Asian Institute of Technology - School of Management

Monoculture  food  production,  processing  and  distribution:  the  impacts  on  the  earth’s  population  

Personal  Assignment    SM80.9025  -­‐  Strategic  Business  Models  for  the  Oiless  Economy  Instructor:  Dr.  Logan  Muller

 

Submitted  by:  Hoang  Duc  Binh  -­‐  ST111093  

September  30,  2010    

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Introduction    

The world has experienced an unprecedented growth in population during the last century,

especially, there were a billion people added every decade during the last three decades alone1.

This population explosion has accompanied dramatic food consumption and production.

Monoculture, or in other words, industrial agriculture, formed to meet the increasing demand

of food. Benefits of monoculture approach in agricultural production is very clear, such as

reduce food prices for consumers; lower prices of animal feed to farms or increase their

competitiveness on domestic and international market. Monoculture, however, is the result of

the depletion of biodiversity and habitats. Whether any reason, monoculture has its impact

both positive and negative to the human kind nowadays. This paper will describe three main

issues of monoculture food production, processing and distribution in relation to fossil fuels.

The first, it will be described the present and future of monoculture food production,

processing and distribution and impact this will have on the earth’s population. The second,

by given data the paper will demonstrate who are the most vulnerable group or societies of the

impacts. Finally, the paper will propose alternative models of business operation that will be

more resistant to reliance on fossil fuels.

 

                                                                                                               1  Rosegrant M W, Paisner M S, Meijer S, Witcover J (2001) 2020 Global Food Outlook: Trends, Alternatives, Choices (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC)  

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Monoculture  food  production,  processing  and  distribution  and  impact  this  will  have  on  the  earth’s  population      World’s food demand will continue to rise dramatically. Forecast to 2020, we will need 2,497

billon tons of cereals and 327 billion tons of meat. Compared with 1997, the demand for

cereals is projected increase 35.5 percent and demand for meat is forecast to rise more than 57

percent2. Increased food demand will create a pressure on the supply, and quantity as well as

quality as it continues to be an alarming problem.

Figure 1: World demand for cereals 1974, 1997, 2010

Figure 1: World demand for meat 1974, 1997, 2010

Food  production,  processing  and  distribution    

Until about four decades ago, crop yields in agricultural systems depended on internal

resources, recycling of organic matter, built-in biological control mechanisms and rainfall

                                                                                                               2 Rosegrant M W, Paisner M S, Meijer S, Witcover J (2001) 2020 Global Food Outlook: Trends, Alternatives, Choices (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC)

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patterns3. Agricultural yields were modest, but stable. A growing number of people have

become concerned about the long-term sustainability of existing food production systems4.

Monoculture production is the urgent need for food consumption through increase yield and

decrease costs of production. Monoculture is the agricultural practices of producing or

growing that rely on a small number of genetic variants of a food crop for commercial

agriculture over a wide area year after year. Through the application of synchronous machines,

seeds and other supplies, monoculture production process has been labor saving and high

efficiency of investment. In addition, harvesting of monoculture are relatively homogenous, it

can provide the market standard outputs. In terms of efficient economies of scale,

monoculture can reduce production costs and result in prices of commodities on the

marketplace. Monocultures, however, can lead to the rapider spread of diseases, where an

unchanging crop or animal is vulnerable to a pathogen, require heavy doses of pesticides and

herbicides and disrupts biodiversity.

Nowadays, under the impact of urbanization and the accumulation of land for industrial

agriculture production and for industrial zones, we almost lost the ability of food self-

production and supply. Food consumption of us now depends completely on the food

companies, especially in urban areas. The food industry is dominated by a small number of

large multinational companies. Within a few decades, leading companies appeared through

consolidation, strong expansion, merging with competitors, and buying independent farmers.

It is estimated that 80% of the food supply of the world is controlled by only a few multi-

national companies. Among this elite group are: Tyson Foods, Inc., Smithfield Foods, Inc.,

Swift & Company, Hormel Foods Corporation, Sanderson Farms, Inc., Cargill, Inc., Archer

Daniels Midland Company, and ConAgra Foods, Inc.5

Concentration of food supply in the hands of a few companies has raised many concerns.

