Another decade down

Enlarge Image

Marc Gallant / Winnipeg Free Press archives Who knew mad cow disease would surface in North America?

In fact, many of the forces shaping agriculture and food industries today weren't even on our radar screens as the millennium turned a decade ago. Meanwhile, other forces that were expected to dissipate have remained stubbornly resistant.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, was something farmers in the U.K. and Europe were confronting. No one seriously thought it would ever surface here, nor did they imagine the lasting impact the discovery of one infected animal in 2003 would have on this country's beef industry.

Not only have producers here suffered the economic consequences of trade disruptions, they have been saddled with the costs of implementing new protocols and regulations in its wake.

Manitoba's hog industry was still in the early stages of its explosive expansion and conversion from stability through a large number of independent producers to a centralized, intensive production system. The industry operated under the assumption Manitoba's wide-open spaces, friendly government oversight and its competitive advantage -- largely due to the currency differential -- would shelter its expansion indefinitely.

The Canadian dollar was around 69 cents US at the turn of the century. Today it is around 94 cents US. As for free trade, it seems that for every trade barrier removed, another surfaces, causing one industry analyst to refer to trade recently as "blood sport." Rules only matter if you get caught.

Genetically modified crops, mostly herbicide-tolerant traits, were still in the early stages of adoption. While the consumer backlash was strong, no one expected the controversy over biotechnology would still be so controversial and trade limiting.

Ten years ago, the likes of best-selling authors Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), had not yet surfaced with their hard-hitting questions about modern agriculture, food policy and the linkages to public health. Pollan's influence on public perceptions has been so significant, some agri-industry donors have threatened to pull their donations if universities invite him to speak without also providing an industry speaker to counterbalance.

We'd never heard of a "locavore" a decade ago. And no one talked too much about the concept of "sustainability," a word that now peppers almost every dialogue related to food and agriculture. Biofuels were somewhat naively promoted as a solution to farm income problems as well as an answer for Peak Oil.

As we head into the next decade, the cost of farming is increasingly being measured in more than economic terms. Society is weighing in on the issues in a way farmers and the industry are unaccustomed to seeing. It is partly because the "feed the world" debate is heating up. There is a cacophony of views emerging, with some powerful voices weighing in.

One dominant view says the world needs to pull out all stops and focus on production, specifically yield and nutrition-boosting technologies such as Vitamin A-enriched rice, in order to meet the projected 70 per cent increase in food demand by 2050. This production focus pays homage to the environmental and social upheaval caused by the first Green Revolution, but essentially preaches more of the same. However, the technology providers are currently facing scrutiny from a public increasingly suspicious they are becoming too concentrated and powerful.

Another view promotes harnessing the productive capacity of the world's small-scale farmers, while focusing on more soil-building and less energy-intensive and water-intensive production practices. This camp argues the very things that provide mainstream production agriculture with its yield advantage -- energy intensive inputs and uniform genetics -- will prove to be its downfall in an erratic climate coupled with rising energy costs. It promotes biodiversity -- genetics selected according to local environmental conditions -- and farming systems that mimic natural ecosystems.

"Productivity or sustainability -- they say you have to choose," said Microsoft mogul Bill Gates, whose charitable foundation is investing heavily in developing agriculture in impoverished countries.

"The fact is, we need both productivity and sustainability -- and there is no reason we can't have both."

But he goes on to say, "The next Green Revolution must be guided by small-holder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and the environment."

After a decade of energy and food-price shocks, the coldest, hottest, driest and wettest seasons on record, market disruptions and a global financial meltdown, folks are starting to acknowledge volatility is the new norm, rather than the exception in agriculture. Maybe this is a prediction. Or maybe it's just a wish. But sometime in the coming decade, the world will realize food security has more to do with the number of farmers on the land than the number of acres in production.

Laura Rance is editor of the Manitoba Co-operator. She can be reached at 792-4382 or by email: laura@fbcpublishing.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 26, 2009 B10