustainably
On the individual or household level, sustainable food consumption means obtaining, eating and hopefully enjoying sufficient amounts of nutritious and safe food to stay healthy and active. The individual consumer is also an active part of the global food system, one that unfortunately condemns millions to starvation or illness and at the same time wastes and destroys innumerable tons of food while providing more than enough for others. For food consumption to be sustainable, it also has to be through means that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable -- minimizing waste and pollution and not jeopardizing the needs of other generations. Put in other terms, the social, economic and environmental costs of food consumption -- the negative impacts from the investment, production and distribution of food -- must not be externalized to the environment or passed down to communities, countries at a disadvantage or future generations. Unfortunately, this externalization of costs is a characteristic of the current food system and food consumption.
Poverty is the most obvious obstacle to sustainable food consumption. According to the World Bank, 1.3 billion people exist on incomes of US$1 a day or less. Food security will only come from rising out of this poverty as well as ensuring against the slide into poverty. The goal may be self-sufficiency for rural sustainable livelihoods, or economic empowerment through forming organizations and alliances to increase political strength and visibility.
One's consumption of food -- if it is to be sustainable -- involves more than choosing, buying and eating nutritious and safe food (if that option is available). Sustainable food consumption also requires active and responsible participation in the decision-making processes which shape investment, production and the distribution of food.
Investment in food
After identifying people's consumption needs, the next set of questions focuses on investment. What resources (money, land, labor) are needed and are being invested to achieve sustainable food consumption? Who will mobilize these resources, i.e., who will pay the costs and receive the benefits?
According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), in order for the world to achieve universal access to basic health and nutrition, an additional annual expenditure of $13 billion is needed. This is slightly more than the $12 billion spent annually by Sub-Saharan African countries on debt repayments, while far below the $17 billion a year spent on pet food in Europe and the United States, or the $50 billion spent by Europeans on cigarettes.[15] Perhaps even more scandalous is the $345 billion spent each year on environmentally damaging agriculture subsidies.
Private sector investment in food
While overall foreign direct investment (FDI) has
significantly increased during the past decade, it largely bypassed the
agricultural sector. According to the OECD, investment in agricultural
research and development has fallen to 0.5 percent of the value of agricultural
production or less, compared to 2 percent in OECD countries.[16] The lack
of investment in agriculture, particularly in the developing countries, has been
partially attributed to support and protectionism in the developed countries,
depressing commodity prices. Investment in food security, it is said, will
come only after governments reduce tariffs and export subsidies and open
markets. For the OECD, the UN and like bodies, the answer to increased
investment in food is trade liberalization.
Most NGOs have no illusions about corporate interests in food security, despite the many television and magazine commercials portraying big agro-food companies such as Phillip Morris and Archer Daniel Midland as dedicated to "feeding the world." Most investment in food and agriculture does not aim to provide sustainable food security or a higher quality of life for everyone, but is dedicated to achieving high financial returns to investors. As in other sectors, the business of food and agriculture is to make money.
Rather than find ways to "feed the hungry," most large companies show more interest in identifying new market opportunities offered through changing consumer demographics and preferences -- including a growing preference for organic foods and the aversion (mostly in Europe) to genetically modified foods.
Governments and international agencies highlight the importance of attracting FDI and domestic investment by the corporate and financial sectors to finance increased food production in general as well
as environmentally sustainable products and methods. In this discussion we hear about the profitability of "greening" industry, next to calls for greater corporate responsibility and accountability. However, for the FAO "private investment can only be attracted if adequate levels of public goods -- including infrastructure and other measures to promote easy access to markets -- are provided."[17]
Public sector investment in food
Food aid in response to disasters
and other emergencies is one of the more immediate, short-term government
investments in food security. In 1993, public-sector agencies generated a
record 17 million metric tons of food, with 25% going to Somalia, Rwanda and
other Sub-Saharan African countries, and 41% going to CEE/NIS countries.
