Introduction
The evolution and dynamics of business industries are bound to have important implications for the future state of the environment. According to Malerba & Orsenigo (1996) and Nelson, R. (1996), although the knowledge is still meagre in terms of the emergence, development and decline of different industries, entry and exit, growth and decline of firms, a number of contributions have attempted to explain the systematic forces that explain the evolution of technologies, firms and industry structure and of supporting industries. In particular, the debates on 'long waves' explore the long run properties of the evolution of industries as illustrated in the paper of Freeman, (1988). Also, Freeman, (1988) believes that the theory of 'industry life cycle' rationalises the natural evolution of broad technologies. This issue was evident in the global food industry known as the “food sustainability”.
"Sustainability" is the hot buzzword in the food industry. While most people in the industry can intelligently define sustainability, confusion arises from the plethora of different interpretations that surround these definitions.
A general, agreed-upon definition seems to be the industry's ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Some discussions go on to explain it further as "indefinite productivity" - that is, productivity that does not cause irreversible harm that would bring about its own demise. Sustainability is typically emphasized as a three-pronged initiative, requiring companies to be economically, socially and environmentally responsible. Herein lies much of the ambiguity, because each company will address these responsibilities differently.
History: Food around the globe
In popular history, food is an essential feature. Gofton (1989) has established that lifestyles have seen many changes over the post-war years, and these are reflected in numerous ways in food and its consumption habits. The invasion of various nationalities affected the history of food. It could be said that colonization contributed a lot on the food development of a specific region. For instance, most of Oriental traditions of food like that of the Philippines is an amalgamation of Oriental features such as Spanish and American. Food is a marker of identity of many different levels (Keane & Willetts, 1994, p. 15). To directly quote:
Countries are commonly characterized by one or two dishes which are regarded as emblems of the nation in the same way as the national flag. What is highly regarded in one country may be seen as inedible and vilified in another. Within countries there are regional specialities which may also distinguish one group of people from another. Haggis and “Neeps” (turnips) are seen as intrinsically Scottish while jellied eels could only characterize cockney Londoners (Keane & Willetts, 1994, p. 15).
From here, the identity of food in terms of historical background of a country is clearly manifested. Whatever type of food that serves as national symbol, this provides an individual and cultural identity of the people who consume or eat such. Food comes to represent a certain area and through their consumption, people establish an identity in which categorized as pride in its history.
In terms of religion, Islam may serve an excellent example on their food culture. It is generalized that all Muslims follow the teachings of the Koran particularly on its specified number of food rules (Sheik & Thomas, 1994, p.19). Accordingly, the Koran permits Muslims to consume any animal with a cloven hoof, which does not include pigs, carnivorous animals and birds (except chicken). They are also mandated to abstain from alcohol intake. The most compelling way in which food serve as a symbol on this case in relation to religion is during Ramadan. Ramadan is characterized with fasting months wherein all Muslims regardless of demographical profiles are expected to fast from sunrise to sunset without any food or drink to take in (Sheik & Thomas, 1994, p.19). This practice is also common to other religions (e.g. Hinduism, Christian sects) yet the Muslim’s identity on this case is more distinct than the others. The situations or examples presented above lead to the immediate acknowledgement and realization that when a person fast or does not eat haram (forbidden foods) is a Muslim. This is a normal reaction that certainly qualifies the role of food as a symbol or special feature of their religious bearing.
In terms of food consumption, food serves as a symbol when it dictates what type of food is to be consumed by certain group of people. According to Verbeka and Lopez (2005), there are many factors that play a specific role in food consumption decisions as well as on the decisions towards trying a new or unfamiliar food items. Among the identified factors is classified as product-specific, situational and individual factors. Food from our families, our childhood, our homeland, our first foreign holiday, is permanently fixed for us as special. Our beliefs about food are usually unexamined and buried deep within ourselves (Delamont, 1995, p. 24). The creation of a common identity through meal-sharing and consumption is seen as important to family unity. The ways in which foods are eaten in various nationalities signified unconscious attributes and qualities. Such are reflected to common cultures that proliferate all throughout generations.
