Preamble

The following are extracts from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES-Food) “From Uniformity to Diversity” (2016) and “Another Perfect Storm?”

(2022):

Today’s food and farming systems have succeeded in supplying large volumes of foods to global markets, but are generating negative outcomes on multiple fronts: widespread degradation of land, water and ecosystems; high GHG emissions; biodiversity losses;   persistent hunger and micro-nutrient deficiencies alongside the rapid rise of obesity and diet-related diseases; and livelihood stresses for farmers around the world.

Many of these problems are linked specifically to ‘industrial agriculture’: the input-intensive crop monocultures and industrial-scale feedlots that now dominate farming landscapes. The uniformity at the heart of these systems, and their reliance on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and preventive use of antibiotics, leads systematically to negative  outcomes and vulnerabilities.

Industrial agriculture and the ‘industrial food systems’ that have developed around it are locked in place by a series of vicious cycles. For example, the way food systems are currently structured allows value to accrue to a limited number of actors, reinforcing their economic and political power, and thus their ability to influence the governance of  food systems. Industrial food systems, built around industrial modes of agriculture, are  held in place by a set of powerful feedback loops. These loops shut out the alternatives and keep food systems centred on industrial agriculture. The distribution of power is      particularly crucial. New knowledge platforms, new governance frameworks and new retail circuits only hold the potential to drive a transition insofar as they are able to avoid capture and prevent further power accruing to dominant actors. Strong, deliberate and  coherent steps are therefore required to strengthen the emerging opportunities, while    simultaneously breaking the vicious cycles that keep industrial agriculture in place.

Tweaking practices can improve some of the specific outcomes of industrial agriculture, but will not provide long-term solutions to the multiple problems it generates. The failure to reform food systems and address these flaws has left millions of people critically vulnerable to shocks, which are likely to mount and intensify over the coming years.      What is required is a fundamentally different model of agriculture based on diversifying farms and farming landscapes, replacing chemical inputs, optimizing biodiversity and    stimulating interactions between different species, as part of holistic strategies to build  long-term fertility, healthy agro-ecosystems and secure livelihoods, i.e. ‘diversifed agroecological systems’ . Making the case for changing course is crucial, but so too is mapping out a pathway of transition.

This report’s findings are corroborated by thought-leaders, e.g. Akram-Lodhi, Beddington, Monbiot, Raworth, Shiva, and many international agencies. The iPES-Food & ETC Group (2021) Report “A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045” concludes that “an agri-business-led future will be incapable of bringing the planet and its food systems back within a safe operating space, and will in fact continue to generate rampant inequalities, deepen livelihood stresses and food insecurity, and create harmful environmental impacts of its own.”

Conversely, Sunny Verghese, CEO of Olam International, a leading food and agri-business, is known for his passion and zeal to pursue a transformative path to see the food sector keep within planetary boundaries. In 2017 he asserted that “Olam must become more innovative and find new ways of doing things to better manage our impact on the 9 Planetary Boundaries, and help achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” . In 2016 he founded the Global Agribusiness Alliance (GAA) to collectively tackle global food security and other major environmental and social challenges, although he acknowledged that the food and agricultural sector  is still  “in the foothills” of system transformation.  Olam’s 2021 Annual Report,Transforming to Serve a Changing World, provides additional information about its governance and strategy approaches, including reporting on non-financial capitals.

Assignment

Part A: Critically evaluate the policy, market, and institutional failures that have led to the current food crisis, and its interconnection with other global crises and systemic disorders; then consider the key arguments for and against different approaches to tackling the food crisis, and what various stakeholders could do to reverse the decline in global food security and the adverse social and environmental impacts of the global food system, drawing on relevant literature, reports, and other sources.

P(.)art B: Critically compare iPES-Food’s non-market approach to transforming the food   system with that of Olam International’s market-based approach, in the light of iPES &  ETC Group’s contention that an agri-business solution will only exacerbate social and   environmental problems; then discuss the business management and governance         implications and transformational opportunities and challenges involved in solving those problems, drawing on relevant sources and theories.

Answer both parts of the question. Each part carries equal marks. References:

Beddington, J. (2011), Foresight: The Future of Food & Farming, London: UK Govt Office for Science

iPES-Food (2016), From Uniformity to Diversity, Brussels, iPES-Food

iPES-Food (2022), Another Perfect Storm?, Brussels: iPES-Food

iPES-Food & ETC Group (2021), A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045, Brussels: iPES-Food.

Monbiot, G. (2022), Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, London: Allen Lane

Raworth, K. (2018), Doughnut Economics (Paperback Ed.), London: Random House   Shiva, V. (2022), Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture: Sustainable Solutions for Hunger, Poverty, and Climate Change, Santa Fe & London: Synergetic Press

Overall word limit: 3000

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

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Very occasionally it may be appropriate to present, in an appendix, material which does not properly belong in the main body of the assessment but which some students wish to provide for the sake of completeness. Any appendices will not have a role in the assessment - examiners are under no obligation to read appendices and they do not form part of the word count. Material that students wish to be assessed should always be included in the main body of the text.