However, according to the World Resources Institute, "24 to 27 million metric
tons would have been needed to raise the per capita global caloric intake to
recommended minimum levels."[18]
One of the more heated discussions at the Commission on Sustainable Development, as well as many other international fora, is about the increase of overseas development assistance (ODA), the call for "new and additional resources" to pay for the Agenda 21 and other such commitments. The Secretary-General's 1997 report to the CSD highlighted the decline of external assistance to agriculture from $19 billion in 1986 to $10 billion in 1994. The Secretary-General's report in April 2000 reports agriculture ODA to have dropped to an average of $7.5 billion for 1995-1997.[19]
Although "development banks and other donors are reorienting their investing strategies towards sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD)," the CSD pointed out that international funding is "still well below the levels required to fulfil the expectations raised" in Agenda 21. [20] This is an understatement, considering that food aid was cut in half between 1993 and 1996, and that food aid needs in 2005 are projected to rise to four times the amount available in 1996.[21]
Financing food security is not only a matter of getting industrialized countries to increase ODA and for business and industry to invest in sustainable agriculture projects. Another important step is to reduce and eventually eliminate the huge financials flows currently invested in activities with environmentally and socially destructive consequences.
Subsidy and tax reform
At its Special Session in June 1997 to review progress during the previous five years in implementing Agenda 21, the UN General Assembly emphasized the importance of "promoting measures to internalize environmental costs and benefits in the price of goods and services."
Governments were asked to "consider shifting the burden of taxation onto unsustainable patterns of production and consumption," that this action is of "vital importance" in internalizing environmental costs. Further, "such tax reforms should include a socially responsible process of reduction and elimination of subsidies to environmentally harmful activities."[22]
One NGO from the Philippines points out that the arguments supporting "free trade" priorities do not sufficiently address the issue of agricultural subsidies in the North. Because food exports from the North are subsidized and at the same time externalizing their social and environmental costs. Thus, "food exporting countries have an unfair advantage over poor countries that may be producing food in an environmentally sound way."[23]
David Roodman, of Worldwatch, describes in his book the Natural Wealth of Nations how during the Green Revolution of the 1960s "pesticides, fertilizer, and water were practically given away, through favorable tariffs, subsidized loans, and government-funded irrigation projects" with "serious environmental and social side effects."[24] Now, long after this period, subsidies that the Green Revolution helped spawn persist, "distorting such decisions as when chemical applications are worth the costs and health risks." [25]
Globally, over $650 billion a year (about 9% of government revenue) is spent subsidizing activities harmful to the environment. Of this, Roodman estimates $288 billion in agricultural payments and price supports in western industrial countries alone,[26] with "billions more in subsidies for pesticide and fertilizers in developing countries."[27] UNDP estimates a yearly average of $345 billion spent on environmentally damaging agriculture subsidies during the early 1990s -- with $335 billion from OECD countries.[28] In the industrial countries, families pay more than $1,000 a year through higher food prices and taxes to fund subsidies. Furthermore, "most of that money goes not to the small farms deemed most deserving, but to the minority of large farms that produce the majority of the food."[29] It should not be surprising that these subsidies "lock in" a pesticide-dependent industrial agriculture system producing increased soil erosion and water pollution.
For several years now, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group have worked with a range of other NGOs in the US to produce and recommend the elimination of a list of environmentally harmful subsidies, costing taxpayers $50 billion. Included in the Green Scissors recommended cuts are a number of agricultural subsidies. These subsidies include "both direct payments to commodity growers and indirect subsidies, including import quotas, 'non-recourse' loans (loans that the borrower can opt to repay in either money or crops), tax breaks, insurance payments, disaster bailouts, marketing assistance, and price supports." These subsidies tend to "encourage overproduction and agricultural systems that are dependent upon growing pesticide- and water-intensive crops." In some cases, this kind of farming has "severely jeopardized sensitive ecosystems."[30]
Not all subsidies are destructive, and NGOs encourage the constructive use of subsidies where they can enhance sustainability and the quality of life rather than undermine it. As one Columbian NGO urges, "Environmental policy related to agriculture must necessarily establish subsidy policies or other policies in order to pay ecological costs to those peasants who work in poly-cultivation or who try to develop organic agricultural projects."[31]
Many NGOs remain hopeful that at some point business and industry will recognize the necessity of responding to environmental and social sustainability priorities. Other NGOs remain skeptical of both government and the agro-food industry's willingness to take the necessary steps to take sustainable agriculture beyond its minor market niche. For these NGOs, the primary initiative must be taken by civil society, by informed and concerned consumers, workers and citizens.
Consumer investment in food
Ultimately, investment by business and government is dependent upon consumers and citizens. If consumers refuse to buy what is marketed to them, investors lose and tend to quickly change priorities. If citizens -- especially when organized and persistent -- express widespread unhappiness and anger about how their taxes are being misused, as with perverse subsidies, eventually governments will also tend to shift their public investment priorities. Thus efforts to influence consumer and citizen perceptions and values, especially the belief that business and government are actively responding to consumer and citizen demands.