While the products offered by these companies have still got many problems regarding

quality, food hygiene and safety, another concern is food security because the worry that a

few companies control food supply actually. Moreover, monoculture food production,

processing and distribution accompany the using too much energy, specifically oil, in

manufacturing, packaging, cold storage and transportation.

In finger 3, oil can be put to a variety of uses, with transportation accounting for a growing

share of the oil consumed. While the transport sector consumed 42% of the oil in in 1973 this                                                                                                                3 Altieri, M.A. 1995. Agroecology: the science of sustainable agriculture. Westview Press, Boulder 4 Conway, G.R. and Pretty, J.N. 1991. Unwelcome harvest: agriculture and pollution. Earthscan Publisher, London. 5 Chai-online, Who Controls the Food Supply, http://www.chai-online.org/en/compassion/reality/reality_food_controls.htm, accessed on 29 Sept 2010

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share climbed to 61.2% in 2007. The growing level of global motorization is a core

component behind this relative growth, particularly the growth of international trade, and

food transportation form their companies to everywhere in the world consume a significant

amounts.

Source: International Energy Agency

Finger 3: World Oil Energy Consumption by Sector, 1973-2007

Food  production  is  dependence  on  fossil  fuel  

Since the 1940s, agricultural productivity has increased dramatically, due mainly to increased

use of mechanical energy, fertilizer and pesticides. Much of this energy input from fossil fuel

sources. Monoculture agriculture is strong dependence on petrochemicals and mechanization.

It has increased worries that oil scarcities could raise costs and decrease agricultural

production, producing food shortages6.

Modern agriculture depends on fossil fuels in two essential ways: 1) direct consumption on

the farm and 2) indirect consumption on the farm. Direct consumption involves the use of oils

and fuels to run farm vehicles and machinery; and use of gas, liquid propane, and electricity

to power dryers, pumps, lights, heaters, and coolers. Indirect consumption includes mainly oil

and natural gas that used to produce fertilizers and pesticides.

Food production, processing and distributing encompasses not just agricultural production,

but also off-farm processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, and disposal

of food and food-related items.

There are many figures show that we need more energy and more independent on oil for food

processing. In fact, 3 calories of energy are consumed to create 1 calorie of edible food and

                                                                                                               6 Wikipedia, Agriculture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#Agriculture_and_petroleum . Accessed on 29 Sept 2010

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grain fed beef use 35 calories for every calorie of proceeded beef7. Moreover, around 33

percent of total energy sed in food production is allocated to food processing and packaging8.

Furthermore, table 1 shows agriculture accounts for less than 21 percent of food system

energy use in the United States by 1996 and it decrease to 14% by 2002, but the percentage of

energy consumption on food system increase form 10 percent by 1996 to 14 percent by 2002.

This proves that food production is increasingly needed more energy and more independent

on oil.

Source: Wikipedia9    Impacts  of  food  production  on  earth’s  population.      

Based on the above analysis we can divide the impacts of current food production, processing

and distribution on earth's population into three groups: 1) direct impacts on the health of

consumers, 2) impacts on environment, and 3) impacts on food security due to oil shortages.

Direct impacts on the health of consumers are related to the provision of poor quality

products, poisonous or containing the pathogenic sources of food supply companies. There

are so many evidences for the purpose of profits that these companies only care about the

quantity and ignore quality during production and processing. Most companies use

genetically modified plant varieties and animal breeds genetically resistant to pests and

diseases, shorten breeding time, and increase productivity. While the consequences of the use

of genetically modified products are still much controversy, it is a major input for the food

that we eat daily. Moreover, food poisoning due to poor products, or infected by eating food-

containing pathogens is becoming alarmed nowadays. In fact, there are about 76 million cases

of food poisoning annually in USA, of which 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,200 deaths10,

and costs $152 billion a year11. In addition, while many places still have a large number of

hungry people, in urban areas the number of obese people is increasing dramatically. In 2006,                                                                                                                7 A 2002 study from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/energy/ 8 Danielle Murray, May 09 2005, Oil and Food: A Rising Security Challenge http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2005/update48 9 Wikipedia, Agriculture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#Agriculture_and_petroleum . Accessed on 29 Sept 2010 10 http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/food_poisoning/stats.htm 11 http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/food-poisoning/news/20100303/food-poisoning-costs-152-billion-a-year

