Words Matter. Declaring “The Food System Is (or Isn’t) Broken” Does Not Help Understand or Improve the Food Supply

There’s been lots of hoo-ha on social media around “The Food System Is/Isn’t Broken.”  Combatants have diverse definitions of broken that are not my concern in this particular post. My aim is to suggest that the words “system” and “broken” are a terrible way to talk about the food supply.

No System

If there is anything that has become clear in the past few weeks it is that there is not ‘a’ food system but multiple cris-crossing supply chains, some connected, some not. One set of chains delivers to supermarkets and supplies home cooks. Another set of chains delivers to “food service,” firms such as Sysco that supply restaurants, hospitals, schools, and other institutions. There are chains that go to export, or divert through the major food processors, or end up in food banks, (and I’d love to know about the military here too).

Some farming at the start of these food chains is interconnected—the corn/cattle complex, for example. Some is not. There is little if any link between an oyster farm in Alaska, almond orchards in California, and wineries in Texas (except that they all target the relatively well-to do). At the other end of the chains, supermarkets and food banks do work together.

Food and non-food products don’t come from neatly separated sources. Ethanol plants supply carbon dioxide to brewers and other food manufacturers. The by products of the meat packing industry end up in everything from soap and lipstick to shoes and luggage.

Farming has never been limited to producing food. It also produces fuel (corn, sugar, palm oil), a very traditional use whose importance shifts over time depending on what other fuels are available. Another huge part goes to fiber (cotton in particular). Food chains and industrial chains are not distinct.

Moreover, ‘system’ suggests stability. In reality, the complexes that deliver food have been changing rapidly in the past thirty or forty years. The gap between farm and table has been filled with ever more complicated logistics (the industry magazine gives a fascinating side light on food supply). Containerization, the building of an increasingly global cold chain in which from the moment of harvest or slaughter to the customer, food products are swaddled in cold air, huge distribution centers, just in time delivery, third party logistics (the growth of firms specializing in delivery), and packaging materials have transformed the way food gets to consumers.

In short there is no system but a complex of constantly and rapidly changing chains, some interconnected some not.

Broken

Which takes me to “broken.” Broken” to me suggests something that once worked and can be made to work once again. That metaphor has two problems.

First, food supply is sufficiently complex that some parts may be in trouble while other are working just fine. The meat supply has been showing signs of severe strain, not a great surprise because supplying fresh meat to mega cities has always been a messy and difficult business, and is being constantly rethought and reworked. Talking about the whole system being broken diverts attention from specific problems.

Second, food supply is changing so fast that fixing is a constant, not a one-time event. The food supply is constantly being tinkered with, new things tried, old problems solved, new problems emerging. Changing consumer preferences, shifting global food production, government regulations, climatic variations, crop pests, and pandemics are further causes of constant adjustments to the food supply.

Personally, I am amazed that food in the US has remained as plentiful and varied as it has over the past couple of months, testimony to the flexibility of and redundancy in the chains that supply us (another blog post, perhaps).

Even so, declaring that the food system tout court is not broken is not going to cut much ice with those who worry about, for example, access, labor, or effects on the environment.

On the other hand, unless you really to redesign the food supply from scratch as some activists want to do, an enterprise that I find unimaginably daunting, the blanket declaration the food system is broken does nothing to guide action.

Alternatives

What doesn’t work, why, and where? Those are the questions to ask. What alternative do we have to the words “food system” and “broken?” Supply? Provisioning? Complex? Or just “Systems” in the plural instead of “System.” “Has Glitches or Problems” instead of “Is Broken?” Help needed.

[I have very little time to blog at the moment. So I’ve decided to do mini blogs, just a few hundred words long. They will necessarily be incomplete discussions of the topics but blogs don’t have to be the final word.]

• ← In March, of All Months, Americans Went Food Shopping to Shelter in Place
• Looking for the Origin of the Term “Food System” →