Hey there!
We live in a sitopia – a world shaped by food. And food is so much more than just a basic human need – it forms the essence of our culture, with mealtimes being one of the oldest social contracts in history where people come together as a small community to share and enjoy food (Steel, 2020).
But food also has the power to destroy our planet. In our attempts to produce more food than what we can process and consume, the inefficient use of resources causes excess nutrients, dust particles and even toxic substances to enter places where they should not belong – the waterways, soil, atmosphere, as well as living things. Essentially, our actions have been indirectly undermining global food security as we (unintentionally) sabotage our own efforts to produce healthy food to support mankind in a sustainable manner.
For the past three months, we have explored the different processes in which food production, consumption and waste disposal generate environmental pollution. Here are a couple of my personal takeaways from the experience:
A large proportion of food-related pollution takes place before the food even reaches consumers. Some of you may wonder “but why don’t the farmers and corporations want to protect the environment?”, and I think that is a valid question. However, I’ve also realised that in our extremely globalised food system, every decision one makes can lead to a diversity of impacts, both positive and negative ones. With economic and political interests at stake, it is understandable that some parties may be reluctant to switch to less pollutive methods of producing and transporting food, as well as recycling food waste.
At the same time, geographical contexts and limitations also affect the type and extent of environmental pollution which may arise from these processes. Supporting local farms and plantations may not always be the most ideal solution to reducing our carbon, energy and water footprints, especially if one lives in a land-scarce country with a weak or non-existent agricultural sector. Likewise, the boycotting of commercial non-organic fertilisers and pesticides also depend on whether there are cost-effective green alternatives that local farmers can access easily. As much as we understand that the prevention of environmental pollution is generally more preferable to cleaning up the subsequent mess, there is unfortunately no fixed guide to how a city/country/region should tackle pollution, due to the wide variety of geographical contexts.
That being said, all of us can still play a part in trying to minimise the pollutive impacts of our individual consumption habits via dematerialisation. By making positive changes to our lifestyles and understanding the true cost of feeding the world’s entire population, we become less detached to our food system, and this becomes a good starting point for us to be more mindful consumers of the Earth’s resources.
I strongly believe that there’s still time for us to save our sitopia from doom, and we should use it wisely to enact the changes we hope to see.
Thanks for following me on this journey!
Cheers,
Jialing
Reference List
Steel, C. (2020) Sitopia. London: Chatto & Windus.