When Food Becomes a Mere and Distant Number

Increasing distance is making our food system increasingly complex, hidden, and abstract

Photo by Julian Andres Carmona Serrato on Unsplash

It can be somewhat disconcerting to consider how far the food we enjoy has travelled from farm-to-fork. Some of us may be privileged to live in regions with well-developed and diverse local food systems which enable a degree of food self-sufficiency. However, for most of us, this somewhat idyllic life is sadly only a distant dream. The supermarket is where we obtain most of our food which guarantees that most of what we purchase will have travelled vast distances - sometimes half way around the world - before it reaches our plate. Apples and lamb from New Zealand, tomatoes from Spain, garlic from China, and tinned goods from all across the world - these are standard sights on the shelves of the supermarket. Although these products may undercut local producers and result in unnecessary food miles, they are not the most troubling of our globalised foods. This designation is reserved for commodity crops¹ - those foods which can be stored, shipped, and crucially traded in vast quantities. These are the truly global foods which can wreck havoc on the geopolitical stage and upend the lives of millions - while reaping monumental profits for those who know how to play the system.

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Before entering into some critiques, it is important to note the benefits that have arisen from the globalisation and commodification of our food systems. During the coronavirus pandemic we all witnessed the remarkable resilience of the global food system in keeping our cupboards stocked with sufficient food. This is to be lauded. The creation of globalised food markets and trading connections along with the huge increases in yields achieved over the past century have allayed the fear of famine for those of us in the West, which was an ever-present spectre that overhung past societies. We may have occasional acute shortages of certain foods (in the UK this has recently arisen for salad and cucumbers - an inconvenience but hardly an issue of significant food security) but ever since rationing ended post-World War Two, the fear of lethal famine has been notably and thankfully absent.

Every year, the uncertainties of weather, disease, and geopolitics cause certain regions to experience crop failure. In the past, this would have been disastrous for affected regions who would have been plunged into prolonged famines. Today, although still a critical issue for farmers in affected regions (who suffer foregone incomes and harvests) globally, the shortfalls can be smoothed out by gluts elsewhere. If one area is experiencing drought, the law of averages suggests another is experiencing abundance - and the globalised food system enables these surpluses to be distributed efficiently to areas where there are shortfalls. However, if simultaneous failures occur in multiple ‘bread basket’ regions, the ramifications can be extensive and severe. Multiple crop failures contributed considerably to societal discontent that culminated in the Arab Spring² - an event which changed the lives of millions upon millions through the resultant political chaos and power vacuums - the fertile breeding ground for terrorists. Our need to fill our stomachs holds considerable power over world events - more so than we realise.

For the meantime I shall pass comment on the inherent unsustainability that observed yield increases have been founded upon - more ink shall be spilled in future essays on the contradictions and diseases of industrial agriculture. I shall also pass comment on the inherent vulnerability of a global food system to peak oil scenarios and future global trade disruptions (in short, the stability we enjoy may not last for long). But, it would be wrong to deny that the abundance (in some cases extravagance³) of food the world (or more accurately, the West) enjoys is a good thing. However, that we waste a third of global food production⁴ and that millions still suffer from starvation is evidence enough that our global food system is not stewarding and distributing this abundance well - it is in fact, significantly broken.

The monumental increases in distances in the globalised food system play a sizeable part in this brokenness. Every extra mile travelled is a mile that makes food more likely to be wasted and every additional step in the chain of the food system is another opportunity for food to be wasted⁵. Hence overproduction⁶ (founded upon environmentally degrading practices) is required to compensate for the inherent wasteful inefficiency of a supposedly hyper-efficient just-in-time global food transportation network. But not only does distance cause losses, it also obscures and hides the gross injustices and unsustainability that are present in the globalised food system. The fact we no longer know the exact location where our food has been grown means we are largely ignorant of the practices involved in its production. A food system for any crop that is built on unnecessary distance is likely hiding something the producers and the agri-corporations (who buy and trade the produce) would prefer you remain blissfully ignorant of.