Food also carried its symbolic messages out from colonial invaders in the past and with tourists today. Migration is a very influential factor. Food has been argued to be among the last of the items to be changed or adopted after migration (Jamal, 1998; Mennell et al., 1992; Murcott, 1983). Take the case of Hong Kong as an international cosmopolitan city, food are of extensive variety. Hong Kong, where one can find a different restaurant at every corner of the street, dining out in restaurants has become important for social and business occasions, or even daily routine for a lot of people. Today tourists carry food symbolism with them across nations. For specific cases, hotels in Cyprus offer a breakfast buffet of cheese and ham for the Scandinavians, Germans and Dutch, Spanish resorts serve tea with cow's milk in it for British people; and British hotels offer 'hash browns' at breakfast for the Americans (Delamont, 1995, p. 26). Food and individual and cultural identity is symbolized by the mere physical description of food. Even if one does not know the taste of such food, he/she can certainly tell where this food came from using associations or common knowledge based on smell, preparation or nature of ingredients.
All societies have different perceptions and norms associated with their food (Jamal, 1998). From the discussion, it is established that food is connected to individual and cultural identity by means of symbol. By looking on the previous examples, it is deemed that food defines individual and cultural identity based on factors such as economy, history, religion, food consumption, migration, and others. What matter now is how foods are presented based on established traditions of given population and cultural considerations.
But the questions still remain “Is the global food sustainable?” and “Is there enough "healthy food" to feed the entire world?” Food as a basic need, as every person needs to eat, what people eat becomes a most powerful symbol of what they are (Fox, 2003). As discussed, food is a cultural symbol (Edles, 2004; Delamont, 1995, p.24). It reflects what constitute a certain distinctiveness of a person or community. Accordingly, food is one of the most primary cultural traits that every person learn first in early age and among the hardest thing that is subjected to change in older age (Cervellon & Dube, 2005). There have been numerous examples in which food appears as a distinct and important symbol and based on various determinants such as economy, history, social connection, religion, demography, consumption, migration, and many others. For instance, the line divides Europe when it comes to food (Delamont, 1995, p. 19). The Northern communities and their citizens drink beer, cook their food in animal fat, and there are ample dairy products. The opposite, that is, Southern communities and their inhabitants drink wine, cook food in olive oil, and milk and butter are not central features of the diet. This quality can establish a certain identity of whom or what kind of people are they when it comes to the classification of food, its preparations, and overall nature.
Economy serves as an important feature of food culture among communities. Practically, the richer the economy, the more diverse the assortment of food in relation to types, costs, etc. and vice versa. Situating food and eating identity in the economic and cultural environments of which they are a part is important (Keane & Willetts, 1994, p. 15). Developed countries are able to sustain the food supply and consumption their population. Thus, there is no shortage or at any rate, they are able to give what is due to their people. For poor countries where famine is experienced, the food culture is greatly different. For example, Americans are always on-the-go as they work maximum of eight (8) hours a day. They have no time to cook their food and they have the money to purchase from stores (or pay someone to cook for them). The presence of numerous fast-food chains compensates this limitation. Americans eat ready-to-go, instant, and convenient food in their hectic days. For example, the brand McDonalds becomes a symbol of America not only on food culture but also on the economic underpinnings of this international business giant. Poor economies rely on the natural resources when it comes to their food. Africans form Sub-Saharan region symbolizes how food is highly needed but scarce. They eat almost anything that they could have or perceived to be edible just to serve the needs of nutrition. People from these regions fail to do such, death due to malnutrition, illness, or state of famine is expected. The symbol of food in the provided examples is the opposites. It could be said that food in modern economies are better than in poorer to poorest societies. Economic constraints are also a vital consideration.
Food Crisis
According to the Time Magazine (2009), the "world food crisis" of 2007-08 was the tip of an iceberg. The food crises and hunger are endemic to the modern world, and the eruption of a rapid increase in food prices provided a fresh window on this cultural fact. According to George (1977), famines signify the final stage in a comprehensive procedure of deepening vulnerability and fracturing of social reproduction mechanisms. She believed that this food "crisis" represents the intensification of a long-term crisis of social reproduction stemming from colonialism, and was enhanced by neoliberal capitalist growth.
