Anarchy and Food Security
MI5’s adage is that the UK is 4 meals from Anarchy. Other estimates are somewhere between 3 and 9, but in any event food security really matters and we should all be paying attention. We should all be asking how long we could survive if our neighbourhoods, grocery stores or cities stop receiving their daily food supplies – a matter that was very much brought to the fore with Covid 19, climate change, or COP26 which surprisingly didn’t really give food security a mention.
Food security does depend of course on where you live. There is more hope if you own land, are handy in the garden and have good growing conditions where you live. There is hope if you have a well-stocked underground bunker as found in some Swiss residences, or if you plan and can afford a pantry of lasting dry goods. But for many urban dwellers and country folk alike, it is not hard to see that social order could quickly break down.
Most people depend on an industrialised food system to produce vast quantities of relatively cheap food, which has often travelled long distances from expansive and intensive farms. This system uses oil and other fossil fuels, which must be cheap and readily available and of course lots and lots of fresh water. It has served us well, with historic lows in food poverty between the 80s and 2010. However, the world has changed. Borders can now impede the flow of goods, and consumers no longer want food that is days, weeks, months or sometimes years old. The foundation of this industrialised food system has changed, politicians have taken notice, countries and citizens are changing their food buying habits, and the food system itself must change in response.
Particularly for fruits and vegetables, countries are wanting to be more sovereign, and in Singapore, a country with very little land, the government has pledged to be 30% self-sufficient by 2030. There is no magic bullet, and a multi-pronged strategy will be required. We will all need to eat more seasonal vegetables rather than searching for that elusive avocado during the winter months, and we will need to invest in food storage and processing facilities. But it doesn’t take a genius to see the role vertical farming and greenhouses can play, and we will need to build more of these so that consumers have access year-round to fresh fruits and vegetables. By investing in controlled environment agriculture (CEA), we will decouple food production from the environment, saving land and water, eliminating pesticides, and boosting self-sufficiency. CEA is safer; we will reduce or eliminate outbreaks of harmful pathogens with standards that are nearly impossible to achieve outside of a CEA. Reducing carbon emissions is also a possibility and with effort, validating the net-zero claims of indoor growers will be a huge boon for the industry. Those working to solve critical energy needs of CEA will serve the industry well.
In traditional open-field farming, a second critical global challenge that we need to address is flipping the agricultural equation on its head, making agriculture a net carbon sink not a net source. Intensive agriculture and food production are reportedly responsible for an estimated one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, although care should be taken with interpreting this number. We now know that ploughing of carbon-rich habitats can be destructive and damaging and much of the solution to creating carbon sinks lies in the ground beneath our feet.
Well managed soils will retain carbon, plants will absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and building up resilience in soils will help the soil perform better during dramatic climate events such as droughts, floods, and extreme weather. Regenerative agriculture practices such as reduced tillage, cover crops and crop rotation techniques can all assist and are beneficial. But they are not the basis of a profitable business model, and if this is a proposed solution, then governments need to adjust funding schemes accordingly. Farmers though, don’t want to be reliant on grants and subsidies; most of them realise the value of their land. While in the UK there is talk of “rewilding” (which to a farmer equates to brambles, thistles, and stinging nettles!), the notion of managed farmland needs to be fully understood. All farmland is managed, will continue to be managed and will need to be part of the solution as we adapt our food supply systems to more local production.
So, we see that farmland is not the natural homeland for large industrial CEA units; cities are. Food deserts will become food production facilities as we transform inner cities or suburban industrial sectors to produce “local for local”, be that through renovating historic buildings and unused office space, or new build CEAs and vertical farms supplying food crops and “exotic” fruits, and/or growing high-value crops like cannabis. Bypassing an already broken food supply chain by embracing CEA may not only help in the transition to a carbon-neutral economy by freeing up valuable land assets but will bring with it food supply security and peace of mind for many farmers. One downside will be trading in the welly boots for the lab coat, although some of us are equally equipped to wear both.
