A vision of food

Currently our food system is organized around the idea the food is a “commodity” to be “produced” by a few specialized individuals for the rest of society.  Much of our food is grown on large scale industrial farms and then funneled to a small number food companies which process the food and ship it to the consumer. Thus the food we consume is completely removed from the ecological and social context in which it grown and becomes a nothing but a “product-for-consumption.”  In spite of the fact that everyone must consume food, only a very small percentage of people actually participate in this process.

I hope that the next 50 year will see a dramatic shift in this food system. Part of this shift will be radical relocalization of the food system. In urban and suburban areas, rooftops and abandoned plots will be transformed into agricultural space for community gardens or urban agriculture operations. There will be hydroponic and aquaponic systems in large workplaces, schools, and homes to provide meals those who attend them. Rural areas, which used to focus on monocropping, will now focus on biodiversity and maintaining a local ecological balance. Farmers markets will replace supermarkets as the dominant place for the purchase and trade of food. This is not to say that national or international trade of food should not occur at all, it should just occur on a less massive scale then now. Local food will replace industrial food as the norm, while industrial food will replace local food as the exception.

The way in which people relate to the earth and food will undergo a radical change as well. Our current food system is linear. Food is produced, consumed and the excess is thrown away. This has led to the production of large amounts of waste and ecological harm. Our new vision will be circular, as waste is minimized and reuse emphasized. People will have a better intuitive understanding of how their agricultural actions affect the larger ecosystem. Inedible food waste will be composted, while excess food will be given to those who are hunger instead of thrown away. People will see food, not a as commodity, but instead a community resource and giver of life

Gardening and agriculture will become part of our common life, as more people than before will take part in growing and producing food. Agriculture will be integrated into the public school system, and school will run their own gardens and food operations. Community Colleges and University will offer more courses in practical gardening and agriculture. This is not to say that everyone will become a full time farmer, but working for a few hours in a community, workplace, or school garden will be considered a valuable use of time that is rewarded.

Our new food system will based on the idea of fresh, healthy food as a human right, to be grown by communities for communities. While in our current food system decisions about what crops are grown and how they are to be regulated are imposed from the top down, with corporations and regulators making most of the decisions. Our new food system will be community-centric, as communities will be able to make their own decisions about what type of foods will be grown.  Further food will be considered a human right, not something whose control can be ceded to market forces or corporations.

Food of the Future

Increased globalization has resulted in massive amounts of food imports from outside of the United States.  Americans literally have a world of choices at their fingertips when they shop at a supermarket because a large amount of our meat and produce comes from other countries.  Traditionally seasonal items are now available year-round for us to purchase at any time.  Our increased globalization is heavily tied to rapid technological advancements.  In the case of food production, current examples technological integration include hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticide resistant GMOs and synthesized meats.  A possible vision 50 years from now, is shift towards lab-produced food with less dependency on traditional agriculture.

It's very difficult to say exactly what Americans will be eating 50 years from now and where it comes from, but we can be certain it will be very dissimilar from today.  The American diet is currently drastically different from what is was several decades ago.  We are currently incorporating larger amounts of "food-like substances" into our diets than generations prior ever have before.  There also have been great improvements made in food sanitation within the past 50 years.  Robert Paarlberg's article on organic food and world hunger points out that industrial-scale technical improvements have made American foods significantly safer over time.  Since 2000, instances of E. coli contamination in meat has dropped 45%.  Surveys from the Centers for Disease and Prevention also show that most fatalities and hospitalizations from unsafe food in the United States today are due to mishandling or improper preparation inside the home. 

A trend that could possibly take off in the future is artificial meat grown in laboratories.  One statistic from an article in The Guardian discussing the future of food says that 70% of the grain and cereal grown in the United States are fed to farm animals.  As more animals take up land space and more crops go towards feeding them, this option would use much less water, energy and land than our current method of harvesting livestock.  The United States is currently the highest meat-consuming nation in the world but other developing countries, such as China, are catching up.  Much like the green revolution in the 1950s, artificial meat could feed a larger number of people using fewer resources.  Transportation may also prove to be easier because it would take longer to perish and could allow for more storage time.

Converging Interests: A New Food Supply

Avenging the environment does not require a sacrifice of our national interest.  In fact, in the next fifty years I hope we see a convergence of environmental issues with national security issues.  To demonstrate this, I focused on a vision of a more secure and environmentally friendly the food supply chain for the United States food chain, fifty years in the future.