The colonial era set in movement an extractive connection between Europe and the rest of the world, in which the empire fruits displaced non-European provisioning schemes, as the colonies were transformed into supply zones of food and raw materials to fuel European capitalism.
In recent history, the policies concerning liberalisation have deepened the conversion of the global South into a "world farm" for a minority of global consumers, centred in the global North and in strategic states and urban enclaves of the South. The joint requisition and redirection of food circulation and production underlies the socially constructed food scarcity and permanent hunger experienced by, at conventional estimate, nearly one billion humans (approaching 14 percent of the world's population).
As stressed out by Vidal (2007), the "agflation" that brought this crisis to the world's attention at the turn of 2008 saw the exaggerated increase in prices, whereas wheat prices raised by 50 percent, and rice by as much as 70 percent, making the world to enter the so-called "post-food-surplus era." In a piece in the Economist titled "The End of Cheap Food," the author argued that, by the end of 2007, the magazine's food-price index get to its highest point since originating in 1845. Holt-Giménez & Kenfield, (2008) pointed out that food prices had risen 75 percent since 2005, and world grain reserves were at their lowest, at fifty-four days. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) stressed out that agflation from rising agrofuels production "would lead to decreases in food availability and calorie consumption in all regions of the world, with Sub-Saharan Africa suffering the most."
Basically, the current conjuncture is linked with the escalation of food and energy demand in an age of peak oil. A rising class of one billion new consumers is rising in twenty "middle-income" countries "with a collective spending capability, in purchasing power parity terms, to contest that of the U.S."( Myers & Kent 2003). This cluster comprises recent associates of the OECD such as Turkey, Mexico, South Korea, and Poland, aside from India and China (with 40 percent of this total) - and the code of their wealth are meat consumption and car ownership. These two combined commodities with increasing demand for agrofuels and feed crops worsen food price inflation, as their shared competition for land has the wicked effect of rendering each crop more profitable, simultaneously as they relocate land used for food crops.
Concurrently, financial conjecture has mixed the dilemma. For instance, the price of rice increases by 31% on 27th of March 2008, and wheat by 29% on 25th of February 2008. The New York Times of 22nd of April 2008, reported that, "This price boom has fascinated a torrent of new investment from Wall Street, estimated to be as much as 0 billion." From the same article, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission stressed that "Wall Street funds organise a fifth to a half of the prospects contracts for goods like wheat corn, and live cattle on Kansas City, Chicago, and New York trades. On the Chicago trade, the funds make up 47% of long-term contracts for live hog prospects, 40% in wheat, 36% in live cattle and 21%in corn." (Berthelot, 2008)
Predictable explanations bring together the stress on food cropland with tremendous weather patterns and ecological tension. As summed by Vidal (2007) the UN Environment Program said the planet's land, water, plants, air, animals and fish stocks were all in "inevitable decline." According to the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) 57 countries, including 29 in Africa, 19 in Asia, and 9 in Latin America, have been hit by disastrous floods. Harvests have been exaggerated by heat waves and drought in south Asia, China, Europe, Mozambique, Uruguay and Sudan (Vidal 2007).
In accordance to agrofuels and added to the so-called "knock-on" effect, delineated by the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2007-2016, where increasing U.S. corn manufacturing for ethanol lessens oilseed acreage, such that "oilseed prices then also increased as a consequence of narrowing supplies and this price force was augmented by rising demand for meals as a cereal feed alternative and escalating demand for vegetable oils for bio-diesel production." (Vidal, 2007). In these terms there appears to be a perfect storm.
Basically, the "perfect storm" metaphor, conversely, implies a conjunction of apparently irrepressible forces, with alterations in demand menacing and endangered by declining supplies (The New York Times, 2008) For instance, the Financial Times editorial of 9th of April 2008, offered a naive economic view of problem and solution:
In the medium period, the essential must be on rising supply, for which much of the accountability lies with developing countries - convalescing infrastructure, as well as storage where essential for buffer stocks, bringing more land into manufacture and encouraging crop assurance or forward markets where they do not exist. Those countries opposing the overture of genetically modified food should take one more look at the output gains that it can set free. Security and stability of food supply are improved when marketplaces are authorized to work by being given clear and continuing price signals, with governments giving social and physical infrastructure back-up (The New York Times, 2008).
