We Want to Change – But How?
Tue, Jul 20, 2010
Author: Judson Berkey (5 Articles)
Judson Berkey is a Managing Director in the Operational Risk Control function in UBS, responsible for the Operational Risk Framework and coordinating operational risk activities across the worldwide operations of the bank. He is an expert on international regulatory frameworks for agriculture, finance, and e-commerce. He resides in Zurich, Switzerland.
Recently in my own work I was reminded of the quote from Lampedusa’s The Leopard – “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change” (translated from the original – “Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è bisogna che tutto cambi.”) Now I am not sure that we really want all things to stay as they are in the food and agriculture world but we do want to produce sufficient, healthy, interesting food in a manner that does not inhibit our ability to feed future generations.
In this way we do want things to stay a bit the same (or at least how we imagine they used to be, a generation ago). But obviously to get there in the face of scarce resources and changing values we do have to do things differently. The question then is – how do we get from here to there? Should change be driven from the top down, percolate from the bottom up or arrive in surprising transformative ways? The answer is probably all of the above and that is certainly what is happening in the food industry.
On the food safety front, the EU Food Safety Agency and Center for Disease Prevention Control released their most recent study of food borne illnesses in the EU (45000 illnesses and 32 deaths in 2008 generally down from 2007 levels). The report provides data that can be used to focus government and industry efforts to improve food safety.
Thus it might be of use to China as it established a new food safety commission after another melamine recall. This commission is part of a new set of laws on food safety in China. The US food safety reform laws continue to be discussed in Congress. However, some recently expressed concern about the potential for increasing corporate influence over those bills due to the recent Supreme Court ruling removing limits on corporate campaign contributions. So government is the change agent and industry is the problem, right?
Well maybe not so fast. The retail chain Target in the US recently received kudos from Greenpeace among others for phasing out farmed salmon from more than 1700 stores in the US. This should help encourage sustainable seafood consumption -and is being followed by other corporations as well. However, those are only small examples and not relevant when many parts of the agriculture industry continue with factoring farming practices that are evil, right?
See, for example, this account of recent expose in the US media on ABC-TV. So thank goodness we have government to reign in industry particularly when it may be engaged in monopolistic practices in the market for such basic inputs such as seeds. See some commentary here on the new US Dept. of Justice investigation into Monsanto. But government also gets it wrong by banning traditional products such as raw milk. So we need revolutionaries such as this Canadian. And of course Michael Pollan is here, there, and everywhere (including now Oprah) to remind us to eat like our grandparents. So the blogospherists, locavores, bio crowd are our protectors and should drive the change right?
But, according to some, they may not be advocating a practical way to actually feed the world in a sustainable way (see this review of James McWilliams new book Just Food on Pamela Ronald’s website) And they are part of an elitist trend of good food for the rich. So we need the politicians to use the bully pulpit to get us to behave better as Michelle Obama recently tried to do on the topic of childhood obesity with her Let’s Move initiative According to some who did not believe it was appropriate for her to personalize the issue, this is the wrong way to go about it.
So where exactly does that leave us now? Honestly I do not know where this all ends up. It is good to see so much energy and activity being put into debate around food and agriculture. It is too much to think it can be channeled in any one direction and that the free market of ideas will steer us toward a sensible result. In the meantime, I will escape from the real world for a bit and try my hand in the virtual world of Farmville where maybe I can avoid these debates for a while….
Judson,
Great article, you hit the nail on the head, yet gave no real answers. This couldn’t be more fitting, as there isn’t a quick fix, but instead a compromise of various influences. But where is the balance?
One quick side note: Target removing farmed salmon from their stores is the biggest act of political pandering and food ignorance that I have seen in a long time. I love walking through the aisles of Target, looking at all the candy, soda, fake food, lean cuisine, food-like products as many would call them, and then hear them say farmed salmon is the bad thing? Really? Please point to a case of childhood obesity, diabetes, or death that has been a result of eating the omega three packed atlantic salmon. So instead of selling farmed salmon they are going to sell “wild” salmon that spends 50% of its life in a farm like environment…..?
Education is so essential in this conversation. In order for the free market to work as it should, people need to be equipped with the right, non-biased information in order to use their dollars in an effective manner.
We need to be making realistic compromises in order to move forward as a whole, both sides of whatever argument we are talking about. If we examine every food system in a vacum, it is going to always have negative consequences. We as humans are unsustainable. Instead we should be assessing the risk and benefits of each decision, slowly moving in the right direction.
I really like this post a lot, thank you.
Judson, as always, you’ve benefited everyone with your crack research skills. Great article.
And I love the opener about things having to change in order to stay the same – I think it *helps* to transcend some partisanship.
I work with non-profits engaging large food corporations, and a big driver for their greening efforts has been the fear of unsustainable supply chains – i.e. not being able to reliably or cost-effectively source their key inputs in the future.
At the moment, these companies are usually approaching the efforts individually, rather than through industry-wide collaboration. But I am wondering if there is not a potential scenario where the industry might actually lobby government to come in and regulate? Obviously businesses don’t like increasing the bureaucracy in their supply chain. But an example of this is when U.S. doctors (the AMA) lobbied government to ban MD’s from advertising themselves (in order to protect incumbents from upstart doctors in their neighborhoods). In the case of food, for example, even though CAFO’s pose reputational and disease-based risks for Burger King’s supply chain, it would be costly and uncompetitive for BK to transition away from this practice on their own. Yet if it becomes a standard across the industry, then the competitive landscape doesn’t change and no one has to single-handedly bear the costs.
Andrew, Josh
Thanks for the comments. Clearly I took a bit of an easy road by not trying to offer any solutions so thanks for filling in the ending.
Education is definitely a key element of getting to any change. I sometimes think that my own generation is a maybe a little bit lost on this so at least we can lay the groundwork for the next one. At my own company I do see a difference in the attitudes and interests of our new hires – many of them seem to come with some background in either environment or social causes or philanthropy.
Regulation is also another potential route. It is a lot easier for industry to move en-masse than for any one company to stick their neck out. I see it in my own industry. The worry there is always about regulatory capture but if you can find a match of some enlightened industry leaders with some enlightened regulators you can actually achieve a lot in a short time as regulations really do have the power to reshape the markets.
Thanks again for the feedback
Regards,
Judson
Judson, a fine article identifying many of the big issues we have to work out. I hope that my personal efforts as a chef are not elitist. Hopefully I am supporting development in the field that will eventually show the way to farm sustainably for the future. A way that considers long term land stuardship over intensive production. Thanks for such a comprehensive article.