Not more but better – part 1
Why the "we must produce more food narrative" is bogus
As long as I have been engaged in food and agriculture, i.e. since the late 1970s, the dominating food and agriculture narrative is that we need to produce more in order to feed a growing population. While I do think there are reasons for concern about the future (I will write more on that soon), this view has two huge errors. The first one is that the problem today is certainly not that production is too low, on the contrary, overproduction is a major problem. The second one, is that the real problem of the agri-food system is how we produce, distribute and eat our food.
Without doubt, global agriculture output has increased tremendously over the last sixty years. Measured in tons world agriculture output of crops has increased with 268% since 1961. The population increased with 151%, i.e. the production per person increased with 43%. Not all of this is eaten by people. Some of these crops are fed to livestock and livestock production has increased with 206% in the same period. Notably, as the total consumption of food has increased the share of animal food per capita is more or less stable. Around ten percent of the crop output is used for biofuel and another smaller share is used for industry, print ink, lubricants, paints etc.
Pulses, roots and tubers has not kept pace with population. Oil crops has increased tremendously and nuts, vegetables and eggs have all increased more than 450%. Vegetable oil and chicken are the real rockets. Pork consumption has also doubled, almost totally attributable to China, where consumption went from to 2 kg per person in 1961 to 40 kg per person year 2022. The per capita consumption of beef, mutton and goat has been very stable and also milk. It is quite surprising that in the heated “meat” debate, articles are always illustrated with cows or a steak when the share of consumption is around 20% of all meat and that the main contribution of cattle to the food system is milk and not meat.
The gross crop output in energy per capita increased from 4,528 kcal 1961 to 7,619 kcal 2020, an increase with 68 percent. Almost 3,000 kcal per person per day is made available for consumers, who "need" in the range of 2,100 kcal per person per day. “Made available” should be understood as carried from the shop (if you are a consumer in a market society), brought into the household from your farm (if you are a self-sufficient homesteader, or the raw materials used in a restaurant (if you eat out). Of the difference, food waste and “metabolic food waste” (causing obesity) contribute roughly in a similar way (i.e. people waste >400 kcal per day and eat >400 kcal "too much" in average).
Cropland increase has played a minor role in the increased global output with an increase of just 17%. Global grassland area increased until around year 2000 and then dropped, being just 4% higher than in 1961. The total masks quite a big regional redistribution where grassland areas in Europe, North America and Russia have shrunk while the area has increased in tropic and subtropic areas. Notably the statistics for grassland and even more how much of the grassland that is actively used is very uncertain, I discuss that more here.
The most remarkable development when it comes to output is in China, where output has increased almost 1000 percent. The output in China was accomplished with a small increase in cropland area and no increased use of labor but with a tremendous increase in the use of fertilizers. This was from a very low level, 2.3 million tons which went to 49.9 million tons. Chinese farmers now use 22% of all fertilizers in the world.
Irrigation and fertilizers have clearly been the two major drivers of yield increase. Irrigation in arid climates may mean very high increase in productivity as well as multiple annual crops. In the Mekong delta farmers reportedly take three rice crops per year.
The increase in the use of fertilizers has slowed down a bit with a remarkable drop in the end of the 1980s, which has to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states where fertilizers were heavily subsidized and used indiscriminately. As time goes farmers have learnt to use fertilizers more efficiently, but there are limits to how much fertilizer use efficiency can increase. It has now reached a plateau in the countries that has used fertilizers for a long time. The total use of fertilizers has increased a lot more than the production has increased. Nitrogen fertilizer use increase 8.4 times between 1961 and 2022, phosphorus fertilizer 2.8 times and potash fertilizer 3.1 times.
The aggregate efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer measured in use of N per ton of crop output went down from 4 kg N per ton to 12 kg N per ton between 1961 and 2022. Nitrogen fertilizers is clearly one of the most harmful aspect of the global agriculture system. In addition to the direct or indirect environmental effect of nitrogen fertilizers, the use of nitrogen fertilizers have led to the abandonment of earlier more sustainable practices such as crop rotation, intercropping, nutrient recycling. It is also the main driver for the decoupling of crop farming and livestock farming, which in turn led to livestock factories. Apart from being inhumane they are also a major source of pollution as there is far too much manure in a limited area of land.
There are many other negative aspects of “modern” industrial farming. The effect on climate, biodiversity and health are devastating. Taken together, the external costs of the agri-food system are estimated to be to at least the same as the value of the total output. (I have expressed a lot of criticism against “true cost accounting”, which I believe is quite a dubious concept both from a pure scientific angle (very difficult and subjective to measure) and from a moral and political angle (including even more of nature into the market by the means of monetary valuation. Nevertheless the figures give you an idea of the magnitude).
Of course, one can’t separate the agriculture system from the food system and one can’t separate the agriculture and food systems from the economic system that sets their priorities. The enormous increase in the consumption of chicken and vegetable oil can’t be understood from a perspective of consumer preferences, but is explained by underlying economic conditions, which in turn are dependent on technology and politics.
All of it is, in turn, dependent on the biosphere and various ecosystems. That will be the topic of two following posts. In the final post I will sketch how the future agri-food system could look like.
This is very true but none of the politicians will ever understand this as they need jobs.
As for myself I have adopted growing what I sell locally. I grow my crops organically managing to purchase some mushroom compost and create some compost for myself.. but never enough. There is no profit in what I do but I do rotate every year and leave any residue in the fields. With the horses I create pastures after my sunflower crop which has been planted with legumes and grasses which appear after harvest. I basically only crop half of my farm to allow some kind of regeneration of the soils. Most people in Canada are grocery store addicts and mostly obese. I have a very hard time getting workers even though I offer accommodation. We need to produce less food, but better quality and people need to understand that making the environment pay for our excesses is a dead end venture.
I'm trying hard to enjoy what I have and share it with those who wonder where our world is going. I wish there were more Gunnars close by to encourage me and others to enjoy this way of life which for us is very close the the Amish.
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This is great Gunnar. I remember reading a paper which argued along the same lines as you. The food system crisis is greatly down to poor distribution and exorbitant waste. It is a modern day tragedy.
However, it is so much easier for politicians to make this a matter of deficient production - partly because increased production will satisfy their coveted "economic growth" and also because production narratives are easier and more intuitive to explain to voters. But as long as this narrative continues to dominate, the food system issues will get worse.