One way concerned citizens -- those with sufficient discretionary income -- may directly invest in sustainable food companies is through socially responsible investment (SRI) services, using social and environmental screens on potential firms. SRI, especially when linked with large pension funds, is gradually increasing its influence within the larger investment community and slowly revealing itself as an alternative to traditional commercial investment funds.
However, as separate and isolated individuals and households, citizens easily feel they have little influence over the investment policies and practices of business and government -- except where mutual interests naturally converge within the market or general public opinion. Advertising, marketing and public relations campaigns have great sway in shaping perceptions about what is desirable or harmful. This public impotence is especially the case while consumers remain uninformed or unconcerned with the social, environmental or economic impacts of those policies and practices.
For the most part, consumers are preoccupied with managing their own household budgets, how they will invest their time, income, land, labor or other resources to acquire the food, clothing, housing and other goods they need and desire for themselves and their family. Food is the most immediate priority of the household budget.
For those who do not produce their own food, the majority who are dependent on the cash economy and must buy their food from retailers, the key questions are of availability, desirability, price and ability to pay. For those without land, access or ability to pay, there are no opportunities; their investments must be in immediate survival strategies. If food aid or technical assistance is available, this means knowing about it and getting access to it. For the hungry and the poor it means taking whatever action is needed to change their situation, whether to obtain or retain the use of productive land or to find sufficient income to purchase food products. The desperation of poverty motivates the burning of rainforests to enable farming of small plots of land, despite low soil productivity. It drives the acceptance of debt to buy fertilizers and dangerous pesticides to squeeze additional produce from the land. It also leads to abandonment of rural family homes and communities for hopes of a paid job in the city.
In order to effectively mobilize the political capital needed
to influence public and private investment towards sustainable food security
priorities, citizens need to educate themselves about the nature of the
obstacles and the possibilities of collective action and mutual support.
This type of information -- when not provided by government, the media or the
education system -- is the responsibility of nongovernmental or civil society
organizations, including consumer rights advocates, health and environment NGOs,
and others whose priorities are more directly focused on sustainability and
quality of life than profitability or elections.
Production of food
To be sustainable, food production must improve the quality of life while ensuring social, environmental and economic sustainability. This should be understood as the goal of sustainable agriculture. Agenda 21 identified the objective of increasing food production in order to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, particularly in the developing countries. Earth Summit delegates and those of the CSD recognized that in the face of population growth of 80 million a year and continued urbanization, arable land is not just limited but shrinking. Furthermore, the productivity from the chemical-intensive Green Revolution had reached a plateau of now diminishing returns. Thus, "major adjustments are needed in agricultural, environmental and macroeconomic policy, at both national and international levels, in developed as well as developing countries to create the conditions for sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD)."[32]
In Agenda 21, the main objective of SARD is "to increase food production in a sustainable way and enhance food security." In 1997, the UN General Assembly announced that "the greatest challenge for humanity is to protect and sustainably manage the natural resource base on which food and fibre production depend, while feeding and housing a population that is still growing."[33] As with other chapters and commitments in Agenda 21, these general recommendations are easier to say in speeches than to implement.
Crisis of industrial agriculture
NGOs such as World Hunger Year (WHY) and others point out that while the conventional, industrial food system tends to be perceived as modern, efficient and able to produce cheap and abundant food, the unsustainable environmental and social costs of this system are becoming increasingly apparent.[34]
Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network (TWN) describes the situation as the crisis of industrial agriculture. The symptoms of this crisis include soil erosion and productivity loss, pollution of surface and groundwater, loss of cropland to urban development, loss of wild plant and animal genetic resources, elimination of pests' natural predators, chemical contamination and the destruction of natural control mechanisms. This crisis, she explains, "is the systematic result of more than 40 years of the prevalent socio-economic system that promotes monocultures and the use of high-input technologies and agricultural practices."[35] Agricultural policies emphasize production targets rather than "an integrated approach towards sustainable livelihoods, human development and poverty eradication in rural areas." These policies are in turn based on an unsustainable model of economic and social development that assumes small farmers need to be integrated into the global agricultural market -- regardless of the impact on local communities and the ecosystems sustaining them.
