Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
more sustainable food production lies in reasserting the 'culture' in agriculture. He
argues again in this volume that any kind of sustainable future 'means developing
new and differing models, culturally-embedded and meaningful, that put food at the
centre of economies and societies' (Prety, this volume). Essential to these arguments
is the recognition that society is intricately connected to ecological process.
The agreement that food needs to be re-embedded and revalued, as articulated
by sholars from a range of perspectives, including its strong and repeated reinforce-
ment in this collection, raises the question of how we can ahieve this end. It is our
contention that - in addition to the pragmatic hanges to production and consump-
tion of food - we, as a global society, need to establish a morally-informed perspect-
ive from whih we can maintain a critical viewpoint on the ideology that perpetu-
ates the existing food system. Put simply, we need a new utopian vision for food.
Suh a utopia, as noted by Stok and Carolan in this topic, involves envisioning a
society in whih there is no hunger and whih does not rely on reference to food as
a quantity. Ultimately, it rests in the pursuit of a moral philosophy that recognizes
the failure of market competition to ensure the equitable distribution of a product
essential to human survival, suh as food.
Formulating responses 3: the potential power of Utopia
Up to this point we have offered that existing plans to 'feed the world' may be illus-
ory sloganeering. Furthermore, we have categorized the recommendations that have
been put forward in response to the food crisis into two broad categories (see
Table
14.1
): those that call for a tinkering of business-as-usual and those that re-imagine
the global food system. Business-as-usual, while good business, does litle to reduce
real numbers of hungry people - as Claire Mahon emphasizes in this volume, 1.2
billion are hungry
now.
And the solution involves muh more than redistribution,
whih merely reduces the economic realities to theoretical calculations. he question
is not, 'How will (or even can) we feed the world?'; it is, more bluntly, 'Do we really
want to?'
If the answer to this question is, 'Yes', then we must be able to envision an ideal
food system that might accomplish that goal. We cannot confine our conception of
a food-secure world to suicient caloric intake. Suh a goal represents a basement
level of ahievement that fuels population-related production arguments. he con-
sistent message of this topic is that suh a narrow focus on production enables the
persistence and normalization of inequality and abuse in the current food system,
