MISSING the BEAR

Last night BBC's NewsNight reviewed DEFRA's new report on food security. The report says, in a nutshell, global food production will have to increase by 70% and become local and sustainable. I blogged on this topic last month on my other blog, World Coloured Glasses. NewsNight missed the bear and instead of providing a useful and educated discussion let panic and uninformed comment prevail.

A few highlights:

Peter Kendall, director of the NFU (National Farmer's Union) said that countries that are selling their land to foreign interests do so by choice. No they don't. (Big surprise Kirsty missed this one) Developing country governments stripped bare for revenue by SAP's and limited in maneuverability by a global economic infrastructure that favours wealthy countries with high bond ratings don't have a choice. And you can bet the people of those countries aren't making the choice to sell that land. Their future food security isn't being looked after.

Phillipe LeGrain (don't even get me started) actually got away with saying we should buy more food from abroad, "I think we should have a free choice to buy British pork or Brazilian pork or pork from other countries, the point is we ought to have a choice." Yes, because free market economics has proven effective as of late. Government regulation? Absolutely unnecessary, just look at the financial crisis.

LeGrain went on, "Britain is a rich and densely populated country which means that land is very expensive... it means that farmers have an incentive to economize on land, to farm ever more intensively... and that leads to problems whether it's animal welfare or food safety problems." And a moment later, "I think we could import everything we need from Brazil." Kirsty, completely missing the bear moves to Kendall, "And now you're being asked to farm with less." (Rip hair from head, groan, roll eyes).

Hold up. First, we've glossed over the bit about land being more expensive because "Britain is a rich country." The British government could have protected agricultural land if it wanted to, if it didn't pander to global agribusiness. Second, farmers have to farm "ever more intensively" is a load of bullpuckey-- you can farm sustainably and sufficiently and make a living with the proper business and economic incentive structure and farming knowledge. If you don't believe me, go ask the Grass Point Farm cooperative in rural Wisconsin (I'm sure there are equivalent cooperative in the UK), or indigenous farming communities in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that have been farming sustainably for generations. Over time, it has been empirically proven crop yield decreases with intensive farming practices because you strip soil fertility. So no, British farmers aren't being asked to "do more with less," they are being asked to farm sustainably with carbon neutral techniques.

Maybe NewsNight could have used the segment time for a useful explorative discussion of sustainable farming techniques, the Slowfood movement, and economic revaluation that would allow for such systemic change. Instead fear mongering-- protect your food, fetch the pitchforks, trade protectionism, subsidize agrobusiness to buy up (more) land in developing countries. I was waiting for a population control pundit to pop up and start talking about birth rates in Africa and sterilization...err... I mean family planning policy from the 1960's and 70's.

Missed the Bear NewsNight? Yes, yes I think so.

According to Stewart Brand by 2050 80 percent of the world’s population will dwell in urban areas. By 2015 the developing world will have eight of ten of the biggest cities per capita. These cities will develop three times faster than cities in developed countries and on average will be nine times bigger. Urban areas consume massive amounts of resources. What’s missing from the climate change discourse is this: we cannot continue to consume the way that we have, in the West or as a species. And the trouble is the West is the paradigm. The Western model is what people in the developing world still aspire to. G8 leaders have declared that the answer to global recession is to hope that Chinese and Indian consumers pick up the slack in global demand by consuming more. Is this sound economic policy?


Consider: global economic growth is measured in terms of consumption (consumer demand and retail sales, especially for the model: Western economies) and moves in lock step with carbon emissions. Climate change experts from scientists, to economists, to politicians say that Western countries cannot continue to consume at the level that they have, that developing countries will have to pursue a different path to development that not only involves cleaner emissions but a different, ultimately lower consumption pattern. But global economic recovery is still talked about in terms of new car sales, retail earnings, new homes built. New, new, new, buy, buy, buy. Is your brain doing that thing where it feels fuzzy in the middle? Mine is.

This week there are several stories that tap into the miss-match in green economic recovery logic: First, a new study finds that warmer years see less economic progress in developing countries. Second, there is the revelation that credit markets are anti-green. Sustainable consumer behavior (say paying a cobbler to fix your favorite pair of shoes rather than buying a new one or a whole bunch of charges at a thrift store) is seen as a “warning sign” to credit card companies of declining card holder revenue. Third, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become sustainabawashed (yes, I’ve just made up this word). For the most part, according to CSR expert Andrew Newton, the concept “has become shorthand way of saying a company’s ethical behavior is only useful if it preserves or enhances the company’s bottom line (paraphrase).” He is quoted in an article on the Corporate Eye explaining that the true spirit of CSR doesn’t go beyond charitable donations and that most companies could do more if they were willing to take a cut in profit.

Taking a cut in profit—like taking a cut in growth? China regularly sees annual GDP growth of around 10% (conservatively) give or take. That’s a lot of growth. There is also tacit understanding that these numbers are doctored. And thus the essence of the problem: developed countries for the last decade or so average around 1-2% annual economic growth, so China’s doctored average of 10% looks really huge and they want it to. The UN estimates that for African economies need to grow by an average annualize rate of 6% per year in order to maximize aid effectiveness. But how much of that growth is sufficient but not necessary? We are used to huge percentages 6-13% of GDP growth, and China isn’t even “developed” yet. How much growth is enough? Could we get used to smaller numbers if economic growth was valued properly like Andrew Simms, Aubrey Meyer, Ann Pettifor, Colin Challen, et al. suggest?

This economic revaluation should be part of the green recovery discourse. But so far most of what I’ve seen is green(washed) marketing, call it marketing and materializing climate change. For profit. The governments don’t get it, nobody involved in pre-Copenhagen negotiations is talking about it (at least not openly), and the economists are still talking about economic recovery in terms of retail sales and consumer demand. The mainstream press isn’t making any noise, having once again Missed the Bear. As the second world moves into the first, developing countries develop, they must do so on a better paradigm than the Western one. And Westerners will have to learn to consume differently.