Beyond Fossilized Paradigms: Futureconomics of Food
The economics of the future is based on people and biodiversity - not fossil fuels, toxic chemicals and monocultures.
New Delhi, India - The economic crisis, the
ecological crisis and the food crisis are a reflection of an outmoded
and fossilized economic paradigm - a paradigm that grew out of
mobilizing resources for the war by creating the category of economic
"growth" and is rooted in the age of oil and fossil fuels. It is
fossilized both because it is obsolete, and because it is a product of
the age of fossil fuels. We need to move beyond this fossilized paradigm
if we are to address the economic and ecological crisis.Rice terraces near the Drukgyel Dzong, Paro Valley, Bhutan. (Photo: Blaine Harrington)
Economy and ecology have the same roots "oikos" - meaning home - both
our planetary home, the Earth, and our home where we live our everyday
lives in family and community.
But economy strayed from ecology, forgot the home and focused on the
market. An artificial "production boundary" was created to measure Gross
Domestic Product (GDP). The production boundary defined work and
production for sustenance as non-production and non-work - "if you
produce what you consume, then you don't produce". In one fell swoop,
nature's work in providing goods and services disappeared. The
production and work of sustenance economies disappeared, the work of
hundreds of millions of women disappeared.
To the false measure of growth is added a false measure of
"productivity". Productivity is output for unit input. In agriculture
this should involve all outputs of biodiverse agro-ecosystems - the
compost, energy and dairy products from livestock, the fuel and fodder
and fruit from agroforestry and farm trees, the diverse outputs of
diverse crops. When measured honestly in terms of total output, small
biodiverse farms produce more and are more productive.
Bhutan has given up the false categories of
GNP and GDP, and replaced them with the category of "gross national
happiness" which measures the wellbeing of nature and society.
Inputs should include all inputs - capital, seeds, chemicals,
machinery, fossil fuels, labour, land and water. The false measure of
productivity selects one output from diverse outputs - the single
commodity to be produced for the market, and one input from diverse
inputs - labour.
Thus low output, high input chemical, industrial monocultures, which
in fact have a negative productivity, are artificially rendered more
productive than small, biodiverse, ecological farms. And this is at the
root of the false assumption that small farms must be destroyed and
replaced by large industrial farms.
This false, fossilized measure of productivity is at the root of the multiple crises we face in food and agriculture.
It is at the root of hunger and malnutrition, because, while commodities grow, food and nutrition have disappeared from the farming system. "Yield" measures the output of a single commodity, not the output of food and nutrition.
It is at the root of hunger and malnutrition, because, while commodities grow, food and nutrition have disappeared from the farming system. "Yield" measures the output of a single commodity, not the output of food and nutrition.
This is the root of the agrarian crisis.
When costs of input keep increasing, but are not counted in measuring
productivity, small and marginal farmers are pushed into a high cost
farming model, which results in debt - and in extreme cases, the epidemic of farmers' suicides.
It is at the root of the unemployment crisis.
When people are replaced by energy slaves because of a false measure
of productivity based on labour inputs alone, the destruction of
livelihoods and work is an inevitable result.
It is also at the root of the ecological crisis.
Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley has
recognised that "growing organic" and "growing happiness and wellbeing"
go hand in hand.
When natural resource inputs, fossil fuel inputs, and chemical inputs
are increased but not counted, more water and land is wasted, more
toxic poisons are used, more fossil fuels are needed. In terms of
resource productivity, chemical industrial agriculture is highly
inefficient. It uses ten units of energy to produce one unit of food. It
is responsible for 75 per cent use of water, 75 per cent disappearance
of species diversity, 75 per cent land and soil degradation and 40 per
cent of all Greenhouse Gas emissions, which are destabilizing the
climate.
In food and agriculture, when we transcend the false productivity of a
fossilised paradigm, and shift from the narrow focus on monoculture
yields as the only output, and human labour as the only input, instead
of destroying small farms and farmers we will protect them - because
they are more productive in real terms. Instead of destroying
biodiversity, we will intensify it, because it gives more food and
nutrition.
Futureconomics, the economics of the future, is based on people and
biodiversity - not fossil fuels, energy slaves, toxic chemicals and
monocultures. The fossilized paradigm of food and agriculture gives us
displacement, dispossession, disease and ecological destruction. It has
given us the epidemic of farmers suicides and the epidemic of hunger and
malnutrition. A paradigm that robs 250,000 farmers of their lives, and
millions of their livelihoods; that robs half our future generations of
their lives by denying them food and nutrition is clearly
dysfunctional.
It has led to the growth of money flow and corporate profits, but it
has diminished life and the wellbeing of our people. The new paradigm we
are creating on the ground - and in our minds - enriches livelihoods,
the health of people and eco-systems and cultures.
On April 2, 2012, the United Nations organised a High Level Meeting on Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a new Economic Paradigm to implement resolution 65/309 [PDF],
adopted unanimously by the General Assembly in July 2011 - conscious
that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal and
"recognising that the gross domestic product does not adequately reflect
the happiness and well-being of people".
I was invited to address the conference at the UN. The meeting was
hosted by the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Bhutan has given up the
false categories of GNP and GDP, and replaced them with the category of
"gross national happiness" which measures the wellbeing of nature and
society.
Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley has recognised that "growing
organic" and "growing happiness and wellbeing" go hand in hand. That is
why he has asked Navdanya and I to help make a transition to a 100 per cent organic Bhutan.
In India, Navdanya is working with the states of Uttarakhand, Kerala,
Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar for an organic transition. We aim
for an organic India by 2050, to end the epidemic of farmers suicides
and hunger and malnutrition, to stop the erosion of our soil, our
biodiversity, our water; to create sustainable livelihoods and end
poverty.
This is futureconomics.
© 2012 The Asian Age
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