The Food System PDF

The food system Appetite: The psychology of eating and drinking 1 1 Introduction • The lectures to come concentrate on pathological states - obesity and malnutrition • Both of these states arise under a complex set of circumstances – Social, Economic, Psychological and Biological • We can not st...

The food system Appetite: The psychology of eating and drinking 1 1 Introduction • The lectures to come concentrate on pathological states - obesity and malnutrition • Both of these states arise under a complex set of circumstances – Social, Economic, Psychological and Biological • We can not start to treat obesity and eliminate malnutrition unless we understand all these causes • The focus of this lecture is on a key social and economic determinant of obesity and malnutrition 2 2 The food system • The particular issue we will examine today is the ‘food system’ • The ‘food system’ includes all the processes that take place from farm to plate • Many authors have argued that our current food system has directly led to a state of over-abundance in the 1st world and hunger in the 3rd • Is this view fair and is it correct? 3 3 Our hungry past 1 • From the industrial revolution (and before) to the start of WW1 a sizeable portion of the population in Western countries lived in a state of chronic malnutrition • The consequence of this was premature death… – During this period, of every 1000 infants, only 200 would reach the age of 50 and only 100 the age of 70, most were dead before age 5 – A man of the 18th century who reached 50 would likely have buried his parents, his wife, half his children, as well as numerous other relatives. If he got to 70, he would probably have no relatives and friends from his own generation 4 4 Our hungry past 2 • Most people were dependent upon wheat - bread – During this time fluctuations in wheat prices correlated strongly with mortality rate in cities – In rural areas a mortality crisis ensued when wool prices were low and wheat prices high - people then could not afford to eat • Consequences of chronic malnutrition – You might imagine that inanition (exhaustion from lack of food) would be the main cause of death – Well it was for some, but if you are malnourished your immune system becomes compromised • Pregnant women give birth to low birth-weight babies who are then prone to opportunistic infection • Malnourished children act as a pool to start smallpox epidemics • Vulnerable adults and the elderly succumb to secondary infections from common ailments (colds and flu) 5 5 The present • Clearly, this dreadful state of affairs - chronic malnutrition - is now rare in Western industrialised nations • We live generally long, happy and well fed lives in stark contrast to our recent ancestors • The principal reason for this is that our food supply has become so secure, and food so cheap, that most of us are not aware of what a massive achievement this is - in terms of human history 6 6 Food supply • Clearly our food system works, so why is it being criticised? • We were hungry and now we are not! • To understand its current problems we have to understand how this system developed – that is we have to look to history… – We will do this by examining the problems with the food system in the past and the solutions adopted to solve them – It will then become apparent why the system we have developed has itself become a (or perhaps the) problem 7 7 The problem 1 – cost of food • • • • • • In the 17th, 18th and 19th century many people had insufficient money to purchase sufficient food to thrive - food was just too expensive Between the 17th and 19th Century, working people, on average, had to spend around 80% of their income on food More detailed and accurate figures emerge for the last century The graph below illustrates the % of income needed to be spent on food between 1900-2003 in the US - this dropped from 42% to 13% over that time In the US, in 1900, you needed 1700 hours of work to buy a year’s food, now you only need 260 hours work There are two ways to address the high price of food – Drive the cost of food down – Drive wages up 8 8 The problem 2 – food security • Also in this period food supply was more fragile, dependent upon good weather and no disease – The Irish potato famine (1845-1852) illustrates this – Bad weather and potato blight (fungus) destroyed the primary food crop leading to 0.51M deaths and the emigration of 2M people – Between 1845-52 Ireland’s population declined by 25%... • This drove the cost of food up during such periods • This could be solved by – Improved agricultural practices – Reliance on national and international sources of food, rather than just local sources 9 9 The solution 1 • The solution happened gradually over the 200 years since the Industrial Revolution and dramatically during the Green Revolution of the 1970’s – Farming practices improved with mechanisation – The Rotheram plough (1730) • More efficient at cutting, lifting and turning soil • Increased the amount of land that could be cultivated and the yield from fields where it was used – The seed drill (Jethro Tull, 1701) • Reduced labour needed for sowing seed (reducing cost) • Reduced the volume of seed needing to be sowed (leaving more to eat) • Optimally distributed seed increasing yields – Threshing machine (1830) • Mechanised a highly labour intensive chore of separating wheat from chaff 10 10 The solution 1 • The advent of the 4-crop rotation system • First developed in Germany and introduced to the UK by Lord Townshend in 1730 – Barley and wheat (alternate years) – Winter crop of turnips (each year) – Followed by clover (nitrogen fixing) • This reduced pests • Increased fodder for livestock (clover, turnip heads) • The manure from the