We Don’t Have a Food Production Problem
The topic of availability versus access and affordability has been going on for decades. The great Amatya Sen started it in 1976, and many other experts have followed since.
I’ve also talked about this ad nauseam in this little corner of my soapbox, most recently in The FAD That Won’t Die, and here’s fair warning that I’m talking about it again this week.
Here’s why: in almost every forum, conference, and seminar on food I’ve attended in the past two decades, I hear this refrain: “But we cannot do (fill in whatever actions that will make food systems fairer, greener, and healthier) because we need to produce more food.”
More often than not, they are talking about staple crops: the grains and cereals that form a major part of our daily diets.
Given how pervasive and persistent this talking point is, I feel compelled to debunk it every time I get the chance. This time, I sought help from two people whose work I admire: Sophia Murphy, Executive Director at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), and Jose Luis Chicoma, program chair for the Future of Food at The New Institute, to parse the differences.