What the hell happened to food?
There was a time not that long ago when all you could eat was real food, grown and produced using farming methods that combined animal husbandry and crop agriculture. It emulated the way that nature does it. Farms would rotate crops (plant different species in a given field every year) in order to not deplete the soil. In Britain the Norfolk Four Field system was the bedrock of the First British Agricultural Revolution that saw productivity explode — by working WITH nature.
Grazing animals, just they are in the nature, were of vital importance, as every four or so years the fields would lay fallow and grass, clover, and wild flowers would be growing, which the cows would then eat and turn into cow pads (fertiliser) that would replenish the soil with nutrients.
Meat for flavour
Meat was regarded as a luxury and something that was used primarily as flavour rather than being the main protein source. One of the best examples of this, is the French stock based cuisine, which sprang from having to use every part, including the bones and cartilage of the animal, to extract the maximum amount of flavour. On a day-to-day basis people would eat what was in season because that was what was available. Seasonality wasn’t a marketing buzz word. It was just what people did.
From explosives to fertiliser — Repurposing war time technologies
Then, after the second world war, the massive industrial machine that had been built to feed the war effort, now needed a different purpose. Bomb making materials, specifically ammonium nitrate, became fertiliser and technologies to create poison gas used during the holocaust became pesticides to kill bugs. That lead to the advent the agro-industrial complex that gave us vast soil killing mono-cultures that produce the cheap input for factory farmed meat and ultra-processed inputs like high fructose corn syrup.
In addition to being incredibly detrimental to public health and exceedingly horrible for the animals involved in this vicious cycle, the agro-industrial complex is arguably the most destructive force on the planet in terms of environmental degradation and climate change. 90 percent of the deforestation happening in the Amazon, for instance, is happening to grow soy beans to feed animals or to graze animals directly.
An awakening begins
However, in recent years a great many people have started to wake up and realise that something is gravely awry about the story they, the massive agro-industrial giants like Monsanto, have told us about our food – that somehow it’s necessary to literally kill the life in the soil in order to grow enough food for humanity. Think about it for a second. Does that really make sense?
Thankfully, we have the power to end this madness simply by making more conscious food choices. Because more and more people are waking up, the more we wrest power back from the corporations that do not hold humanity’s best interests at heart. There is now a growing hope for a much brighter future where the connection between humanity and the planet is restored.
It must of course be noted that what you’ve just read is a simplification of the vastly complex array of factors that constitute our food systems overall. Humans have gotten in wrong in the past as well. And after WWII industrialised farming methods did save hundreds of millions of people from hunger.
The Second Green Revolution needs a different paradigm
However, when we look back on what was called ‘The Green Revolution’ there is no doubt that the underpinnings of it, cannot be the underpinnings of a ‘Second Green Revolution’ because it simply doesn’t work with nature. Monsanto and BigAg is trying very hard to hijack the term ‘Second Green Revolution’ because they stand to make untold billions from continuing to sell more patented seeds and synthetic fertilisers and toxic chemicals.
The issue is that where it would take one barrel of synthetic fertiliser to grown a bushel of wheat, it now takes up to 16. So the more we kill the soil, the more synthetic inputs are needed to sustain yields, and the more profits Monsanto and the likes make. So maybe it’s not so farfetched to suggest that the benefits of humanity and the planet is not the primary motivation, which it has to be, particularly when it comes to food and soil health.
Together we can change the world by changing the way we eat
But we still have a long way to get. And whether you choose to do a little or a lot, the important thing is that each of us, at the very least, become aware and appreciate the collective power that we hold. No one that I’ve come across so far has said better than one of the greatest heroes of our time, David Attenborough. “It’s so easy to lose the connection with the natural world. Yet it is on this connection that the future of both humanity and the natural world will depend. Surely it’s our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth”.