livestock was used on the fields 11 11 The solution 1 • The Green revolution, with its reliance on oil based products – Pesticides - 50 fold increase in use since 1950 and current use at around 2 million tonnes/year (insecticides and herbicides) – Fertiliser (especially ammonium nitrate) are very energy intensive to make and consume 1% of world energy output – These combined (with better irrigation) led to a doubling of cereal crop yields per hectare between 1961-1985 • All of these - mechanisation, crop rotation and the green revolution led to increased yields, lower prices and better food security (i.e. a surplus for ‘bad’ years - but this relied upon another technological leap - storing food…) 12 12 The solution 2 • Food preservation – Until the early 1800’s the main methods of preserving food commercially were salting, drying and smoking – Soon a whole new range of technologies appeared which allowed preservation of large quantities of food so that a poor harvest one year did not lead to famine the next – What were these technologies? 13 13 The solution 2 • Canning food – First developed by Appert (using glass jars) in France (1806) in response to a call for an effective means of food preservation for the French army in the Napoleonic wars – The technology was picked up by Donkin and developed further in the UK – At first cans were hand made of iron with a tinplated interior and soldered shut with lead taking 20-30 mins to make each can – The cans were heated prior to sealing so that a vacuum was created which (was thought) to preserve the food 14 14 The solution 2 • Canning… – In fact it was the combination of heating and the vacuum that preserved food – As heating was often inadequate anaerobic bacteria could thrive in the cans leading to outbreaks of often fatal food poisoning • The Franklin expedition (1845) which disappeared trying to find the arctic NW passage probably succumbed to this (or lead poisoning from the solder) – By late Victorian times these problems were solved and canned foods started to make an impact on the mass market • Prior to the mechanisation of canning, Australia exported 35 Tonnes of canned mutton to the UK (1866) • Following mechanisation, this leaped to 48,400 Tonnes (1871) 15 15 The solution 2 • Freezing – First used by the Tang Dynasty in China to preserve fruits for the emperor in winter – Adopted by the wealthy in the 1830’s in the UK (ice houses) – Large scale industrial refrigeration was developed in Australia to assist the manufacture and storage of beer – This was soon applied to meat, cheese, butter and milk exports, with refrigerated ships making their first appearance in 1877 16 16 The solution 2 • Cooling – Large storage facilities were developed to keep certain crops such as potatoes for many years • Chemical – The use of nitrates to preserve meat products such as sausages and pies • All of these new storage techniques still needed one more ingredient - bulk transport 17 17 The solution 3 • The train made bulk transport of grain and meat, cheap and practicable • In the US between 1860-1900, 400M acres of land came under the plough – This grain made its way to rail heads where it was then moved to the coast for shipment to Europe – This saved Europe from famine in 1870 – A similar story for beef, with animals moving up various trails to rail heads, then moved by train to Chicago (see The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, 1906) where they were slaughtered, frozen and moved to the coast by rail for shipping out • This allowed the development of an international trade in basic food stuffs which continues to this day 18 18 The solution 4 • The consequence of these technological changes was: – Improved food security • Food was no longer reliant simply on local weather/disease conditions. Imports and stored foods could cover bad years – Cheaper food • Food yields improved with agricultural technology driving prices down for all basic commodities • These changes were also accompanied by an increase in average income in the West 19 19 Post WWII • The capitalist model requires continued growth • From the period 1750-1945 the food system expanded to meet the basic needs of the industrialised world • The problems started to appear after WWII (1945) • By this time most Westerners were at least adequately fed, but the food system needed continual expansion to maintain profit growth 20 20 Problem 1 - ‘Growth’ • If everyone was well fed, how could continued profit growth occur? – Value adding - The consumer no longer buys just staples (potatoes, meat) but processed foods (TV dinners, ice-cream) – This really started in 1954 with Gerry Thomas (right) an inventor who worked for Swanson foods – They had a mountain of turkeys left over from Thanksgiving – He packaged these in airline dinner trays and froze them – They expected modest sales of 5000, but instead sold 10M 21 21 Problem 1 ‘Growth’ • Value adding… – Processed foods (along with ‘fast food’) have exploded since the 1970’s with the increase in working women • In fact processed food sales, worldwide, are worth 3.2 Trillion US dollars per year – One consequence of this is that it is the food industry who now controls what goes into much of what we eat – Their objectives (profit) are different from our best interests (health) as they appeal by being highly palatable (i.e., high fat/sugar) and quick 22 22 Problem 1 - ‘Growth’ • Increasing choices and opportunity to eat • The rise of ‘choice’, so that multiple varieties and types of food are continuously available (most supermarkets stock around 10,000 product lines) • As you know people eat more when they have a choice of foods and especially so if those choices are highly palatable • Along with choice, comes opportunity, so