According to Lester Brown of Worldwatch, "the food system is likely to be the sector through which environmental deterioration eventually translates into economic decline."[36] For Brown, "all the key food security indicators signal a shift from surplus to scarcity." With scarcity come rising food prices followed by political instability. "If the price of grain were to double, as it already has for some types of seafood, it could impoverish hundreds of millions more almost overnight," Brown warns. "In short, a steep rise in grain prices could impoverish more people than any event in history." In response, people would hold their governments responsible and likely "take to the streets."
NGOs, international organizations and others have highlighted the following impacts and costs of industrial agriculture:
§ Soil degradation: The area of cropland per capita has been steadily declining, from 0.43 hectares (ha) in 1961 to about 0.26 ha in 1996.[37] Since 1945, nearly two billion hectares became degraded -- more than one-sixth of the world's productive land -- because of poor agricultural practices.[38] About 5-6 million hectares are lost each year to soil degradation. Near half the world's degraded lands in Asia and one half billion hectares in Africa are moderately to severely degraded. Grounds like Worldwatch recommend governments provide incentives to farmers to remove from cultivation land that cannot be farmed sustainably; governments can promote through extension services soil-conserving methods such as conservation tillage, terracing, alternative cropping arrangements, use of shelter-belts.[39] The German NGO Forum on Environment and Development urges that "agricultural practices that damage soils such as the use of chemical and synthetic pesticides and easily soluble mineralic fertilizers as well as large-scale livestock farming unlinked to farm acreage -- should be made more difficult (e.g., by taxing such substances.)"[40]
§ Cropland loss to urbanization: While the future jump in demand for food should motivate protection of arable land, this is generally not the case. Prime farmland continues to be lost at a serious rate due to urban development. Although losing almost 4 million hectares of cropland between 1987 and 1992, China continues towards its goal of building 600 new cities by 2010.[41] In turn, the United States lost almost 2 million hectares between 1982 and 1992. Recommendations: Require greater densities in urban and suburban building; establish zoning that protects urban "greenbelts;" enact farmland conversion taxes; provide better access by women to education, economic security and family planning resources -- key factors in reducing population growth.[42]
§ Yield loss: The dramatic rise in grain yields between the 1960s and 1980s tended to outweigh the loss of arable land. However, since 1984, grain yields have slowed to such a degree that they no longer compensate for the steady elimination of grainland.
§ Water pollution: The "increasing use of inorganic fertilizers is resulting, in some areas, in the contamination of drinking water with nitrates and damage to aquatic ecosystems from eutrophication."[43]
§ Overpumping of groundwater: In many irrigation-dependent countries, including China, India, North Africa, Middle East, southwestern United States, water tables are falling because of overpumping.[44]
§ Overfishing: According to CSD, overfishing has resulted in reduced productivity of fisheries, with the marine fish harvest now stagnant.[45] UNDP claims fish stocks are declining, with about one-fourth currently depleted or in danger of depletion and another 44% being fished at their ecological limit. [46]
Organic vs. chemical-intensive production
The rise of industrial agriculture with its high-yield seeds depending on high chemical inputs is associated with the Green Revolution of the 1960s. The assumption was that higher yields would mean more income for poor farmers and thus less poverty, and that more food would mean less hunger. By the 1970s, traditional farming practices among millions of farmers in developing countries were exchanged for the new seeds with their accompanying need for petro-fertilizers, pesticides and controlled irrigation. By the 1990s, approximately 40 percent of Third World farmers were using Green Revolution seeds, mostly in Asia and Latin America.[47]
Unfortunately, the immediate high-yield output from these methods have been paid for by degraded natural fertility of the soil, the creation of pesticide-resistant pests, not to mention the damage to environment and health. In turn, the amounts or concentration of fertilizers and pesticides needed are now starting to outpace yields, with farmers also facing a cost-price squeeze. In the 1990s, production costs have risen from half to over 80 percent of gross farm income. The result has been the abandonment of small family farms and a "gutting of rural communities," with an increase in rural unemployment, and the rise of large "super farms."[48]
As to the impact of expanding pesticide use, WRI reports one estimate of 50 to 100 million people in developing countries receiving intensive pesticide exposure, with another 500 million receiving lower exposures. The result is 3.5 million to 5 million acute pesticide poisonings per year, with a larger number suffering from subacute effects.[49] Most of these occur in developing countries, especially from organophosphates and carbamates, many of which are banned or restricted in developed countries. In the United States, nearly 4 million agricultural workers are at risk of significant pesticide exposure, resulting in 10,000 to 20,000 poisonings treated each year, with at least as many going untreated.[50] In addition to agricultural workers, people living near farms or plantations are also victims of pesticide poisoning, with children the most vulnerable.
