“Our food system is ‘broken’ and needs a complete overhaul” is a common refrain among environmental NGOs, who lobby against agrochemical inputs, plant breeders’ rights and the liberalisation of international trade. But these are precisely the developments which have transformed our modern food system for the better, enabling global food production to keep pace with the needs of a growing world population. Misguided calls from these activist organisations for a return to lower-yielding organic and agroecological farming systems that reject modern innovations will simply perpetuate malnourishment and starvation. We ignore the accomplishments made over recent decades in more sustainable, efficient food production and supply chains at our peril, warns agricultural economist Stuart Smyth.

 

Calls for transforming food systems have grown over the past several years. International governance organisations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have issued many of these calls. Other calls have come from activist organisations, too numerous to list. A common theme from both the FAO and activists is that the current system is ‘broken’ and requires a complete rethink and overhaul. Examples offered on how food systems are ‘broken’ include agriculture’s reliance on synthetic pesticides and fertiliser crop inputs, plant breeders’ rights that facilitate the development of new crop varieties, and the liberalisation of international trade rules. The problem with this approach of pointing fingers is that it ignores the accomplishments made over recent decades in food production and supply chains. Yes, food systems are not perfect, there is room for improvement, but to call them ‘broken’ is intentionally misleading.

 

Common themes advocated by activist organisations include a return to ancestral crop varieties, produced through agroecological (organic) production practices that reject the use of yield-boosting synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. When it comes to sustainably increasing crop yields, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development confirms that since 1960, global crop production has increased by 390%, with land use increasing by just 10%, due to farm adoption of improved crop genetics, and the integration of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. Before 1960, food production was predominantly done in line with current agroecology/organic requirements, that is, without improved crop genetics or synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. At this time, the only way food production could be increased through agroecology systems was to bring more land into crop production.

 

Activist organisations openly reject over 60 years of robust yield increase evidence, instead advocating myths such as those expressed by the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which states that agroecology “…promises a way out of the vulnerability imposed by monocultures and the dependency on external inputs such as chemical fertilisers, hybrid seeds and pesticides.” Regrettably, activist organisations such as this are communicating false information in countries where food systems require improvement.

 

These ENGOs believe that organic crops, agroecology and regenerative agriculture will somehow overcome the significant challenges to increased food production that exist such as drought and increases in plant diseases and insects. In an ideal world, these crop production options might work, as they are cheaper and easier to teach, but they have consistently failed for centuries to produce the amount of food and protein needed. Examinations of these production processes confirm substantial yield lags compared to modern crop production practices, with many directly consumable products such as produce and fruit yields lagging by 30% or more. Yield lags of this level have been confirmed in industrial countries, where organic producers have access to dozens of natural chemical compounds designed to protect their crops from weed, insect, and disease infestations. Yield losses of well over 30% should be expected in countries that lack access to these organic crop protection products. Left uncontrolled, weeds, insects and plant diseases are capable of destroying a crop, reducing yield to zero.

 

In a perfect world, farmers wouldn’t need to use pesticides to control weeds, insects, and diseases that reduce crop yields, nor would they have to apply fertiliser to ensure peak yields. If farmers only had to plant seeds and then reap bumper yields, it would reduce farmer stress and benefit improved food security. However, this mythical utopia only exists in ENGO fairytales. The solution to feed the millions of undernourished (1 in 5 in Africa), is to invest in and adopt proven technologies. Such a utopic system is also not the way to be profitable for all producers in the developed world. At the 2004 Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference in Cologne, Germany, Florence Wambugu, a Kenyan plant pathologist and virologist, said that Africans know what organic production is capable of as they’ve been using it for 10,000 years and that now they want something different. Organic and agroecological production practices haven’t been able to adequately feed societies for thousands of years and nothing is going to change these facts.

 

Facilitating the food system with trade

Let’s assume there is enough food produced in the world, but it needs to be traded and shipped to meet global demands. The implementation of free trade agreements, starting with the 1995 establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is one of the fundamental improvements that has facilitated food system transformation. Before the WTO came into force, barriers were commonly applied in the trade of agricultural products, as well as subsidies that resulted in inefficient production practices. Harmonising trade rules facilitated the removal of harmful subsidies and improved commodity trade, allowing for freer trade in food products, which in turn contributed to transforming the food production and trade system.

 

Supply chains have greatly increased the efficiency of commodity movement. Over time, efficiencies have been gained in the movement of food products, such that large warehouses to store products are of less importance. Currently, shipments are managed so that a new shipment arrives just prior to the previous one being depleted. This lowers the space needed to store inventory, as well as the cost of stockpiling inventory. It’s a just-in-time model, which reduces food waste. This increased efficiency is also due to the ability to track specific cargo containers in real-time, as global tracking systems have been established.

 

Plant varieties and breeders’ rights

Food systems have been transformed when countries have adopted plant breeders’ rights (PBRs). Over time, more countries have domestically ratified the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), which provides public and private plant breeders with the opportunity to protect their varieties. There is robust innovation literature confirming that PBRs increase the incentive to invest greater fiscal resources into the development of new, higher yielding crop varieties. The absence of PBRs creates a situation where minimal investments are made into new variety development by public sector breeders and private sector breeder investments to develop new varieties are minimal, at best. By investing and obtaining PBRs for their plant varieties, these experts can continue to invest in their research and work to solve regional issues. Without PBRs, it may be hard for research to continue in these niche sectors if there wasn’t legal and financial support offered. As changing climates have increased effects on crop production, the adoption of PBRs that incentivise the development of new varieties with greater climate resilience will be even more important.

 

From the 20th to the 21st Century, there has been a transformation

Supply chains of the latter 20th century were subject to disruptions due to trade barriers, poor shipment logistics and the lack of investment incentives. However, the 21st century has provided all three of these crucial attributes, resulting in substantial food system transformation. Regrettably, when organisations refer to food system transformations, they often mean a return to early-20th-century models and lower crop yields. Calls for transformation from these organisations are simply calls to reject modern innovations that have increased yields by 390% since 1960.

 

Further support confirming that food system transformation has been achieved and needs to focus on evidence-based approaches comes from the top business and labour committees that serve to inform the G-20 economies. The B-20 and L-20 released a joint statement in August 2024 highlighting key policy recommendations:

 

1. Strengthening rules-based trade to ensure that inefficiencies of protection are minimised.

2. Accelerating investments in innovations that have proven yield-boosting capabilities.

3. Promoting digital transformations.

 

Food systems have been greatly transformed in recent decades and there is abundant robust evidence to confirm this. Calls for returns to food systems that reject modern innovations are simply calls to politically perpetuate malnourishment and starvation. The food insecure deserve far better than political platitudes, but rather require food systems that have confirmed improvement.

 

Stuart Smyth is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, where he holds the Agri-Food Innovation and Sustainability Enhancement Chair. His research focuses on sustainability, agriculture, innovation and food. With well over 100 academic publications to his name, Stuart is recognised as a leading expert on barriers to innovation and regulatory efficiency, with a particular focus on regulatory barriers to food security, especially those that restrict investments into new plant breeding technologies, such as genome editing and that delay, or prevent, the commercialisation of genetically modified and genome-edited crops.

 

This is an extended version of an article which first appeared on the SAIFood website here. It is reproduced with the author’s kind permission.