London Review of Books Article - What We're about to Receive

In the most recent issue of the LRB, Jeremy Harding writes about the future of food and its supply. See full article here, or see below for a brief recap of the article's main points.

While mostly focusing on Britain's current food system and how that nation specifically will be affected by the future pressures of the world food system, Harding also more broadly identifies seven factors "bearing down on the global food supply," which came out of a recent study by "a team of experts and strategic analysts recruited by Chatham House[, who] published their findings on 'food futures' and the looming threats that we should keep in mind." Briefly, here are the seven most pressing factors affecting the global food system today:

1. Overpopulation and increasing rate of population growth - "We are six billion now and by 2030 we’ll be eight billion."

2. Nutrition transition (i.e. from grain- and vegetable-based diets, to meat- and dairy-based) - "Global production of food – all food – will have to increase by 50 per cent over the next 20 years to cater for two billion extra people and cope with the rising demand for meat."

3. Energy, of which industrial food production requires more every year - "It takes 160 litres [roughly 40 gallons] of oil to produce a tonne of maize in the US."

4. Land - "The amount of the world's land given over to agriculture continues to grow (in the UK, roughly 70 per cent of land is agricultural), but in per capita terms it's shrinking."

5. Water - "[O]ne in three people face water shortages [...] and by 2030 the ratio will have narrowed."

6. Climate change - "[E]xtreme weather events will [...] jeopardise agriculture and the movement of food from one place to another."

7. Agricultural workers - "[Totaling] 1.1 billion, [...] more than half of them own neither land nor machinery and live in a state of semi-slavery. The conditions of this new global underclass are at last a matter of concern: worldwide food production is set on a downturn as their wretchedness weakens their capacity to produce and earn, driving more people inexorably towards the cities."

The proposed solutions to the above seven issues of course come from a multitude of sources ("scientists, policy analysts, nutritionists, campaigners"), all of whom "put together a mix of different approaches" and propose a "a range of interventions on several, overlapping fronts" by: (1) consumers, who "must be urged to change their habits," (2) retailers, who "must encourage consumers to make that change," and (3) government, who "must repair the heavy machinery of policy, which has been left to rust when it might have helped consumers, chivvied retailers into line and revived British farming."

The remainder of the article includes arguments and trends often cited in U.S. journalism about the future of food:

- Movement towards choosing local, sustainably-produced food: "Local is now the prevailing doctrine of the alternative food movement. Many 'locavores' are attentive to the global food supply, yet their philosophy is based on a growing exasperation with the bigger picture beyond the parish. Overwhelmingly, in Bidwells' research, caterers, retailers and customers say 'knowing where it's from' is the main reason they prefer local."

- Hidden costs of cheap food: "A common thread in the alternative food movement – stronger in Britain than in any other EU member state – is a rugged opposition to the 'externalised' costs of food. [...] What we eat in Britain is cheap because so many of the real costs of producing it are absent at the checkout. [...] There are too many hidden costs in food that get shrugged off to the environment, or dumped on the world’s poor."

- Comparing campaign against junk food to campaign against smoking: "Politicians can legislate away civil liberties on a good enough excuse, as we've seen, but they’ve been loath to come out in the open and curtail consumer choice. It wasn't so long ago that the tobacco lobby claimed civil liberties and consumer choice were one and the same – and perhaps the assault on smoking is a precedent for regulating our intake of 'bad' food."