2050 in America, Food and Farms of the Future
(excerpts, citations on website)
By John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri Columbia College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources 
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/Joliet%20JC%20--%202050%20-%20Econ-Food-Farms.htm
Many more papers and books http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/

A “food revolution” is erupting all across America. Last spring Jamie Oliver, an outspoken British chef turned activist, called for a “food revolution” in America.[1] The occasion was the premier of a six-episode reality show on ABC Television. The premise of the show was that our physical health is linked directly to the foods we eat. In the first episode, Oliver pointed out that today’s children are the first generation whose members are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. It’s not the kids’ fault; they eat what their parents and other adults choose to feed them, or at least allow them to eat. Too often, this means whatever is cheapest, quickest, and most convenient. In our pursuit of quick, convenient, cheap food we are destroying the health of our children and the future of our nation.

Best-selling books, such as Fast Food Nation[2] and Omnivore’s Dilemma,[3] have awakened mainstream society to the dramatic changes that have been taking place in our food system. Video documentaries such as Future of Food,[4] Broken Limbs,[5] Food Inc[6] and Fresh; the Movie[7] provide gripping images of the negative impacts of our industrial food system on nature, our society, and even the future of humanity. They all tell the same story of a food system that is lacking in ecological, social, and economic integrity. The tipping point may be growing public concerns about diet related health problems and the associated costs of healthcare. The HBO network has a new multi-documentary project underway linking the rise in obesity and other diet related health problems to the industrialization of the food system.

The various books and documentaries also tell a story of hope for the future through the voices and images of the farmers and consumers who together are creating a new, sustainable food system. The farmers may label themselves organic, biodynamic, ecological, natural, holistic, or choose no label at all. The foods may be natural, organic, free-range, cage-free, locally grown, or any number of other distinctions from conventional, industrial foods. These farmers and consumers are creating a permanent, sustainable agriculture and a healthful, sustainable food system. They are creating a food system that has ecological, social, and economic integrity. These farmers and their customers are leading the “good food revolution.”

The “local food movement” is the most prominent dimension of the good food revolution at present. People tend to underestimate the importance of local food because they associate it with farmers markets and community supported agricultural organizations or CSAs – and more recently, with home gardens and community gardens. While these are and will continue to be important, the local food movement is probably most accurately defined by the growing number of retail food stores, restaurants, and institutional food buyers who are committed to sourcing as much food as possible from local growers.

The transformation is being driven by questions of sustainability. Sustainability is not just a buzzword; it is the fundamental question confronting both the developed and developing worlds of today.  It asks whether our current way of life is sustainable – ecologically, socially, and economically. It asks whether we can meet the needs of the present without diminishing opportunities for the future. Virtually every major U.S. corporation, government agency, and non-profit organization now feels compelled to have a major sustainability initiative. These initiatives deal with issues of environmental protection, social equity, and economic viability. When we ask the deeper questions of sustainability, we realize that we eventually must change virtually every aspect of our economy, our society, and our individual lives.

Most important, we must change our economy. Rates of economic growth that we have come to consider as “normal” quite simply are not sustainable. The economy of the industrial era, particularly of the past century, was an aberration in human history. For example, if economic growth rates of 3% to 4% had persisted over the past 2010 years, since the year one, a global Gross Domestic Product of one-dollar at that time would have grown into a global economy that would provide every person on earth, all six-and-one-half billion of us, with enough money to spend a million dollars every second of every day of the year. Furthermore, every 20-yrs people would have twice as much to spend as the 20-yrs before. The US economy of some $10-trillion obviously cannot sustain growth rates of 3%-4% for another 2000 or even 100 more years.

The economic growth of the industrial era was possible only because of abundant supplies of easily accessible energy. First it was the old-growth forests, then surface coal, and for the last century shallow deposits of oil and natural gas. But the days of cheap, abundant energy are over. The old forests are gone, tops of mountains are being blown off to get the remaining coal, and the remaining reserves of oil and gas are deep beneath the ocean floor or in remote corners of the earth hardly touched by civilization. In addition, continued reliance on fossil energy poses unacceptable environmental risks, such as global climate change, that threaten the future of human life on earth. The alternative that eventually will replace fossil energy – wind, water, photovoltaics, and direct solar – will be less plentiful and more costly than fossil energy. Denial and neglect cannot change the hard, cold facts: the industrial era of economic growth is over.

Americans simply must accept the fact that the economic growth rates of the past century are not sustainable. The new post-industrial era must be an era of slow growth, at times even no growth. Yet it will be a time of human progress, if we successfully weather the transition. If we choose wisely, the transformation could well be a major step forward in the betterment of human life on earth. The father of Keynesian economic theory, John Maynard Keynes, anticipated this new era back in the 1920s.  He wrote, “the economic problem may be solved, or at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not… the permanent problem of the human race.”[10] Man’s permanent problem will be “how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares… to live wisely and agreeably and well.” The challenge for the vast majority of Americans, as well as the rest of the so called developed world, is not to restore unsustainable economic growth, but instead to learn to live “wisely, agreeably, and well.”

In a more enlightened world of 2050, the so called lesser-developed countries of the world will not have consumed all of the earth’s natural resources in achieving sustainable levels of economic development. They will have learned that beyond about $10,000-$15,000 per person in Gross Domestic Product, roughly equivalent to per capita income, there has been no relationship between economic growth and overall quality of life.[12] In addition countries where people are more equitable economically, where there is less disparity between the rich and poor, people tend to be happier, regardless of their absolute level of income. Thus developing countries of the future will balance their modest needs for economic growth with the need to build stronger and more equitable societies. Their quality of life also will be enhanced as they fulfill their ethical responsibility to future generations by being good stewards of their nations’ natural resources.