As it stands now the food supply chain in the United States is largely centralized.  Large corporations control processing plants that the majority of the foods that end up - in one form or another - on our grocery shelves must go through regardless of where they were locally grown.  Local farming does still exist in our country, but on a minuscule scale compared to the big business farms.  One of the issues of this centralization is the inherent weakness it brings in regards to national security.  If these mammoth processing plants were attacked, the United States food supply chains would be in disarray and shortages would quickly follow.

To protect our food supply and the well being of citizens, in fifty years the United States would have regional food hubs instead of a centralized system.

Within these regional food hubs, each section of the country would focus on the local crops that grow well in their area, be it using large swaths of land for pasture for livestock, tropical climates for fruits, or adequate rain and mild temperatures for corn and other crops.  Each region would aim to supply itself with the crops it could cultivate - in laymen's terms -  each region would depend on local farmers for its food.  In the public, farming would be held in high regard again, and work and school schedules would be such that even small local gardening of simple vegetables and fruit was encouraged at the family and community level.  

When a region cannot cultivate a certain type of crop within their land, they would simply buy that crop from another regional hub that does specialize in the crop they want.  For example, if Maine wanted oranges from Florida, the Northeast Regional Hub would trade something they cultivate - say, corn - for oranges from the Southeast Regional Hub.  Changes in culture would push communities to value seasonal foods over non-seasonal foods to keep the focus on locally domestic grown foods as opposed to flying out of season fruits around the world just to keep them in stock.

These regional hubs would be managed by the United States Government, and to encourage food both staying in the country and being bought locally as opposed to globally, the government would offer incentives for corporations and business owners that stayed within the regional hub framework.  

Overall, this system would cut down on carbon emissions because less food would be traveling across the country and across the world to satisfy niche American tastes.  It would also foster communities and 'greener' living as farming culture would be integrated into modern life in every aspect, and valued as a honorable and absolutely necessary profession.  As farming life becomes modern, and communities are living with it in their front and back yards, livestock abuses would hopefully diminish because chickens, cows, and pigs wouldn't be hauled off to a kill yard in the middle of the country, they would be visible in the community.  

Lastly, this regional food hub system would make the United States food infrastructure less vulnerable to attack and collapse.  With five regional areas being mostly self-sufficient and relying on local business, an attack in California would not mean devastation in Maryland.

The regional food system I have described as happening in the next fifty years is admittedly idyllic, and I'm sure I have ignored many structural and political factors that would make this vision problematic.  I paint this gilded image to poke at the problem. Our current food system should alarm people.  It is vulnerable to attack, there are many injustices built into it.  The mere difficulty of tracking food back to its source is concerning in regards to the public health and keeping our food clean and safe.  I have suggested one avenue to explore in regards to improving our food system for all involved.  Dare to dream bigger than I have.  

In next 50 years.

Fifty years from now, there will be even less people working in the cropland comparing with what we have right now. From planting seeds to harvesting, the entire production process of food will be totally done by machine. We need only couple of people run the farmer company that may responsible for 1000 acres or much bigger area of cropland. Their only duties may only be check the status of machines in the cropland, enter command code into the planting system; irrigation frequencies and amount, pesticides application time, how much of the sunshine needed for crops will be accurately calculated. They don’t need to go to croplands at all since there will be different kinds of machine monitoring the growth of plants and do proper adjustments based upon the real time monitor observed. There will be barcodes attached with foods that coming from these lands so buyers are able to check the entire growing process online based on the codes they have. On the other hand, the production will increased for having multiple layers of “land” in same place. The layers of cropland will be shifted in order to have same amount of sunshine. The shifting will be calculated by the computer system automatically, which allow a more accurate outcome. With the population increasing in next 50 years. The city will take more land than now and there will be much more smaller size cities emerged as well. This may lead to the fact that the shipping distance for foods decreasing a little bit. But on the other hand, available cropland become further and further away from the central of cities that will increase the mileage of food. The way to use all the available space for food may include that using building roofs and building land on the top of parking lot to plant foods, which may be the food sources for local communities’ farmer market.  

On the consumer side, we can order the foods we need online and system will find the food with best price and also smallest mileage. The food we ordered online will be delivered to our home so that we do not have to drive to buy food. The quality and price are guaranteed. For people who cannot afford to buy fresh food, there will be another substitutes for that. It has low price but enough nutrients, calories and proteins inside of it. It is easy to preserve and also carrying around. My guess is that it would be something like a beverage and there are lots of different flavors in it. It uses the foods that are not sold but still fresh that blend all kinds of food together?