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posted by on Friday April 21 2017, @05:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the snowpiercer-protein-bars dept.

Among scientists, there is a remarkable consensus that the current [food] policy direction cannot continue. These contradictions are unbearable – literally so, because if the world continues the trend to eat like the West, the burdens on ecosystems, healthcare systems and finance will be unsupportable. That, at least, is the uncomfortable conclusion one must draw, when one looks at the evidence.

But since when has the politics of consumption been about evidence? The few studies conducted into consumers' response to this big picture about unsustainable diets show that consumers become a little indignant when they find out. A careful study by Which? found consumers asking: why weren't we told about this? They want to know more. Rightly so, but how, and from whom?

Hard-pressed teachers turn to commerce for fact sheets. Parents are too often in the dark, if truth be told. Nor could any food label convey the depth and scale of what consumers really need to know. Giant food companies have replaced schools and parents as sources of public "education". They are the Nanny Corporations, replacing the fictitious Nanny State. They filter what people are to know. Coca-Cola's annual marketing budget is US$4billion (£3.18 billion), twice the entire World Health Organisation annual budget in 2014-15, and much more than its budget for non-communicable diseases ($0.32 billion) or for promoting health through the life-course ($0.39 billion).

How can this by unlocked? Consumers buying food too often without knowing the consequences. Politicians distancing themselves from this unfolding disaster. Workers and companies vying with each other to produce more for less. This is crazy ecological economics – self-defeating food culture. It piles up burdens on public health.

It's obvious really – a new politics of food has to unfold in which academics treat consumers with dignity and tell them the truth. Politics follows the public, not the other way round. So it's the public which must be helped. The neoliberal rhetoric is of consumer sovereignty, yet everywhere they are kept in the dark.

That must be why authorities are encouraging entomophagy: "Let them eat bugs!"


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @08:44PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @08:44PM (#497580)

    Actually this is a very important idea that has a lot to do with all those things. Tech / science: agriculture involves a lot of both and automated systems can help us out a LOT. Politics: possibly we should legislate some things since economic pressure alone makes people choose cheap factory farmed meat. Adolescent manifesto? I think you need some further practice with critical thinking.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @09:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @09:30PM (#497606)

    Since I expect cries of "progressive fascist" for the politics angle, let me be clear. In my mind policy changes would include removing subsidies and labeling changes, not "selling beef is punishable by death panel!"

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:15AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:15AM (#497683) Journal

    Politics: possibly we should legislate some things since economic pressure alone makes people choose cheap factory farmed meat.

    What exactly is unsustainable about cheap, factory farmed meat? The animal feed is sustainable. The animals grow themselves with little human intervention (and we're not running out of humans either). The land that the farm is built on won't go away. And everything whether it ends up on a plate or not can be recycled into growing more feed.

    Adolescent manifesto?

    I agree with the grandparent's sentiment. What is really being asked with the rhetorical question:

    But since when has the politics of consumption been about evidence?

    The questioner isn't interested in evidence either. It's just a segue into some link dumping and rather irrelevant ranting about modern society.

    The obvious point being missed is that farms that are older than a couple of decades need to be highly sustainable in order to continue to exist. Soil gets depleted quickly in the absence of any attempt to replace plant nutrients consumed by the crops. Farm buildings fall apart quickly, if one doesn't repair them. Farms stop working if employees who leave aren't replaced.

    I think a key example of this is in the paragraph where the author lists the problems of agriculture, real and imagined.

    Food is either the major or one of the major drivers of climate change, water stress, land use, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, deforestation, the depletion of fish stocks. And that's just where the food comes from. Turning away from the land and sea towards consumption, the diets people eat today are now the single biggest factor in premature death worldwide, and a key indicator of cultural change and social inequalities.

    Note the first place position of climate change while glossing over the far more important factor of occupying [wikipedia.org] a bit over a third of the Earth's land area (cropland is a third of that with permanent pastures making up the other two thirds). And notice how paltry the consumption side is despite the lip service given to it later on: somewhat unhealthy food consumption (which let us note is quite sustainable, humans live much longer than they would need to in order to remain sustainable) and some touchie feelies about inequality and change.

    I don't expect perfect knowledge and perfect arguments. But there should at least be evidence of a serious problem to match the tone of the article and some idea of the scale of the various parts of the problem. My take is that agriculture in the world today can keep going, using modern techniques, for centuries, and likely would fail due to sociopolitical decay than due to any of the factors listed above, including climate change.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by charon on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:43AM

      by charon (5660) on Saturday April 22 2017, @02:43AM (#497754) Journal

      What exactly is unsustainable about cheap, factory farmed meat?

      Off the top of my head: antibiotics and shit.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:03PM (#497933)

      Traditional meat sources have a way larger carbon footprint. Plus animal cruelty, but you have to have a soul to care about that.