Food is essentially a source of energy for people around the world. Its nutritional value is directly proportional to its freshness and the conditions within which it is grown. In ideal circumstances food, to promote freshness, should be grown locally. In reality it has today become a major global enterprise. And once it has entered the realm of global business that means that it is now subject to a different set of criteria to make it financially viable. The creation of food has to become a business and be operated as a business, and in that translation the essential condition for its effectiveness is cast aside. Instead of being a labor of love, with consideration for season and local ecosystem and the health of people, in its creation, it is driven by global competition and economies of scale.
Therefore, when serious drought hits Russia, a primary provider of world-wide wheat, and the prices of many commodities such as corn, soybean, rapeseed, barley, jump in the bargain (“Investors fear re-run of great grain robbery”ft.com, Aug 06, 2010), threatening the established supply of these basics, and causing panic and the threat of significant starvation, it is time to pause and ask what really has the global food, beverage, and agricultural industry done for the good of humankind?
Being run as a global business means that at every phase of the supply chain compromise has to be made and costs have to be assumed by the locality or region within which that supply chain phase exists. Starting from growth of the essential raw materials, we see increasing instances of ecosystems, complex forests, marshlands, amongst other natural habitats that have been built up over millennium and are embedded into the very fabric of life often in ways that we do not completely understand, being wiped aside in favor of regimented and for that locality unnatural growth of crops. This has huge costs to the soil and natural life in the locality, the environment, the surrounding community, the economy, and future generations. Destruction of ecosystems destroys ecosystem-services provided to humanity, such as water and air filtration, carbon sequestration – essential to counteract climate change, flood control, enrichment of soil, destruction of species – with their effects such as creation of food, pollination, provision of medicinal compounds, amongst others. None of these tremendous costs are ever considered as costs. They are taken for granted and externalized to the other entities unfortunate enough to be the context for that phase of the supply chain.
Further down the supply chain where there may be a processing plant, a whole new level of costs that are usually not considered come into being. The first order of costs is usually environmental. Hence, if water for the plant is needed, of even if water is a key ingredient in the food or beverage, then tube-wells may be sunk and the underlying water-table seriously affected. This has huge effects on the lives of communities in the vicinity. If the plant has bi-products then these are often spewed into the atmosphere, sunk into the earth, or offloaded into a water supply or flowing body of water in the area. This too has serious effects on surrounding communities, and are often not considered in the statement of cost. The agricultural sector is the highest user of water. Hence it becomes very important for it to be used most efficiently and responsibly.
In the processing itself often additives and preservatives and other questionable chemicals are employed that create a food filled with subtle poisons. Our current approach of assuming otherwise until proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is biased toward the the big corporation that we have to remember is motivated primarily by maximizing its profit, often at any cost.
Further, is the whole issue of Genetically Modified Foods (GMO). Nature and its output have been created over millennium. There is an inherent wisdom in the array of compounds that constitute any single herb or plant, and there is a long-built up equilibrium in which each herb or plant exists in harmony with everything else around it. To modify the genetic structure of such a construct, without considering or comprehending the huge number of interrelationships that are being changed as a result of that, is to load up the dice in random ways and hope for the best when they are thrown. One simply cannot maintain long-established equilibriums in such a manner. As Einstein has said, “God does not play dice with the universe.’ Further, we really have no clue as to how the GMO is going to interact with human bodies, and what the effects on the cells is going to be. This is an irresponsible approach to production, and potentially creates a whole slew of problems in its wake.
At several points in a supply chain large work forces are often employed. Often times in order to minimize total cost of production migrant workers are employed and human rights issues compromised. Women and children are also often exploited. Employees are overworked, not subjected to decent working conditions, have fewer rights than the normal citizens of a country.
The point of view that an agricultural company or a global food company is doing humanity a service by providing food or beverages globally is flawed. It counteracts the very need for growth and creation of food to become a community-strengthening activity. Contact with, nurturing, and respecting the land is essential in the scheme of things. When I was Managing Director at BSR, a leading non-profit sustainability consulting firm, one of our clients who shall go unnamed retorted when we approached them to assist with their CSR situation, “We provide grains to people all over the world: if that is not CSR then what is!!”. A community or a country that loses touch with its land has lost its sovereignty. Sooner or later it becomes entirely dependent on external flows and then easily can succumb to one of many external or global threats. Today’s global agricultural and food industries promote loss of contact by individuals, communities, and countries with local lands. This is a huge cost that is never considered in the simplified, short-term mathematics of asset and liability that animates business today.
Every piece of land is essentially creative. The very fact that all life emerges from this matrix is proof enough. Sometimes the secret of its creativity needs to be teased out, and in working to make this happen communities can be built and strengthened. Creative land lies at the basis of strong local cultures and economies. A vast range of products and services that are today artificially created through remote processing can be localized. Livelihoods can be enhanced through mastering the creation and exchange of these products and services. In today’s push to create profit, often at any cost, today’s global agricultural, food and beverage industries continually negate all this possibility.
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