Table 1: Agriculture and food system share (%) of total energy consumption by three industrialized nations

Country Year Agriculture Food system United Kingdom 2005 1.9 11 United State of America 1996 2.1 10 United State of America 2002 2.0 14 Sweden 2000 2.5 13

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MSNBC reported that globally, the number of people who are overweight has surpassed the

numbers who are hungry - the world had more than one billion people who were overweight,

and an estimated 800 million who were undernourished12. Eating more fast food rich in

calories provided by food companies causes this problem.

Source: Times

Picture 1: Yellow and Green?

The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis 2008: As the food crisis deepens, more and more cultivable land is being used to grow plants for the production of 'ecological', non-oil based fuels. This German landscape is a patchwork of rapeseed fields between cornfields and other food crops. Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and maize have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.13

Impacts on the environment include the destruction of biodiversity due to monoculture and

pollutant emissions during production, processing and transport of food. Evidence indicates,

that extreme dependence on monoculture farming and agro-industrial inputs, such as capital-

intensive technology, pesticides, and fertilizers, has negatively impacted the environment and

rural society14. Otherwise, greenhouse gas emissions by agriculture sector alone are a major

contribution to the undesirable climate change and agricultural production still depends

basically on the weather15. Agricultural practices contribute as much as 13.5 percent to the

total global greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC, 2004). If counting both direct and indirect                                                                                                                12 Nearly 1 in 5 Chinese overweight or obese, MSNBC, August 18, 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14407969/ 13  http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1731280_1565371,00.html#ixzz10wbWLghz 14 Miguel A. Altieri, Modern Agriculture: Ecological impacts and the possibilities for truly sustainable farming, http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html, Accessed on 30 Dept 2010 15 Ellis S., 2008, The Changing Climate for Food and Agriculture: A Literature Review, http://www.iatp.org/iatp/publications.cfm?refid=104516 (accessed August 12, 2009)

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emissions (includes all related activities such as production, land use, packaging, processing,

and transportation) from the food system, agriculture’s contribution could be as high as 32

percen16. Consequently, GHGs emissions in the process of food system indirectly affect

future food production and especially for poor countries. This issue will be discussed in

section 2 of this paper following.

Source: Times

Picture 2: Daily Bread

The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis 2008: Protesters share a loaf of bread during a

demonstration in front of an ancient mosque to protest high prices and government carelessness,

in Cairo, Egypt.17

Impacts on food security due to oil shortages mention to negative influence on the food

supply and food prices when oil exploitation passed through the other side of peak oil. As

mentioned above, food supply is heavy dependence on oil. While supplies of oil and gas are

fundamental to industrial agriculture methods, a reduction in worldwide oil supplies could

produce spiking food prices and unprecedented famine in the next decades18. The years 2007-

2008 provided a significant increase in world food prices. This created a global crisis and

causing political and economical instability as well as social unrest many places of the world.

Systematic causes of rising food prices worldwide are the subject of continuing debate. Initial

causes of price rising, however, include rising oil prices. Oil price growths also produced

                                                                                                               16 Greenpeace, 2008, “Cool Farming: Climate Impacts of Agriculture and Mitigation Potential.” 17  http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1731280_1565367,00.html#ixzz10wcVBfwJ  18 Goodchild, Peter (2007-10-29). "Peak Oil And Famine: Four Billion Deaths". Countercurrents. Accessed 30 Sept 2010

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general escalation in the cost of fertilizer and transporting food and agriculture industry. In

fact, high energy prices have added about 15 to 20 percent to higher U.S food commodities

production and transport costs19.