that food is available all the time and in most places • This also allows us to eat more 23 23 Problem 1 - ‘Growth’ • Advertising food • We are continuously advertised at and encouraged to eat. This has a particularly pernicious effect on children, who are encouraged to eat high fat sweet foods (soft drinks, confectionary, fast food) • In the UK, children’s junk food advertising alone nets commercial TV stations 240M pounds per year 24 24 Problem 1 - ‘Growth’ • Consolidation – The bigger players in the food industry gradually absorbed smaller players. They now have tremendous political and economic clout. For example... • Tyson: US, 40 B$ turnover, 100,000 employees • ConAgra: US, 8 B$ turnover, 13,000 employees • Cargill: US, 120 B$ turnover, 170,000 employees • Bunge: US, 47 B$ turnover, 32,000 employees – This makes efforts at reform (e.g. advertising, promoting healthy eating, food safety, labour reform, etc etc) difficult 25 25 Problem 2 - ‘Hidden costs’ • The costs of our food production system have been ignored • This was fair enough when we faced starvation but now is coming under increasing scrutiny • Soil degradation and salinity – For example in Australia 2.5M hectares of land are affected by salinity - a direct result of irrigation - leading to reduced yields • Extensive use of fossil fuels in delivery of food, and production of fertilisers and pesticides – Western farming methods depend very heavily upon fossil fuels – In rural Mexico, where the main inputs are labour, the return (in energy terms) of growing corn is nearly 50X that of corn grown in the US 26 26 Problem 2 - ‘Hidden costs’ • Excessive use of agro-chemicals – Fertiliser run-off contaminates water supplies causing eutrophication – Available oxygen plummets and fish and other aquatic plants and animals die, just leaving algae to survive – Eutrophication now affects at least half of all fresh water bodies • Reliance on limited plant/animal varieties and loss of biodiversity – Bananas can not seed, so they are propagated by cuttings and so they are all genetically identical – In the 1960’s the Gros Michel variety dominated and was then wiped out by Panama disease – Luckily enough genetic diversity remained in wild bananas for a new variety to be propagated, the Cavendish, which currently dominates – If the Cavendish succumbs, as it will, there may be insufficient genetic diversity to find a disease resistant replacement and we may see the demise of the banana • Animal welfare concerns with ‘factory farming’ – Antibiotics, growth hormones (Monsanto, milk & mastitis), feeding ruminants wheat, corn and animal protein, BSE, breeding ‘pain-free’ animals etc etc • Disposal of agricultural wastes and water use 27 27 Problem 3 - ‘Distortions’ • The market for agricultural products is not fair • This is especially so for Third world countries • They are encouraged to grow cash crops (coffee, cocoa, sugar etc) to pay their accumulated debt – This debt initially accrued as a consequence of the 1970’s oil shock, excess liquidity, and very poorly planned loans • Consequently they have to import basic food stuffs • As they compete with other countries for market share, labour costs must be kept down, meaning many workers can not afford adequate nutrition 28 28 Problem 3 • Food security is also a problem, as a crash in prices (as with coffee) makes it hard for countries to purchase sufficient food – Coffee - price fell from 6US $/Kg to 1US $/Kg in 2000 due to cheap Vietnamese coffee • This forced many coffee producers in Africa, Indonesia and S. America out of business – Cocoa offers a similar story but with a different twist • Cocoa is mainly produced in Africa, especially in the Ivory Coast, which accounts for 44% of world production • Cocoa reached a record high in 04/05 but none of this went to farmers • In fact cocoa is such a marginal ‘cash crop’ that the only way to make a decent profit is to employ what amounts to slave labour • The US State department estimates that the Ivory Coast has upwards of 100,000 children working on cocoa plantations under such conditions • In addition, because of subsidies, the West can sell wheat and rice for less than local producers, providing no incentive for local production 29 29 US Farm subsidies Latest figures for 2019 – 22 Billion US$ 30 30 Results… • So a system which was built up gradually over 200 years has been spectacularly successful in delivering us from malnutrition, but now we are paying the costs – In the West, the food industries relentless drive for profit has undoubtedly contributed to the obesity epidemic by getting us to eat more and more of foods that are sweet and fatty – In the Third world, agricultural and economic practices of the West, force reliance on cash crops threatening food security and putting adequate nutrition out of reach for many people 31 31 Solutions? • What we have been looking at here is what has been termed the ‘productionist paradigm’ • At present two alternative approaches are emerging – The life sciences paradigm • Concentrates on scientific (especially biotechnology) solutions to the sorts of ecological & agricultural problems we have seen – The ecologically integrated paradigm • Concentrates on more human centered solutions (but also includes science) such as organic farming, agricultural development and localised production • Many of these themes play out in the DVD we will see in the second half of this class - ‘Food Inc’ 32 32 Conclusion • There is no dark and sinister conspiracy here • Rather the consequences of the‘productionist paradigm’ have only become apparent in the last couple of decades • This is no single cause of starvation and obesity, but the ‘productionist paradigm’ contributes to both - in no small measure 33 33