Oldal 196 [196]
194 DOROTTYA MENDLY — MELINDA MIHÁLY
humans) are domestic animals, and agriculture is among the causes of the
endangerment of the vast majority of endangered species (Potts et al. 2017). In
addition to the data selected above, a wide range of statistics confirm that the
current operation of our food systems should be understood as a key factor in the
ongoing ecological crisis, at a global level (Ritchie — Roser 2019b).
This suffices to establish that the expected global food shortage and the 21st¬
century crises directly related to it will elevate food supply to the rank of the most
crucial problem of the century. In this chapter, an attempt is made to outline the
problems of this complex area via a global framework with the help of a brief
historical survey and the presentation of the basic concepts. Next to be discussed
are humanity’s occasional, pragmatic and systemic solutions for the issue of
nutrition. It is a basic principle of our approach that the problems of food must
be deliberated at the systemic level so as to arrive at real solutions. It is therefore
important to take stock of the compatible systemic alternatives that might easily
be combined and to integrate them into the set of solutions to global concerns.
Framing the problem
How can one identify the problem so as to ensure that it is understood in the most
profound way possible? Is it suitable to start out from the simple and palpable
experience of the recent drastic rise in food prices? The answer is only partially
positive. While for lower social classes, rising prices mean the narrowing of their
opportunities to access food, if one employs Jason Moore’s observant approach,
it is clear that the relative cheapness of food cannot be taken for granted, nor is it
self-evident. Moore’s research has confirmed that food as a cheap resource is the
special characteristic and supporting pillar of a form of social-economic organization.
His main statement is that capitalism is a historical form of organizing the economy,
society and the environment and that this depends on the availability of four cheap
resources (Moore 2016): cheap energy, raw materials, labor and food were necessary
for the evolution of this historical form of society (and environment) in the first
place. Thus, the recent and considerable rise in food prices - among other factors
— indicates the crisis of capitalism as a complex historical system.
Moore’s reasoning fits the main theses of critical social theories in several regards.
The main achievement of all these theories is recognizing that the key to the
problems lies in the structures that support the accumulation of capital. Therefore,
any adequate critique must focus on the systemic nature of food systems and on
all aspects through which the global food system props up global capitalism.
A cardinal point of the food system is agriculture, with its diverse possible modes
of operation. At present, it is safe to declare that industrial (intensive) agriculture
is the dominant mode of operation worldwide. Its basic feature is that it is deeply
embedded in global capitalism’s modes of production and in global trade.
Although its foundations already emerged with early colonization and its
conditions were created by industrialization, the model did not become truly
dominant before the second half of the 20" century. Mechanization, monocultural
production, large-scale livestock farming, and the extensive use of external resources
(various chemicals and fossil fuels) transformed agriculture according to the dictates
of the capitalist mode of production. Albert Thaer famously characterized