While the marketplace may signal supply limits, the organisation and politics of the market are the most accountable for this circumstances, and for its interpretation as entailing better market customs. And therefore it was expected that the crisis served as a chance for corporate and multilateral financial institutions to get deeper their management and control of the global food system. For the moment, governments with shifting resources have resorted to food import liberalisation, price controls and/or export directs on locally produced food to subdue civil conflict, and a global land grab has resulted as governments mix up to sheltered food supplies offshore (Barta, 2008). To sum it up, though, rising food prices indicate a more basic structural process at work, marked in both famine and food riots - incidents with long lineages.
An Assessment: Food Sustainability
Aside from the issues of poverty, hunger, food scarcity, the ambiguous relationship between the volume of output and the extent of environmental destruction was also an issue when it comes to global food sustainability. High output provides resources for environmental protection, but the benefits of conserving resources may be outweighed by the environmental impact of production and consumption itself. On the other hand, although low output provides fewer resources for environmental protection, it may be grossly inefficient and do little to prevent environmental degradation. In the 1970s the principal fear in environmental policy circles was the supposed ‘limits to growth’ (Meadows et al. 1972). In the 1990s ‘limits to sink capacities’ (or output) poses an equivalent fear, particularly in the context of global problems such as the destruction of the ozone layer and the enhanced greenhouse effect.
The complex interactions between economic activities and the natural environment depend crucially on the way a society organises its relationship to the environment, and the view that different social groups take of this relationship. Many environmental changes are represented as ‘demand driven’, in the hands of consumers, rather than ‘supply driven’, in the hands of the formal economic levers dictating production. In fact it is almost impossible to separate patterns of consumption, and ‘lifestyles’ from economic instruments and ideologies. Most production in late industrial societies is geared to increasing volumes, rather than the life-cycle effects of goods and services.
The existence of new materials and productive processes has accelerated the changes through which environmental costs are transported in space (and frequently in time) usually to poorer developing countries. At the same time levels of air pollution, for example, in the newly developing countries of East Asia, are increasing more rapidly than their increase in Gross Domestic Product. The social processes at work are not simply in the hands of consumers. They are embodied in the global political economy of market capitalism.
Some industries in the north, aware of the costs of employing dirty technologies on their doorstep, have sought either to export their pollution and wastes, or to internalise the problems associated with unmanageable levels of waste. They have turned their attention to changing material flows and waste streams, as a focus for technological innovation itself.
Some companies are learning how to maintain or expand output, while at the same time cutting resource inputs and environmental impacts to a minimum. In similar fashion the same principles can be applied to households, rather than companies. One might then examine the use that households could make of resources to improve welfare without increasing aggregate levels of personal consumption to the point at which they are not sustainable.
Examples are the way in which reductions in product size can facilitate reductions in the time taken to transport goods and services, thereby maximising the efficiency in the use of space and time. Combining the quality of output and environmental protection in single low-impact technologies, such as combined heat and power generation for energy utilities, is another example.
Similarly, the agriculture and food sectors provide many illustrations of the huge scope for policies which make a realistic assessment of environmental impacts and benefits, replacing the ‘value-added’ by the industrialisation of food (packaging, expensive inputs, etc.) by benefits from local provisioning, reduced packaging, and more attention to the nutritional quality of food. Reducing the shelf-life of a food product, and the costs added by advertising and packaging, is unlikely to be possible until these values are affirmed. At the moment the fortunes of the food industry depend upon denying their relevance. Such changes in the way products and services are valued also bring in their train significant shifts in the use of space and the allocation of time. Planning for such developments requires a radical overhaul not so much of consumer attitudes as the whole infrastructure of modern living.
Exploring the dynamics of consumption and production processes takes us well beyond environmental protection. It affords the possibility, in principle, for societies to use the smaller stock of resources available in a more efficient way. At the moment environmental management is principally concerned with modifying existing human behaviour. Policies are concerned with reducing the full environmental impact of our actions. The underlying behaviour, or social commitments, associated with lifestyles, is currently viewed as non-negotiable.
