Session 4 – Patterns in the Global Food System, Pt 2

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

• Define the term multifunctionality describe how it relates to components of the food system
• Have an introductory understanding of the UBC Farm and an understanding of the meaning of the farm’s motto “no one thing does just one thing”
• Be prepared for the UBC Farm field trip

Required Readings and Resources

• Vandermeer, J., Aga, A., Allgeier, J., Badgley, C., Baucom, R., Blesh, J., ... & Perfecto, I. (2018). Feeding prometheus: An interdisciplinary approach for solving the global food crisis. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 2, 39.
• Weiner, J. (2017). Applying plant ecological knowledge to increase agricultural sustainability. Journal of Ecology, 105(4), 865-870. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.12792/full

A reductionist approach to knowledge seeks to understand complex systems by developing an in depth understanding of the individual processes or components in isolation from one another. That is complex phenomena are broken down, “reduced” into their individual parts, which are studied in detail and in isolation. A reductionist approach helps us understand minute detail but at what expense? An over-reliance on reductionism and the silo-ing of knowledge may prevent us from seeing connections, patterns and the interrelated nature of food systems. The productivist paradigm, privileging agricultural yield over all other factors in the food system, is a logical consequence of this way of seeing and knowing.

Critics characterize the productivist perspective as oversimplifying a complex set of issues through a singular focus on increasing availability of food by maximizing agricultural production for export markets (see Sage, 2013; Lang and Heasman, 2004, Tomlinson, 2013). Furthermore, evidence suggests that “the era of ‘productivist’ agriculture produced profits for a few, reduced food security for the many, and used resources at an unsustainable rate” (Allen, 2013, p. 135). In the early 1980s, Sen (1981) distinguished between food availability and access, noting that hunger is a condition of individuals not having enough to eat, which is significantly different than there not being enough to eat. “Whether and how starvation relates to food supply is a matter for factual investigation” (Sen, 1981, p. 1). The productivist privileging of techno-scientific, reductionist ways of knowing coupled with neoliberal, free-market policies creates a structural framework that marginalizes and excludes poor rural farmers and poor urban consumers alike (Allen, 2013; Lang & Heasman, 2004; Sage, 2013; Shiva, 1993). Additionally, the productivist perspective overlooks two pressures facing the global food system: the nutrition transition (the process by which, as societies become richer, diets shift towards more sweeter, fattier, processed foods, which in turn generate non-communicable, diet-related ill-health patterns) (Popkin, 2001) and global food waste, which some estimates place close to 30% of post-harvest calories (Parfitt, Barthel, & Macnaughton, 2010). Both of these pressures are considered as significant to feeding 9 billion mouths as increasing food production, but have been noticeably sidelined from food system analysis at the international level (Tomlinson, 2013).

A systems approach differs from a reductionist approach to knowledge in that systems thinking is founded upon understanding systems as an integrated whole, the properties of which cannot be reduced to its individual parts. For example, studying each individual part of a farm in isolation from its relation to other components on the farm is a reductionist approach to knowledge. In contrast, a systems approach to studying a farm focuses on processes and interactions between the system components that constitute the overall functioning of the agroecological system. Systems thinking will be explored in further depth in Week 6 and applied throughout the LFC courses.

Farm systems are made up of a diversity of relationships within the system as well as relationships between the farm system, the surrounding ecosystem, and surrounding communities. The concept of ‘multifunctionality’ and ‘multifunctional agriculture’ stems from understanding farming and food production as part of a complex system that has a variety of functions, impacts, and outputs beyond just food production. Multifuntionality is an understanding that a single activity (e.g. farming) has more than one purpose or outcome. Multifunctional agriculture emphasizes the fact that farming produces not only food, fibre, and fuel but also non-commodity social and ecological outputs, shapes the environment, and contributes to cultural practices. An example of a non-commodity ecological output is environmental services such as provision of wildlife habitat. An example of a social function of agriculture is the maintenance and dynamism of rural communities. Multifunctionality is a paradigm that stands in contrast to reductionism and productivism, which emphasize a single output from an agricultural system - yield.

The UBC Farm’s motto “No one thing does just one thing!” directly captures the notion of multifunctionality. Take the chicken flock at the UBC Farm as an example of a component with multiple functions. The chickens have a production and economic function as laying hens producing eggs sold at market. The chickens also have an ecological function in the system. As the chickens graze they contribute fertility to the soil through their manure and contribute to weed and pest control through eating weeds, seeds, and grubs in the soil, which will benefit the land as it is put back into production in the following season. The UBC Farm is host to a diversity of educational and community programs (e.g. public school tours, Indigenous gardens) which provide excellent examples of social and cultural functions that can be derived from a farm alongside production and ecological functions. As you tour the UBC Farm consider the multiple functions (food production, ecological, social, cultural and economic) of the different components of the farm that you observe.

Here is a student directed video (from LFS 350) that introduces, frames and captures the multifunctionality of the UBC Farm.

References

• Allen, P. (2013). Facing food security. Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 135–138.
• Lang, T., & Heasman, M. (2004). Food wars: the global battle for mouths, minds and markets. Earthscan.
• Parfitt, J., Barthel, M., & Macnaughton, S. (2010). Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change to 2050. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1554), 3065–3081.
• Popkin, B. M. (2001). The nutrition transition and obesity in the developing world. The Journal of Nutrition, 131(3), 871–873.
• Sage, C. (2013). The interconnected challenges for food security from a food regimes perspective: Energy, climate and malconsumption. Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 71–80.
• Sen, A. (1981). Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford University Press.
• Shiva, V. (1993). Monocultures of the mind: perspectives on biodiversity and biotechnology. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Tomlinson, I. (2013). Doubling food production to feed the 9 billion: A critical perspective on a key discourse of food security in the UK. Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 81–90.

Tutorial Session

Group Presentation on Week’s Readings

• In your tutorial session, TWO groups will be responsible for presenting and facilitating a discussion on the week’s readings. See course assignment description for requirements.
• There are two readings this week. Your TA will assign one reading to each group.
• Preparation for the Farm tour: it is a digital tour therefore please bring a device with head phones. TAs will have prompting questions for each station to lead discussion and prepare you for completing the concept map.