I recently saw an article in which big agribusiness was relieved to explain "the big lie" that eating local is bad for the planet because we just can't feed people that way in this day and age. If I find the referenced article again, I'll add the link.
I found it thought-provoking and sad that yet again, one side of the issue simply put a stake in the ground and proclaimed "of course!" instead of really providing any good data, as I strolled through both my own home and through the grocery store, and wondered, how much closer to feeding the world could we come, if even 60% of this waste could be avoided?
Some waste, in a day of needing to transport goods from agricultural areas to urban areas and non-arable land is inevitable. Make no mistake; there is no turning back the clock there. I don't think it's really as easy as putting in a rooftop garden or expecting everyone to raise chickens in their back yards. Not everyone should have chickens, and a high density of poultry would increase disease rates, and not everyone has a green thumb-- and it would still not provide the variety of produce and protein our society subsists on today. I don't think we are going to move to an all vegetarian diet soon, nor do I advocate it, and moving a lot of animal density into our populated areas would not really help our water quality, either. So, we will continue to need to transport quantities of goods into concentrated areas, and doing so will engender some waste.
But what about the types of products that we ostensibly "need?" Walk some of the bread aisles, and you will note in some stores upwards of 20-36 feet of highly processed non-foods, just in the bread aisle. From various manufacturers, there is a huge variety of snack cakes, chocolatey, cream-filled treats, and other "foods" of zero nutritional value (beyond stuff added into them after the fact). Many of these foods are waste to begin with, as they add nothing nutritive to our diet; they add to waste further when they sit on the shelf until the expiration date passes, and still more to waste if we bring them home and go uneaten and eventually tossed there. We could stop producing those goods quite easily, freeing up the grains, sugars, and fats that go into them for flour for other foods and experience zero nutritional loss on a global scale. Doing so would simultaneously improve world health and reduce trash output (discarded goods and packaging, as well as production waste and transportation).
I have no hard numbers, but I suspect that before we even look at the snack and chip aisle, we really could go a long way toward reducing our agricultural load by doing the equivalent of cleaning our closets at the production level, and doing without the things that we as a global society really could do far better without.
Of course, this will beg the question-- where do you draw the line? The companies that make snack cakes would never voluntarily go out of business. And if it is YOUR favorite treat that we are talking about, chances are good that you would vote that this would be one of the exceptions that would get a pass. (hey, Snyder's pretzels are okay, right? The ones with pepper and sea salt?) From a practical standpoint, it's a lot easier to say we could just do without than to put this into practice. It might be easier to start trying to train people to buy less, to try to be realistic about what they will actually eat before it goes bad. Perhaps then the focus could move more toward what we will really need to eat-- moving back toward creating menus instead of buying on the fly at the store, resulting in fewer impulse purchases. I recently had a conversation going on my Facebook wall, in which it became clear that many people today feel much less confident about baking and cooking, which also drives purchases on the snack industry, because people don't feel they can make their own snacks as much as they used to, which, ironically, may lead to increased consumption and purchase of snack related resources.
Do we need to see an increase in businesses such as one I saw in St. Paul, where you could stop in, grab a recipe, and then load up a bag with all of the ingredients you need for that dish, which have been all prepped and chopped for you, from fresh ingredients, in a matter of minutes. When you get home, you have everything ready to throw into the pan, oven, or microwave, fresh, chopped, and ready to cook, clear instructions in hand? (Sorry about the megasentence :D ). I think when people prepare satisfying meals at home in a stress-free manner, they are less likely to fall back upon unhealthy snacking. Maybe what we need is more businesses cropping up that support that model, for today's busy working families. You take home exactly the number of portions you need, reducing waste.
Instead of listening to vitriol being shouted out by one side or the other (We need big agribusiness! It's the only way to feed the world, duh!) (We need to buy and eat local, it's the only way to save the planet, duh!) we need to think carefully and not pick a side, but try to figure out what makes sense and really works best all around. How can we set people up to succeed? Maybe we do need some big agribusiness, but we don't need to let them frighten us into dependence-- particularly not on products we don't need. Maybe local produce and other products do make a lot of sense-- less transport, less waste, less need to treat with bizarre stuff to stay fresh, more infusion into your local economy-- but you aren't evil if you buy something from farther away when it makes sense to do so (frozen veggies keep a lot of nutrients, possibly more than a vegetable that has sat on farm stand for two days in the sun. Or maybe you can buy one that isn't available locally). Maybe we can do better with menu planning, fewer impulse buys, or supporting start-ups that help people make dinners at home with healthy, fresh ingredients instead of quick-fixes-- that just helps all of us in myriad ways.
So many of these "issue" articles simply look at one side-- their side-- of the issue instead of really presenting the real issue in all of its complexity. Many mask the facts of the matter behind plenty of jargon that the bulk of the readers fail to truly understand properly, no matter how much reading they have done on it, because most of the articles just reword each other using the same jargon. Some actually misrepresent facts terribly. I see articles about GMO's that mix science with tinfoil hat paranoia, appropriate caution, and just lots of arm-waving, but often statements that reveal very poor understanding of how the science works, but a sophisticated understanding of how mass fear-induction works. I see articles that are pro-GMO that do the same thing, but on the other side, taking a very "don't worry, we're scientists" tone, though written by journalists rather than scientists. Most actual scientists, unlike what you will read in the articles, are actually quite open-minded about the issue and continue to read and learn what they can. Avoid taking seriously claims from articles that try to tell you that scientists are all in on a conspiracy with the government to get you to like GMO's. Most scientists even from the same lab can't agree on a radio station or what to eat for lunch, let alone on a conspiracy.
So think about it. Probably we can't ban snack cakes. But you don't have to buy them, either. I wonder if it's possible to make a difference if we can get enough people to buy just what they need. How can we do this? Can we support our friends and neighbors in learning to cook more confidently? Can we help with meal prep? Can we campaign store managers to cut shelf footage down either directly, or indirectly by supporting healthy initiatives in our neighborhoods? Are there things we can grow in our own back yards, responsibly? Do you have a local produce coop or a local farmer you can support to get fresh items?
I think the ultimate answer lies in the middle of the extremes. I think we need both local efforts and big agribusiness. I don't think big agribusiness needs to keep expanding in order to feed the world; I think the world needs to get smarter about what it "needs" in order to get along. Economically, that may not be great news for some people and companies. But ecologically, it may make the most sense. But can we do it?
