The Global Food System Is Heating Up - Can It Be Cooled Down? | Dr. Benedicte Deryckere | TEDxHSG
The speaker compares the modern global food system to a decline from a natural "circular model" to a high-volume, linear "techmacquest" approach, asserting that reversing this requires cities to reconnect with and demand locally and regeneratively produced food. Drawing parallels to the fable *The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse*, the speaker suggests embracing decentralized, localized food systems over large-scale, industrial monocultures. The ultimate action recommended is for cities to proactively implement circular economy models, such as urban farming and food waste reprocessing, to ensure a more resilient food supply.
## Speakers & Context
- Speaker introduces the fable *The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse*, noting it was written for adults 350 years ago by Jean de La Fontaine and has roots in a story from 600 years before Christ.
- Speaker recounts personal history: grew up in the countryside with a grandfather who made cheese using a "pure circular model" (milk $\rightarrow$ cheese $\rightarrow$ p pig feed $\rightarrow$ manure for garden).
- Family business history included the establishment of a milk cooperative, forcing the father into an intensive egg production business.
- Speaker narrates her childhood question to her father about the processed hens, learning the eggs were sold because the hens' bodies (meat) had "no value anymore."
- Speaker notes her early preference for the city's "convenience [and] elegance" over the country's "waste model."
- Speaker concludes by framing the fable's conflict—the city's opulence vs. the country's security—in the context of modern crises.
## Theses & Positions
- The current global food system is based on three reinforcing mechanisms: a reduced portfolio of three types of meat and four types of crops (plus soya for animals), intensive production practices, and a mechanism of high volumes, low price.
- These mechanisms are applied in silos, removing any symbiosis between plants and animals.
- This system drives negative, accelerating loops across multiple fronts: loss of biodiversity, exponential loss of agricultural jobs, greenhouse gas emissions, soil/water depletion, and increasing antibiotic resistance.
- The prevailing economic model is the "techmacquest model" of waste, where everything except waste is valued.
- The current system is incredibly wasteful, with one-third of all food produced worldwide being lost or wasted.
- The price of food is expected to increase in the coming decades due to climate change, creating geopolitical instability (e.g., Brazil limiting soya exports).
- To correct this, companies must radically change their business models, or we must work *on the system* rather than *in the system*.
- The solution requires reconnecting cities with the countryside by having cities use their "power demand for food" to influence production, favoring local and regenerative practices.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Pure circular model:** A system where waste from one step feeds another, as demonstrated by cheese production leftovers feeding pigs whose manure fertilizes the garden.
- **Techmacquest model:** The prevailing, linear food system model characterized by waste.
- **Silos (application of mechanisms):** Applying intensive practices to one food type without ecological connection to others.
- **Regenerative:** Describing food production methods that actively improve and take care of the soils.
- **Circular Economy (for food):** A system focused on "everything except waste," aiming to avoid waste at the first place.
- **Degenerative:** Used to describe sustainable food production that actively preserves or improves soil quality.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Industrial food production:** Utilizes three meat types (pork, chicken, beef) and four crop types (wheat, corn, rice for humans; soya for animals) in intensive, large-scale ways.
- **Reinforcing Mechanisms (Positive Trends):** Exponential economic growth and prosperity (though unevenly distributed).
- **Accelerating Loops (Negative Trends):**
* Exponential loss of biodiversity, evidenced by the failure to grow local varieties in favor of high-yielding crops.
* Exponential decrease in agricultural employment (e.g., 40% of US population in the 60s vs. 1% today).
* Exponential increase in GHG emissions, soil/water depletion, and pollution.
* Increasing antibiotic resistance in human and animal populations.
* Increasing obesity rates, leading to more people dying of over-nutrition than under-nutrition.
- **Circular Economy Implementation:** Cities establishing structures to collect unsold food leftovers and reprocessing them into meals, canned food, or juice, thereby creating jobs and positive social/educational impact.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **600 years B.C.:** Root of the fable *The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse*.
- **350 years ago:** Jean de La Fontaine wrote the fable.
- **Childhood:** Speaker observed father working in the egg industry, questions about the value of the hens' meat.
- **Post-milk cooperative:** Father shifts to the intensive egg business.
- **Present Day:** Global food system operates under intensive, siloed production, leading to major environmental and health crises.
- **By 2050:** 80% of global food consumption is predicted to occur in cities; 40% of global crops can be grown within a 20 km radius of cities.