The other major chemical input associated with industrial agriculture, nitrogen fertilizers, increased in use more than five-fold between 1960 and 1990. In developing countries, fertilizer use is expected to double by 2020, growing especially in Africa and South Asia. One of the main pollution concerns with fertilizers is contamination of surface and groundwater with nitrates, threatening both health and environmental quality. Human health risks from nitrate contamination include "blue baby syndrome" and cancer. Unfortunately, nitrate is now one of the most common chemical contaminants in drinking water. "In the United States . . . nitrate contamination is the nation's most widespread groundwater pollution problem," says WRI, with "22% of wells in agricultural areas in excess of the federal limit."[51]
Organic farming, on the other hand, avoids such chemical dependency. Organic agriculture, explains the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), "dramatically reduces external inputs by refraining from the use of chemo-synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and pharmaceuticals." Instead, these methods allow "the powerful laws of nature to increase both agricultural yields and disease resistance."[52] Integrated pest management (IPM), for example, with techniques using natural pest predators and other non-chemical methods, is increasingly being recognized as a suitable alternative to heavy pesticide-based pest control. As a result, organic agriculture improves the fertility and structure of the soil, using crop rotation, recycling of crop residues, applying organic manures and mulches to encourage development of soil micro-organisms.[53] In addition to strengthening soil fertility, organic farming methods protect surface and ground water and helps preserve biodiversity.
For many NGOs, agroecology/organic agriculture is the approach most suited for meeting the challenge of creating food security while conserving the environment and natural resource base of agriculture and providing a path out of poverty.[54] Sustainable farming has been described as seeking "to make the best use of nature's goods and services whilst not damaging the environment." This is done by "integrating natural processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration and natural enemies of pests into food production processes." Furthermore, it "minimizes the use of non-renewable inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) that damage the environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers."[55]
Unfortunately, only a small percent of agricultural producers are organic farmers. Within the European Union, only 1.3% (about 100,000) of all farms are organic. By country, organic farms tend to be more common in Sweden (12% of all farms), Austria (9%) and Finland (4%).[56]
Biotechnology: Fear of "Frankenfoods"
Another controversial development of industrial agriculture is biotechnology, eliciting strong resistance by NGOs to the push by the chemical industry to integrate genetically modified (GM) food -- dubbed "Frankenfoods" -- into the global food system. Agenda 21 highlights biotechnology as offering opportunities to "transform biological resources so that they serve the needs of sustainable development,"[57] especially in improving food availability. More specifically, Agenda 21 sets out a number of food production objectives for biotechnology: to increase yield, improve nutritional value, increase the efficiency of nitrogen fixation and mineral absorption, and eliminate overdependence on agrochemicals.
NGOs, on the other hand, are more likely to highlight the aggressive lobbying by the chemical industry in promoting genetic engineering in agriculture, the downplaying of risks and willingness to pass these risks to consumers and farmers. As to the claim of reducing chemical dependency, the new genetically engineered seeds require increased use of chemicals, as well as high-quality soils and major investment in machinery, asserts the Center for Ethics and Toxics. "Two-thirds of the genetically engineered crops now available, or in development," they say, "are designed specifically to increase the sale of pesticides produced by the companies that are selling the genetically engineered seeds."[58] One example is of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" products, whereby farmers using Roundup Ready seeds are required to also use Monsanto's Roundup Ready herbicides.
The FAO, claiming that "the application of agricultural biotechnology techniques can increase food security," identifies the key problem in the lack of attention in research to "pro-poor objectives that could positively impact on sustainable agriculture and rural development objectives."[59] In their recommendations to the CSD, the FAO stress "the moral imperative for making modern agricultural biotechnologies, such as genetically modified (transgenic) crops readily and economically available to developing countries who want them."
However, for NGOs and critics such as Vandana Shiva, biotechnology tends to represent companies -- such as Monsanto -- aiming "at controlling vital resources necessary for survival, converting them into a market and using public finances to underwrite the investments."[60] Rather than addressing the needs of the poor, many NGOs see the danger of a small number of American and European biotech companies gaining a monopoly over the seeds needed to produce the world's food crops.