Conclusion
Corporate control through a food regime based in market liberalization is a immediate grounds of the globalisation of a system in which food price increases are encouraged and quickly sent out around the globe. However, everyone shouldn’t deny that the industrial agricultural model was also a contributing factor in the problem towards global food sustainability since we are over reliant to fossil-fuel dependence.
Meaning, countries as well as local and private communities, especially of producers, should develop their own policy instruments, as well as securities, so that people can be provisioned sufficiently and nutritionally with the food they need, and in culturally and ecologically suitable manners. This means an end or drastic reduction of food systems - and the corporations’ power controlling them - oriented to production for those (anywhere) with the purchasing power to command the food they want. We stood up on the edge of an era in which the global food sustainability faces increasing problems and decreased support, and in which the food power vision has a chance to be progressively realized. The food crisis of 2007-2008 offers a reminder of the long-standing patterns of inequality in the global food administration, and of its ecological and social unsustainability.
References:
Barta, P. (2008), "The Unsavory Cost of Capping Food Prices," Wall Street Journal.
Berthelot, J. (2008) "Sorting the truth out from the lies about the explosion of world agricultural prices," Solidarité.
Cervellon, M.-C. and Dube´, L. (2005), “Cultural influences in the origins of food likings and dislikes”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 16, pp. 455-60.
Delamont , S. (1995), Appetites and Identities: An Introduction to the Social Anthropology of Western Europe, Routledge, New York.
Edles, L. D. (2004), “Rethinking ‘race’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘culture’: is Hawaii the ‘model minority’ state?” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 37-68.
Fox, R. (2003), Food and eating: an anthropological perspective, Social Issues Research Center, Oxford. Retrieved October 19, 2009 from www.sirc.org/publik/foxfood.pdf
Gabaccia, D.R. (1998), We Are What We Eat, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
George, S. (1977), How The Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger (Montclair, NJ: Allenheld, Osmun and Co.
Gofton, L. (1989), "Sociology and Food Consumption", British Food Journal, Vol. 91, No. 1, Abstract only.
Holt-Giménez, E. & Kenfield, I. (2008), "When 'Renewable Isn't Sustainable,' Agrofuels and the Inconvenient Truths Behind the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act," Policy Brief No 13, (Oakland: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 2008), 3.
Jamal, A. (1998), “Food consumption among ethnic minorities: the case of British-Pakistanis in Bradford, UK”, British Food Journal, Vol. 100, No. 5, pp. 221–227.
Keane, A. and Willetts, A. (1994), “Factors that Affect Food Choice”, Nutrition & Food Science, No. 4, July/August, pp. 15-17.
Meadows, D.C., Randers, J., and Behvene, W. (1972), The Limits To Growth, London: Pan.
Mennell, S., Murcott, A. and van Otterloo (1992), The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture, Sage, London.
Murcott, A. (1990), “Introducing an anthropological approach to familiar food practices”, in Chapman, M. and Macbeth, H. (Eds), Food for Humanity: Cross-disciplinary Readings, Centre for the Science of Food & Nutrition, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford, pp. 49-56.
Myers N. & Kent, J. (2003), "New consumers: The influence of affluence on the environment," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS) 100, 8 (2003), 4963-8.
Sheik, N. and Thomas, J. (1994), “Factors Influencing Food Choice among Ethnic Minority Adolescents,” Nutrition & Food Science, No. 4, July/August 1994, pp. 18-22.
The New York Times (2008), "The rise in food prices is partly because of uncontrollable forces - including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India. This has increased demand for animal protein, which requires large amounts of grain. But the rich world is exacerbating these effects by supporting the production of biofuels" (April 9, 2008).
Time Magazine (2009), Special Section: THE WORLD FOOD CRISIS Retrieved October 19, 2009 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911503-1,00.html
Verbeke, W. and Lopez, G. P. (2005), “Ethnic food attitudes and behavior among Belgians and Hispanics living in Belgium”, British Food Journal, Vol. 107, No. 11, pp. 823-840.
Vidal, J. (2007), "Climate change and shortages of fuel signal global food crisis," Guardian Weekly.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment