Sustainability goes mainstream; A re-invention of capitalism in the matrix of our anthropocene diet
Full details
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | Milling & Grain |
| Year of publication | 2022 May |
| Languages | |
| Medium | Digital |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | Economics & commerce > Sustainability, behaviour and the environment |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | James Cooper, Milling and Grain magazine regular correspondent, once again provides an insightful and hard-hitting review of the state of our global food production chain, consumer motivation and climate change all rolled into a myriad of questions about food and sustainability and what this means to businesses producing food products for consumers. Hard questions lead to positive and progressive responses from feed milling industry leaders. Campaigners say a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed. For decades, modern agriculture has relied on a model of pure financial capitalism; a linear system of farming a handful of crops, resulting in soil depletion and release of carbon into the atmosphere. By any measure of sustainability, it’s not fit for purpose. Half the world’s GDP is dependent on nature, yet nature cannot sustain us any longer. A football field per second is cut out of the rainforest to make way for poor quality farmland. While the pandemic has demonstrated in an obvious way that our existence on the planet is fragile and that food systems are vulnerable, equally apparent has been our ability to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances. The UK learned how to bake bread and grow vegetables. Quite apart from souring fuel costs, my local mixed-arable farmer also experienced a four-fold increase in the cost of bagged NPK fertiliser in the last six months, so he’s bought less, and his muck heap has become equivalently more valuable. Read more about: Transforming the food system The statistics speak for themselves Consumer choice - unreliable in reversing climate change Industry can do better A new metrics of capitalism Motivating the feed industry Purpose above profit Along the road Feed production - inherently circular |
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