For these NGOs, the problem is not lack of research or even lack of food, but rather the concentration of economic power among large chemical and agribusiness corporations, exerting "unprecedented control over the products and processes of life -- the biological basis for commercial food, farming and health."[61] The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) identifies the transnational enterprises dominating the commercial sale of pesticides, seeds, pharmaceuticals, food and animal veterinary products as the "gene giants." The trend of increasing mergers and acquisitions is a shift by chemical companies -- such as Monsanto, Bayer, Dupont, Aventis (Hoechst+Rhone-Poulenc) -- into the new business of biotechnology, "shifting out of commodity petrochemicals into biology -- away from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates." Rather than an opportunity to enhance food security, "the hungry, like the well-fed, will have to pay the corporate owners of this new technology for permission to eat."[62]
Farmers big and small
One source of confusion in the discussion is the term "farmer." Agro-food industry representatives frequently use this term when they describe the interests of their large industrial food-producing constituents, while giving the impression they are speaking for small family farmers. Likewise, the term "sustainable agriculture" will in turn take on different meanings depending on who is speaking.
Farmers are defined by Agenda 21 as a major group comprising "all rural people who derive their livelihood from activities such as farming, fishing and forest harvesting." Over half the world's population is engaged in agricultural production, most of whom are women. Agenda 21 identifies these people as "stewards of much of the Earth's resources" and asserts that "a farmer-centered approach is the key to the attainment of sustainability in both developed and developing countries."[63]
However, there is a big difference between small farmers,
particularly those engaged in subsistence farming and local consumption and the
large agri-businesses whose main interest is in imports and exports. One
concern of many small farmers is the effort by bodies such as the WTO to further
liberalize trade in agriculture, this effort is seen , as one Filipino NGO
explains as "the single most important factor which could determine the
survival of the small farm (both in the North and the South) in the next
millennium."[64] In his
view, "small corn and rice farmers the world over are already beginning to lose
their historical comparative advantage to large scale producers (that have the
economies of scale and are assisted by subsidies.)"
"In contrast with holistic farming systems with their close links between agriculture and ecology," explains Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network, "modern production systems in the post-World War II period are reductionist in their approach." This approach favors "large farms, specialised production, crop monocultures and mechanisation, and compromising on ecological principles and human health."[65]
A threat exists also from large corporations to dominate organic food production at the expense of small farmers. “In our countries we are being confronted with the fact that big landowners are incorporating organic agriculture practices and inputs as they see a niche in the market for organic products," says Friends of the Earth Uruguay.[66] "As they are capitalized, they have more possibilities to get credits and have more access to markets." The problem is that small family farmers who have been doing ecological agriculture for many years do not have this market access and will not survive this competition.
Furthermore, this capital intensive industrialization of organic agriculture "is resource intensive, employs high external organic inputs, does not take into account ecological cycles, and in most cases is based on exploitation of rural workers." There is no sustainable rural development because these so-called "farmers" do not live in the rural areas nor participate in the community’s life. Rather, rural communities are undermined.
Concerned with the impacts of corporate concentration and control within agriculture, the trade unions also express their concerns that agricultural production and trade are "increasingly dominated by powerful transnational corporations" of which "a handful now control most of the world's agricultural trade and . . . have managed to 'internationalise' production and consumption."[67] This internationalization "divides North from South and separates increasingly larger, intensive agricultural operations that tend to be mechanised and which use many more commercial inputs from small-scale, subsistence agricultural operations, which are based on traditional methods."
Achieving market dominance is one important objective of private sector investment and is a major motivation behind the large flows invested in mergers and acquisitions of food companies. The majority of mergers and acquisitions has not been in the primary agricultural, forestry and fishing sector (with sales of US$ 1.6 billion in 1998) but rather the secondary processing and distribution sector (sales of US$ 18.3 billion).
Transition to a new mainstream
"Organic/ecological agriculture is now beyond just vision and potential," points out Third World Network, adding that "it is therefore timely for the CSD to promote the mainstreaming of organic/ecological agriculture amongst governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies."[68] Overall, the major task and challenge is to find the strategy by which sustainable agriculture can successfully make the transition to become the standard operating framework for producing food and achieving sustainable food security.