## Named Entities
- **Jean de La Fontaine:** Author of the fable.
- **The fable *The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse***: Narrative used to illustrate the contrast between city opulence and countryside security.
- **The Milk Cooperative:** Triggered a major change in the family business model.
- **The Lincolnshire Foundation:** Organization that published the report on social and environmental impacts of the food system.
## Numbers & Data
- Fable age: **600 years B.C.**
- Fable authorship time: **350 years ago**.
- Global food waste percentage: **One third** of all food produced worldwide.
- Target population for 2050: **10 billion** people.
- Percentage of global food consumed in cities by 2050: **80%**.
- Crop sourcing radius around cities by 2050: **20 kilometer radius**.
- Comparative US farming workforce: **40%** (in the 60s) to **1%** (today).
- Funding/Cost Ratio: For every **$1** spent on food, **$2** is incurred in social/environmental costs.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Deep Bags:** Used to transport soya beans to the father in the egg industry.
- **Soya beans:** Food source for chickens, used in the intensive egg production system.
- **Department stores / City markets:** Symbols of urban convenience and luxury experience.
- **Solar powered greenhouses:** Potential structure for urban farming.
- **Vertical greenhouses:** Potential structure for urban farming that can be installed on balconies.
## References Cited
- *The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse* (fable).
- The *Lincoln Foundation* report on social and environmental impacts of our food system.
- The agro chemical industries motto: "We need to feed 10 billion people by 2050."
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **Circular Model vs. Techmacquest Model:** The fundamental choice between utilizing all byproducts (circular) or generating waste streams (linear).
- **Intensive Practices vs. Regenerative Practices:** Choosing high-yield, resource-intensive methods versus methods that rebuild soil health.
- **Regulation vs. Business Model Change:** The trade-off between forcing change through regulation versus compelling large corporations to fundamentally alter their profitable business models.
- **City sourcing vs. Global sourcing:** Relying on local, regenerative supply chains versus the established global, industrial supply chain.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- Large companies' business models act as a "blinder," causing them to only accept changes that fit within their existing profitable frameworks.
- Alternative technologies like plant-based substitutes or lab-grown meat are framed as potentially *more* intensive, rather than an immediate fix.
- International regulation is exceedingly difficult to establish, as exemplified by COP 26.
## Methodology
- **Deconstruction of Fable:** Using a historical narrative to illustrate deep-seated cultural assumptions about resource use.
- **Systems Analysis:** Identifying three reinforcing mechanisms (meat/crop portfolio, intensive practice, high volume/low price) that drive exponential, accelerating negative trends.
- **Circular Economy Design:** Proposing the methodology of having cities act as central nodes demanding local, regeneratively sourced food to reconnect the production continuum.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- **Primary Recommendation:** Work *on* the system, not *in* the system, by recreating circular dynamics to invert negative trends.
- **Action for Cities:** Cities must use their purchasing power and influence to drive the adoption of local, regenerative sourcing for all urban sectors (retail, hospitals, restaurants).
- **Goal:** Reconnecting the town mouse with the country mouse to achieve a more secure, resilient, and less intensively produced food system.
## Implications & Consequences
- **Climate Change/Pandemics:** These major crises are presented as the modern "big cats" that destroy the illusion of modern abundance.
- **Geopolitical Risk:** Food price increases, driven by climate change, will become a primary source of geopolitical contention.
- **Economic Power:** The power to stabilize the system rests with large companies willing to undergo radical business model changes.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"a town mouse on the country mouse"*
- *"a story written for adults 350 years ago by jean de la fontaine"*
- *"pure circular model"*
- *"big cat interrupts the dinner"*
- *"the big cat has already killed his father and mother and is constantly straightening him"*
- *"no waste pure circular model"*
- *"what's happening to the hands we eat them and i really remember she would reply to me quite elusively you know they are too skinny their egg their legs are distorted no butcher would want to purchase them nobody would want to eat them they have no value anymore"*
- *"a tech make waste approach"*
- *"exponential loss of biodiversity because farmers across the world have stopped growing their local varieties to favor high yielding crops"*
- *"one third of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted"*
- *"how to cool our global food system down there is one coordinate it is to work on the system not in the system"*
- *"regenerative we mean produce grown while taking care of the soils while avoiding exhausting soils"*
- *"reuniting about connecting cities back to nature on on the countryside"*
- *"the big cat as being climate change on global warming"*