How to grow food in the post-truth era
The democratic governance of food and agriculture policy is under threat, writes Dr Alana Mann. So how do we grow food in the post-truth era?
This cedes control of food security to profit-making companies. The democratic governance of food and agriculture policy is under threat.
The myth of scarcity
Framing market opportunities as moral imperatives, the agribusiness narrative is to 鈥溾��. That鈥檚 while making exorbitant profits at the expense of small-scale farmers and consumer health.
The rhetoric of scarcity is hollow;听听is the problem. The food industry is a major contributor to overproduction, food insecurity and environmental degradation.
Yet 鈥淏ig Ag鈥� is committed to raising output, intensification of farming, mass processing, mass marketing, homogeneity of product, monocultures, and chemical and pharmaceutical solutions.
The post-truth claim that the powerful US agribusiness lobby uses to justify these practices is that America鈥檚 farmers听听to meet the needs of a global population of 9 billion by 2050.
In reality, the surplus, heavily subsidised production of the US grain-livestock complex makes little contribution to ending global hunger and malnutrition. Some听听go to countries where people can afford to buy food.
The corporate capture of climate change
Ironically, a new enemy within threatens Big Ag鈥檚 market opportunities.
When US President Donald Trump met his election commitments by stepping out of the Paris Agreement on June 2, 2017, he stepped on some big toes. Following Trump鈥檚 election, Monsanto and Du Pont had joined more than 360 US-based multinationals in signing a letter to Trump demanding action on climate change:
- "Implementing the Paris Agreement will enable and encourage businesses and investors to turn the billions of dollars in existing low-carbon investments into the trillions of dollars the world needs to bring clean energy and prosperity to all."
The altruism of these motives is questionable, given the profits to be made in the corporate capture of climate change. The low-carbon economy is big business.
, which bills itself as 鈥渟upermarket to the world鈥�, is investing in carbon capture and sequestration projects with the aim of reducing emissions and storing them underground.
Bayer is听听stress-tolerant oilseeds, maize and wheat varieties that will cope with extreme weather.
Global Swiss agro corp Syngenta鈥檚听听assures us the private sector can deliver on 鈥渢he promise of sustainable and inclusive development鈥� while mitigating the effects of climate change.
If you tell the same story five times, it鈥檚 true 鈥�
Rising global temperatures will bring new varieties of pests and disease, and a new twist on the time-worn post-truth spin that pesticides are the solution to feeding a fast-growing population.In a report in March this year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation听听this claim. The report cites evidence that pesticides cause 200,000 deaths a year.
In the report, the UN special rapporteur for the right to food, Hilal Elvar, says global corporations manufacturing pesticides are guilty of 鈥渟ystematic denial of harms鈥� and 鈥渁ggressive, unethical marketing tactics鈥�.
She condemns lobbying practices that have 鈥渙bstructed reforms and paralysed pesticide restrictions鈥�. Companies infiltrate federal regulatory agencies via 鈥渞evolving doors鈥� and 鈥渃ultivate strategic public-private partnerships that call into question their culpability or help bolster the companies鈥� credibility鈥�.
This credibility is propped up by networks of academics and regulators recruited as consultants. In accepting corporate funding and signing confidentiality agreements, scientists sacrifice autonomy and are co-opted into disinformation campaigns that support Big Ag agendas, at the cost of their ethics.
For example, when bee scientist James Cresswell presented findings that linked Syngenta pesticides to colony collapse, he was pressured 鈥溾�� in his industry-sponsored research. The 鈥淔austian bargain鈥� he had made cost him dearly.
Some are brave enough to call out post-truth claims. Angelika Hilbeck found toxins in genetically modified corn killed lacewing bugs as well as pests. Scientists like her are听听鈥渋deological researchers鈥� and part of the 鈥渆xtremist organic movement鈥�.
World views collide
This frank dismissal of alternative production systems represents a collision between competing frames, stakes and forms of expertise in food and agriculture policy.
Big Ag relies on the myth that large-scale, conventional agriculture generates higher yields and is more efficient than small-scale, family farms. Yet the latter produce听.
Concerns about the lack of sustainability and resilience of industrial farming practices has led to critical questions about the way we produce food. Notably, in 2008 the Internal Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) recognised the need for changes in 鈥溾�� to include alternative, agro-ecological production systems.
A multi-year study involving 44 scientists from more than 60 countries, the IAASTD considers the political conditions that contribute to food insecurity. This includes damaging structural adjustment policies and unfair international trade agreements.
The findings highlight how poverty rates, levels of education, knowledge of nutrition, war and conflict marginalise those most vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition. Importantly, the report emphasises that critical communities, by raising questions of ownership and control of technologies, play a vital role in food systems governance.
These include the global peasant farmers鈥� movement听, which openly rejects climate-smart rhetoric as听.
Promoting the concept of food sovereignty, La Via Campesina denies simplistic linkages between population growth, climate change, conflict, and resource scarcity. We are reminded that technological solutions are not neutral. The听听of the Forum for Food Sovereignty asserts:
- "the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems."
These farmers are the vanguard of resistance to Big Ag鈥檚 efforts to further intensify agricultural production at the expense of people and environments. We have a responsibility to join them in challenging the logic of an industrial food system that is about growth at all costs.
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This article was written by from the University's and . It was originally published on .听
- This article is part of an听听from the听, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney.听The series examines today鈥檚 post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.
- The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics, and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (), the听听and the听.