Wild Minds Weekly: It won't feed the world
Hello friends,
âRegenerative farming wonât feed the world.â
That is the most common objection youâll hear when you tell anybody about regenerative farming and permaculture.
And theyâre right.
It wonât feed the world. But thatâs not the point.
The problem with that statement, is that it assumes that the industrial farming system that currently stocks our supermarkets, is successfully feeding the world.
Is that true?
Letâs take a look:
What is industrial farming?
Industrial farming is all about maximising the production and profit margins of a few select products at large-scale. Itâs built on disconnecting all these plants/animals from the natural systems they're supposed to exist in, to produce them in isolation.
And it works, BILLIONS of metric tons of corn, soy, and wheat are harvested every year. But producing more doesnât mean weâre feeding our communities. 75% of global soy production is for animal-feed, and only 20% for humans (but Iâm not a big fan anyway).
So weâre not growing food, weâre producing commodities.
What does that mean?
These crops are grown mostly to manufacture other products - livestock feed (for industrially farmed beef, chicken, pigs), oils and syrups, or alcohol-based fuel.
For commodities in general, the larger the scale, the cheaper you can produce it, the more profit you make.
But thatâs not all.
Commodities arenât distinct.
Meaning for most buyers, the only thing that determines which one they buy, is the price, not the quality. Think about when you decide which petrol station you go to get fuel. Do you care where it comes from? Or do you just want the cheapest?
So, whatâs wrong with producing food as commodities?
To start, itâs terrible for farmers.
They get continuously squeezed through competition, which is why everyone thinks of farming as such back-breaking work for not much reward.
How is a little farmer down the road with 50 acres supposed to compete with over 1000 acres of mass-produced corn?
By the way, that doesnât just apply to corn - beef, milk, eggs, most products where most people are largely buying based on price, turn into a race to the bottom - where everyones just competing to produce it most cheaply (usually at the cost of quality).
So economically, not a good decision long-term.
How about soil-health?
The whole philosophy of industrial farming is mass-production.
Itâs built on monocultures - huge expanses of a single crop grown year upon year, with no diversity. Now combine that with heavy pesticide use and fast growth from synthetic fertilisers... what do you get?
Soil thatâs losing its life.
So if each year, the soil loses more of its nutrients, what happens the next year?
More chemicals needed to grow the same amount of crop. The land becomes less and less resilient and more dependent on external inputs.
Soil-health = obliterated (nutrient stores in soil have declined by 42% over the past 45-60 years)
So those are the two biggest reasons industrial farming will no sustain us.
But Iâll throw in a bonus one because Iâm generous (this oneâs for the vegans that love âplant-basedâ processed food)
Destruction of small ecosystems. Where once there may have been grass, bushland, trees - all teeming with life- there now lies miles and miles of corn, wheat, and soy.
And when itâs harvested? A stretch of lifeless brown. Thousands of mice, squirrels, bugs, and birds, destroyed. All that someone can eat a tofu stir-fry drenched in vegetable oil with a Beyond-Meat burger.
And what does that mean for us as a whole?
In the short-term, it means more toxic food.
More chemicals required to grow crops, more chemicals in the food products and animal feed (the food our food eats), the more of it ends up in our system.
But in the long term?
No food security. Every year that land is industrially farmed, its ability to produce food drops.
So while farming industrially may lead to short-term gain, it comes at the cost of soil-health, human-health, and future food security.
So you tell me, can industrial farming feed the world?
Thatâs all for this week.
To your holistic health and an incredible future,
Wild Minds Communityâ¨â¨
PS. This newsletter was inspired by farmersfootprint so give them some love.
PSS. If you are a small-scale regenerative farmer, Iâd love to hear your story, what got you started and what challenges are you facing? Feel free to drop me a message on X or click here to email meâ¨â¨
