The chapter, “The Future of Food,” explains the dire situation we have put ourselves into involving food. Next, the chapter poses two extreme ending scenarios: technological and anthropological. The first part sorts through a variety of issues, first posing the two sides of the never ending debate of whether we will all be fine and our supply is endless, or the doomed fate that we will run out of everything given our dumb nature of not planning ahead soon enough, dooming and “stealing from” our own children. The chapter next covers each area of concern from increased consumption, to our depleting water supply, to the erosion of our fertile soil and more. Each has clear limitations and seem to point towards huge problems. Each resource connects, and everything affects everything else, and this was a major point of the chapter. “Fixing” one problem simply causes a different problem. And truly we can’t continue the way we operate now.
The technological ending is that we will solve all issues with future technology. Complete market control will make us come up with new solution to continue to move forward and eventually find the means of an advanced and sustainable system. The anthropological ending was the opposite. In this scenario, we all moved back in time with a very anticlimactic future. We revert to less industrial processes, less trade, and more self-supply. Instead of “any food from anywhere at any time,” it would be specific local foods at the time they are available.
Clearly neither of these endings are the tell all of our future. It is terrifying to look at the danger we are in if we continue our process the way it is. And truthfully we have to decide what battle to fight first. Certainly we will continue to advance technology and work towards fixing each problem, but we must start somewhere. In class we have looked at problems within the food manufacturing and production, problems in consumption and obesity, and problems of distribution and starvation. Where do we focus our attention? In my opinion, world health should come first and maybe the obesity and local problems will follow. Our attention must focus on caring for the world we have and the people in it, and less on “better” food for the fortunate few. But our markets do not cater to these matters, so who should step up and help the change. To solve any problem we must pose all the possible disasters. With research, planning, changes, and luck hopefully none of the proposed disasters will come true, and instead a terrific and advanced future will emerge. But it’s up to us all, as citizens of the world, to work toward fighting the disasters.
Who should step up and make a change first?
What issue do you feel is most dire and most deserving of our attention first?
