MarkA collective paradigm runs western economies.
We, the people, consume.
It has been this way since the first agricultural systems created an energy surplus by generating more food energy than the effort it took to produce the crops and the livestock. More and more people buy from the energy surplus that, over time, was generated not by people alone but by people aided by livestock and, since the 1900s, an army of fossil fuel helpers.
In modern times over half of humanity lives in urban areas and has little choice but to buy food from the surplus.
A buying public is excellent for the businessman who can mobilise capital and labour to provide the goods that people need for less than the cost of producing them. A positive balance sheet generates a monetary surplus—profit—as a fungible asset, cash that can quickly become more capital to invest. This is the positive feedback cycle we call capitalism.
Large agricultural enterprises are profitable
Back in the day, the surplus production that could be traded or taxed set the system of commerce on its trajectory to currency and capitalism.
Farm enterprises geared for profit look for efficiencies that reduce the costs of their operation or increase their net output. Typically bigger and uniform is better for efficient use of machinery and energy inputs. It shouldn’t be surprising that intensification happens because it delivers higher yields and economies of scale. Surplus gains accrue with less cost.
The focus on efficiency extends to externalities and loss of resilience that are not on the balance sheet but help to make intensification profitable.
But this is not the only motivation for farming.
Intensification of agriculture has grown yield and generated profit
Not all farmers are in it for profit
Globally, 500 million are growing food for themselves and their families, just enough surplus energy for people to live in the same place year-round and meet their basic needs.
These operations are generally small and use minimal inputs. Farmers leverage their ingenuity, imagination and hard work to grow enough food and some cash crops to pay the bills and perhaps turn a small profit in good years.
Constrained by their access to inputs and labour, many do this on a hectare or less of land, small plots scattered across the landscape.
The global challenge is that the modest surplus from these small farms cannot feed the urban populations—close to 7 billion by 2050—who need food.
The conventional wisdom is that most of this food will be grown in commercial, intensive production systems.
It is a very tempting proposition for the capitalist.
Over 500 million farmers grow food on small plots with minimal inputs
Surplus to 2050
The current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030 and 9.8 billion by 2050, assuming that the global production and consumption systems persist in their current form. We will leave the collapse scenarios where the systems break down for other posts.
A common assumption is that to meet the health needs of this many people will mean closing yield gaps and increasing global crop yields by 70–110% just to meet the calorific requirements.
What is grown will need to diversify to improve the nutrient content of foods and nutrient and water use efficiency.
Plus, agriculture must change from a greenhouse gas emitter to a carbon sink.
The only known way for agriculture to do these things is to wean itself off fossil fuel inputs and become circular, where inputs come from recycling unused biomass and animal waste. This means part of the surplus production goes to feed the soil.
Circular agriculture will reduce the need for inputs but, in many ways, is the opposite of intensification, which has been the source of increased yields over the last 100 years. Agriculture that recycles rather than throughputs costs less but is likely slightly less productive. Overall, this means an additional 30% more production bringing the total required global crop yield increase by 2050 to 100–140%.
Calories are only part of the challenge. The food surplus needs to be nutritious too. Already 1.8 billion people suffer from nutrient deficiencies called hidden hunger—twice the number of people who do not get enough calories.
So here is the conundrum.
Humanity needs a massive food surplus to feed growing urban populations encouraged by the capitalist model to consume. Even without all the ads and facilitation to spend, these people must eat or starve.
Intensive agriculture is the obvious solution to food demand, but the smallholder, circular approach to nutrients and energy is the only sustainable option.
Over half the people in the world live in urban areas
What sustainably FED suggests
Nature knows what to do with a surplus. It converts it into more nature. Food production surpluses result in more people, and once these people are present, there is an imperative to keep them fed. Greater production creates a disaster waiting to happen unless that production is maintained.
Profit is measured in dollars, not surplus.
Consequently, a profit imperative would still prioritise yield gain over resilience because it speeds up the conversion of natural capital to cash—you cannot buy a new car with ten years worth of soil carbon reserves.
The future of humanity will be determined by how much we understand the metabolic energy surplus that we generate from agriculture.
Not enough surplus and we risk collapse. Too much surplus and we make more people to pressure future supply. And the kicker is that too much of the wrong surplus and people are unhealthy and unhappy.
In other words, this is more than yield.
It is about knowing what surplus is needed to manage the global population pulse that has appeared in the last 150 years thanks to fossil fuel energy.
We, the people, will consume. It is inevitable, and the capitalists are licking their lips.
Fortunately, we, the people, have a will, and we are smart enough to realise that we cannot consume a non-existent or nutrient hollow surplus.
Science Source
Harbinson, J., Parry, M. A., Davies, J., Rolland, N., Loreto, F., Wilhelm, R., … & Klein Lankhorst, R. (2021). Designing the crops for the future; the cropbooster program. Biology, 10(7), 690.
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