In a more enlightened world, peoples’ lives will be more socially connected and their old age will be more economically secure.  Once these social and economic security incentives for larger families are no longer present, global population will level out and stabilize at a comfortable carrying capacity for the earth’s resources. Increasing population will occur only if and when increases in efficiency of resource use make a larger population sustainable. Otherwise, there will be no further need for economic growth. The economic problem will be solved for all. 

The enlightened America of 2050 will be organized quite differently from the centralized, consolidated, hierarchal society and economy of today. Much of the centralized political power would have been devolved to state and local levels. The federal government will return to its historic constitutional purpose of ensuring equal access to things to which all Americans have equal rights. State governments will focus on those things that can be and need to be done differently in different geographic regions and cultures within the country. This will leave local governments with the other things that must be done for the common good of society but cannot or will not be done by individuals, families, or other informal groups within communities.

The American society and economy will also have devolved, decentralized, and re-localized to better meet the needs of the post-industrial, sustainable society. American communities of the future, both rural and urban, will not be economically self-sufficient, but locally owned and operated businesses will be capable of meeting most basic day-to-day needs of their local community. Local businesses will be sustained by the commitment of the community to support its local economy. Large corporate manufacturers and retailers will be supplemental or secondary providers of goods and services but will not dominate local economies. Local builders will provide affordable, energy-efficient housing. Energy-generating residences and locally-owned electric utilities will meet most energy needs of the community with wind, water, and solar generated electricity. Local farmers will provide sustainably-grown foods.

Returning to the food system, by the year 2050, fossil energy depletion and environmental degradation will have made today’s industrial, global food system economically obsolete. It’s not just a matter of rising transportation costs. The economic feasibility of the entire industrial food system – production, processing, packaging, refrigeration, cold storage, mass merchandizing – depends on an abundance of relatively cheap fossil energy. The American food system currently claims about 20% of total fossil energy use and accounts for an even larger percentage of emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.[13] Without cheap fossil energy for fertilizers and fuel, agriculture will be forced to return to organic and other regenerative, sustainable approaches to production that rely on green plants to capture and store solar energy in the healthy, organic soils. By the year 2050, the American food system will have been forced to devolve to production and distribution to accommodate local and regional markets. National and global food markets will be primarily high-value, non-perishable, minimally-processed foods, such as coffee and spices. Americans will be healthier and health care costs will be in decline.

The American farms of 2050 will be smaller because sustainable farms are inherently more management and labor intensive, meaning more farms and more opportunities for farmers. Such farms will fit the new paradigm for technology development by employing more people in the process of producing a given amount of food. It takes knowledge, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship to produce food sustainably. Human scale technologies, such as the microcomputer, will make knowledge more easily acquired and creativity and entrepreneurship more effectively used.  Even today, organic and other sustainable systems of food production can produce as much or even more than industrial systems per acre of land or dollar of investment. They just require more thoughtful, insightful, caring farmers. Why not have more such farmers?

Farmers markets, CSAs, and home gardens will grow in importance and more locally grown foods will move through local supermarkets, restaurants, and institutions. However, the food systems of the future will more closely resemble today’s multi-farm CSAs or local food cooperatives. Grown Locally,[14] Idaho’s Bounty,[15] and the Oklahoma Food Cooperative,[16]for example, are cooperative organizations of farmers and consumers that offer a variety of vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs, cheese, baked goods, flowers, and herbs produced by local farmers. Many items are available as CSA shares, standing orders, or for week-by-week purchase. Customers have the option of on-farm pick-up, local delivery points, or delivery to the door. Websites allow producers to post what they have available each week, ensuring that products sold are available for delivery and allowing customers to place or revise their orders on the website. Such systems have the potential to be far more energy efficient and environmentally benign than are today’s systems of food production and distribution. In the world of 2050, with the next generations of the Internet and Fed-Ex, a global network of sustainable, community food systems will have replaced the industrial, global food system as the dominate source of food.

The most successful American communities in 2050, rural and urban, will be those learned from the “good food revolution” of the early 2000s. They will be communities that have preserved and restored the fertile farmlands that remained in the areas where most of the cities and towns in American were initially settled. They will be communities that understood that the local food movement was not just about restoring healthy diets and healthy bodies, although health is obviously essential to physical well-being. Local foods provide both the motivation and means of reconnecting people in meaningful personal and social relationships. Local foods also allow people to support their local farmers economically, and thus support their local economies. Through local farmers, people reconnect spiritually with the land and regain a sense of purpose and meaning in life through a commitment to stewardship of nature. The good food revolution is the precursor to the “good life revolution” – an ecological, social, and economic revolution.

However, none of these good things will be possible unless we abandon our pursuit of narrow, individual economic self-interest and return to the broader pursuit of happiness and quality of life. Obviously, we are physical beings, but the material needs are quite modest and well within the earth’s capacity to sustain a regenerative economy. We can’t sustain continual economic growth but we can sustain sufficient economic growth to meet the basic needs of all, if we choose to do so.  We can sustain continuing prosperity even without economic growth, if we find the wisdom to focus our time and energy on relationships and ethics instead of economics. We can sustain prosperity through harmony and balance among the material, social, and spiritual dimensions of our lives. There are no limits to human betterment, if we cease our striving for wealth and focus on learning the true art of living.