As the OECD observes, there are two conflicting groups at the heart of the policy debate. On one side there are the concerns of environmentalists, consumer and business organizations which "focus on conservation and sustainable development as well as safer and healthier products" and who are leery of the "allegedly negative impacts of free trade." On the other side are the farmers and "food organizations" (i.e., industry associations) who are concerned "that stricter food and environmental standards will weaken their international competitiveness."[69]
NGOs have highlighted the "key
policy challenge" of formulating "a strategy founded on the informed
participation of relevant stakeholders at all levels of discussion, that
enhances food security, provides paths out of poverty and conserves the natural
resource base of agriculture."[70] One of the
NGO recommendations for the CSD8 Dialogue on Sustainable Agriculture is to form
an ongoing multi-stakeholder working group on sustainable agriculture and rural
development.
However, it is obvious to many that the transition from industrial agriculture to a sustainable global food system is going to need a lot more than informed discussion. For this multi-stakeholder discussion to be substantive, the players who now define economic and political policy and receive the benefits from business-as-usual need to feel increasing pressure from informed consumers, workers and citizens -- those who ultimately pay the externalized costs in health risks and environmental damage.
In their position paper for the 8th session of the CSD, the trade unions posed an important question: "For what public purpose should increased food productivity rises be encouraged in the future and how should the benefits be more directed to promoting a sustainable food system?"[71] In the current system, food is primarily produced for profit and this overshadows all other concerns about health or environmental protection. "The lion's share of profits from productivity," they point out, "goes to those who own, market and control production and distribution. From the trade union's point of view, as well as many NGOs, the dominant problem is not insufficient production of food but "with the distribution of the benefits."[72]
Distribution of food
The final phase of the cycle is the distribution of the goods and services produced in response to consumers' needs. Key questions are: (1) What are the outlets and through what process do people get access to nutritional and safe food? (2) To what degree does the distribution system provide for people's nutritional consumption needs? (3) Does the distribution process improve or undermine environmental, social and economic sustainability?
Getting food to the table
Those who do not grow their own food must buy from those who do -- or one of the many intermediate sellers of farmers' goods. Generally in capitalist societies, food distribution is a marketing function. This activity involves transportation, packaging, sales and advertising -- with trade representing one dimension of sales.
Once food is produced it is then packaged, transported and delivered to a sales outlet. Some food is moved by cart to the local village market, hopefully to wind up that evening stewing in the family cooking pot. Other food -- an increasingly major share -- is loaded into huge cargo boxes and shipped or flown thousands of miles away, later carried by refrigerated railroad cars and/or trucks to a warehouse to perhaps wait for weeks or even months. Eventually the product ends on the grocery shelf or serving platter.[73]
Grocery stores are roughly divided between supermarkets, usually owned by commercials groups, and "secondary" retailers, including independent grocers and specialists (bakers, butchers, fish-sellers, etc.) as well as convenience stores and kiosks. In Chile, supermarkets now account for over 70% of food purchases.[74] A basic trend is the growing concentration and power of the large supermarket retailers. In 1996, the $92.3 billion earned by the top five supermarket chains in the United States accounted for 23% of total supermarket sales (about $400 billion).[75]
In 1995-96, secondary food retailers accounted for 28-33% of all food and drink sales in the UK, France, Germany and Italy, with about 200,000 outlets per country. Major growth is in gas station/convenience stores and snack food vending machines. In the United States, secondary retail outlets include 93,000 convenience stores with total sales of $144 billion in 1995. Most of these stores are linked to gas stations (52% of total secondary food sales).[76]
Restaurants. In the United States, slightly less than half (45.3%) of the money people spend on food is for eating outside the home.[77] Over half (52%) of this out-of-home eating takes place for dinner, followed by lunch (37%) and breakfast (11%). Altogether, spending on food prepared throughout the 831,000 restaurants across the country in 1999 amounted to over $358 billion -- more than $ 1 billion a day. Almost two-thirds of this amount was spent at either full-service restaurants ($121 billion) or fast-food outlets ($110 billion). The rest is spent for food in cafeterias, ice cream shops, and contractors for hospitals, colleges, airlines, military and other settings.
