The Importance Of Sustainable Food

In order to promote sustainable policy, there must be an incentive to implement change. If any part of the food chain (i.e. producers, suppliers, processors, etc.) cannot keep up with the public demand of food, the food system is unproductive. Although progressive policy might possess the correct intentions, it must be physically and economically feasible. Ironically, contemporary food systems already produce mass amounts of food, but have zero nutritional value or are quite expensive. As a result, we see a dichotomy between production and consumption; both are issues that are addressed by the food policy initiatives in the last section. However, critiques of policy change would argue that our food system is too entrenched in mass production

knowledge transfers, food storing, improved transportation measures, preparation techniques and locally-based markets for example). However, unlike industrialization, small-scale food systems rely on locally produced and sustainable food. It is through the use of industrial agriculture, instead of small-scale farming, that the contemporary food system faces an environmental crisis. In “Small Scale Sustainable Farmers Are Cooling Down the Earth,” La Via Campesina (2009) notes that industrial agriculture contributes to global warming in four major ways: by transporting food internationally, imposing industrial forms of production, destroying biodiversity, and converting land into non-agricultural areas (p. 3). As a result, the contemporary agriculture system produces an incredible financial and environmental burden. When the costs of global warming are added up individually, annual damages caused by industrial practices are estimated between $60 billion and $140 billion in the United States alone (Harris, Roach & Codur, 2015, p. 19). Historically, there are many other sectors that produce greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada, pipelines, or transportation sectors). However, the entire global food system produces 44 – 57 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions (Dale, 2015). The conclusion can then be drawn that a large amount of funds are

The major reason why nations spend vast amounts of money on the reversal of climate change is simply because of industrial agriculture. Contemporary practices emphasize production over sustainability. For example, La Via Campesina (2009) stresses the importance of soil. The transnational movement for traditional agriculture emphasizes that soils are main driving factors for food. It is the starting point for growing food, no matter the method of production. However, over the last 50 years, industrial agriculture has caused the loss of “30 – 60 tonnes of soil organic matter for every hectare of agricultural land” (p. 14). For an integral part of agricultural production, industrial practices clearly do not think long term. To promote fertile and healthy soil, which results in nutritious and bountiful food, nations must cut back on industrialization. On small-scale farms, industrialization and mechanization is not a necessity. Small producers are able to rely on sustainable, and environmentally safe practices to produce food. La Via Campesina (2009) argues that by replacing nitrogen fertilizers by organic agriculture, or cultivating nitrogen-fixing plants, we can promote true agrarian reform (p. 7). Of course, this type of production would be labour-intensive, but the amount of energy output from mechanized production would be drastically