Food Politics

Human control over the production and distribution of food has led to there being food politics. Eating is one of the simplest and most basic pleasures of human existence. Now you cannot enjoy a meal without offending someone. If you eat meat, you offend those interested in animal rights, or those concerned about climate change, water conservation, rainforest destruction, or food inequality. If you do not, you offend those farmers who take a pride in their husbandry. If you eat fish, you offend marine conservationists; if you do not, you offend fishers. Conventional or organic; GM or GM-free; fair or free trade; wild, local or global? 

For the ethically aware, food packaging is now covered with the icons of various labelling schemes. The market asks you to pay a small premium for the fair treatment of workers, avoiding overexploitation of the environment, giving animals better conditions, and so on – which turns morality into a luxury commodity, and hence a weapon for all sides in the class war to beat each other with.

That is before the thorny issue of nutrition is tackled. Marketing boards for virtually every foodstuff from blueberries to mackerel have funded or drawn on research proving the nutritional benefits of the product they push. They are not the only ones: charities representing special interest groups also fund research. Thus, it is impossible to know, without a Ph.D. in the biochemistry of digestion, whether, for example, veganism is a natural, healthy diet, or a suburbanite fantasy propped up by vitamin pills.

It might be argued, indeed it has been argued, that all that matters is price. Food labelling is consistently resisted by industry. It is astonishing how our society’s leaders can promote an economic ideology that works only if everyone makes decisions with complete knowledge, and then allow themselves to be lobbied so as to prevent consumers from accessing information. That said, we clearly don’t entirely trust the market when it comes to food, as testified by various governments issuing incentives to farmers. Food security is a discourse that has emerged relatively recently. As well as concerns about whether we can actually grow enough food to feed everyone (whether now, or later this century), there is also the potential weaponization of food. In the latter case, countries with a food surplus could use that to their strategic advantage against countries that need to import food. Alongside all that is speculation by investors, believed by some to be responsible for the Arab Spring through causing a spike in grain prices. The market has no answer (except, “Devil take the hindmost“) for what happens when it fails to provide everyone with enough to eat.

Contrast all this with picking a blackberry from a bramble (assuming, for now, the bramble is on public land, on uncontaminated soil, and a respectable distance from chemical sprays – perhaps we should imagine picking a blackberry from a bramble several millennia ago). The blackberry has no label telling you it is suitable for vegetarians, has been fairly traded, grown by labourers working for a workers’ co-operative, is free of artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. It has no breakdown of its salt, carbohydrate, protein and fat content. You pick it, you put it in your mouth, you chew it, it tastes delicious.

If we can make such a mess of food, if we can turn eating from heaven into hell (unless you are willing, and indeed in the luxurious position of being able, to ignore the issues), what happens when all ecosystem services are provided through engineered biomes?