High in calories, sodium, fat and cholesterol, fast foods increase the risk of obesity, coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and cancer. Unfortunately, a major indicator of development in developing countries, countries-in-transition, and urbanizing rural areas is the appearance of the highly advertised fast food chains (McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc.) Between 1991 and 1996, the number of McDonald's restaurants in developing countries quadrupled -- growing especially in Latin America and Asia, from 448 to 1,824 outlets.[78] This number is still far behind the 19,198 McDonald's outlets in the industrial countries.[79] In Western Europe, market penetration of the fast food chains is as follows: France (29%), United Kingdom (28%), Germany (24%), Spain (17%), and Italy (6%). In the United States, where fast foods accounts for half of restaurant revenues,[80] the top ten chains represent 10% of the total commercial food service market.[81]
The organic food market
While organic farm products represents only about one percent of the global food market, production and consumption of certified organic products keeps growing by about 20% each year.[82] Nevertheless, this share is projected to remain relatively small and "not likely to become a dominant agricultural production method in the near future."[83]
For many NGOs, this is not simply an objective business forecast but a self-fulfilling prophecy, considering how industrial agriculture, chemical-intensive production and products are actively promoted by both industry and governments.
One major problem in building an adequate market for
organic produce is the higher price, compared with food produced with high
chemical inputs. Because of government subsidies to mainstream
agriculture, the lack of a large and established market, and other reasons,
"ecological or organic agriculture and traditional peasant farming cannot
compete with the industrialized agriculture of high-agent usage."[84]
Sales and advertising
In addition to the process of moving food from farm to consumers is the work of moving consumers towards the food. While some food advertising may communicate the nutritional value of bran and fiber-based cereals, the need for calcium and other minerals, its main function is to create brand awareness and to impel a need to buy. In the arena of advertising, sellers aggressively compete for the attention and income of potential buyers. "Advertising is a synonym for Consumer choice," explains Michael Perry, Chairman of Unilever, one of the world's biggest advertisers. "Only by knowing what's available out there can the Consumer exercise his or her right to choose."[85]
However, for the multi-billion dollar advertising industry, with its armies of creative writers, artists, social scientists and strategists, the objective is not to reveal the possible paths towards a higher quality of life but to win the battle for market share. To distract the targeted demographic segment away from competing messages and instill brand awareness with specific emotional associations. The target is qualified as either those who can pay or who have influence over those with the money. However, "while conspicuous consumption is . . . confined to the well-to-do in developed and developing countries," points out Maria Elena-Hurtado of Consumers International, "even the poor are being sucked into the increasing commercialisation of every sphere of life."[86]
Those who cannot pay, while denied access to the product, are nevertheless a part of the audience for sophisticated media messages disguised to arouse strong desires and feelings of need. Through the medium of advertising, physical objects that might otherwise seem irrelevant become charged with symbolic significance, claiming the power to grant social acceptance, respect, belonging, and love.
While only those who can pay are targeted, most of the world is audience to the messages of advertising -- including the poor and children. Although theoretically consumer demand is supposed to drive the cycle, the multi-billion dollar industry of advertising is devoted to shaping and stimulating demand, creating desires and perceptions, converting commodities into fantasies, and transforming social and community-based values -- such as status, belonging, respect -- into attributes of brand names and products. For example, McDonald's, among the world's top 20 largest advertisers, teams with Walt Disney Productions using popular cartoon characters to promote fast food cravings in children.
 |
In the 1999 "A Spoonful of Sugar" study of television advertising to children in 13 developed countries, Consumers International shows that much of the advertising -- from companies such as McDonalds, Nestlé, Kellogg's, Mars and Cadbury's -- promotes food high in fat, sugar or salt antithetical to a healthy, balanced diet.[87] Most children's advertising is for candies, sweetened breakfast cereals and fast food restaurants.[88] While regulations of children's advertising are in place in many of these countries, regulatory agencies are lax in attention and enforcement.
Table 9 - Media ad spending by food companies
|
Rank |
Advertiser |
US$ millions (1998) | ||||
|
Total world spending |
Africa |
Asia |
Latin America |
United States | ||
|
2 |
Unilever |
3,428.5 |
43.4 |
643.2 |
373.3 |
691.2 |
|
3 |
Nestle |
1,833.0 |
11.1 |
299.4 |
209.2 |
273.8 |
|
8 |
Coca-Cola Co. |
1,327.3 |
22.6 |
265.2 |
269.2 |
315.8 |
|
11 |
Mars Inc. |
1,069.6 |
0.0 |
70.1 |
30.2 |
276.6 |
|
13 |
Philip Morris Cos. |
1,980.3 |
0.1 |
23.7 |
109.5 |
1,264.4 |
|
20 |
McDonald's Corp. |
1,164.0 |
0.0 |
209.3 |
46.1 |
571.7 |
|
22 |
Danone Group |
588.6 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
43.8 |
38.6 |
|
28 |
Kellogg Co. |
705.7 |
||||