The  most  vulnerable  groups    Due to insecurity in the food supply, the world has been facing with diseases and starvation.

Groups more severely affected, however, may include: 1) those that consume food depend on

packaged and industrial products, and 2) people of developing countries affected by climate

change or by oil shortage.

Consumers  who  consuming  packaged  and  industrial  food    

Consumers consume packaged or industrial food become the first group who be effected by

monoculture food production. Ironically, that consumer groups are often in urban areas or in

other developed countries. Because apart from self-supply food, or inability to access safe

food sources, this group depends entirely on the products offered by food companies as these

products contain many risks to health. These risks may come from food poisoning (or

foodborne disease) or obesity.

For food poisoning rick, consuming contaminated foods or drinks causes foodborne disease.

As CDC, “The most commonly recognized foodborne infections are those caused by the

bacteria Campylobacter, Salmonella, and E. coli O157:H7, and by a group of viruses called

calicivirus, also known as the Norwalk and Norwalk-like viruses”20. The bacteria and viruses

have not been thoroughly treated in food production process and remain in marketed products

cause numerous cases of poisoning or disease in the world. According to CNN, massive egg

recall on September 2010 in US has tripled to 380 million eggs as salmonella has sickened

hundreds of victims21 and more than 70,000 Americans come down with E. coli 0157 each

year22. Under the UN report, FAO inform that an estimated one million to five million cases

of pesticide poisonings occur every year globally23. Those are just some cases or official

announcements that demonstrate the risk.

For obesity, according to WHO “it is a medical condition in which excess body fat has

accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life                                                                                                                19 Donald Mitchell, A Note on Rising Food Prices, The World Bank, Development Prospects Group, JULY 2008, http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Environment/documents/2008/07/10/Biofuels.PDF, accessed 30 Sept 2010 20Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Foodborne Illness, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/foodborneinfections_g.htm accessed 30 Sept 2010 21 http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/14/egg.recall.congress/?hpt=Sbin 22 http://www.impactlab.net/2009/10/05/report-woman-paralyzed-by-e-coli-tainted-hamburger/ 23 http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/51018/index.html

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expectancy and/or increased health problems”. As society becomes increasingly dependent

on energy-dense fast-food meals, a relation of fast food consumption and obesity is becoming

more relevant. Consumption of fast-food meal has tripled and calorie consumption from fast

food has quadrupled between 1977 and 1995 in the United States24.

 Poor  countries  affected  by  climate  change  or  by  oil  shortage  

The second affected group but the majority are residents in the countries of the third world or

developing countries. While high oil prices lead to rising food prices occur daily, climate

change impacts quietly on our lives, especially in this poor country.

Source: Times

Picture 3: Crushing Needs Pakistani women struggle as they try to order food outside of a subsidized food store on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Many depend on government subsidies to simply get by.25  

According to The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), if the average global

temperatures increase about two to four degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, it

could reduce crop yields by 25-35 percent in the Middle East and by 15-35 percent in Western

Asia and Africa. Farmers in developing countries are most vulnerable to the impacts of

climate change on agriculture. To thoroughly understand the problem, let us consider

Southeast Asia, a region strongly affected by climate change.

                                                                                                               24  Lin BH, Guthrie J and Frazao E (1999). "Nutrient contribution of food away from home". In Frazão E. Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 750: America's Eating Habits: Changes and Consequences. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. pp. 213–239.  25  http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1731280_1565368,00.html#ixzz10wduhrDf  

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The evidences of the impacts of climate change to agriculture of Southeast Asia are

overwhelming. In some countries such as Vietnam, an estimated 10.8 percent of the nation’s

land would be displaced with a 1-meter sea level rise – and especially high impacts in the

Mekong and Red River deltas where main cereals production areas of Vietnam are26. Climate

change is likely to decrease rice yield potential as much as 50% by 2100 compared to 1990 in

Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. Negative impacts of climate change can be

detrimental to corn yield, which can be reduced as much as 5-44% depend on production

local. In addition, a 10% decrease in rice yield is correlated to every 10C increase of

minimum temperature in growing season in Thailand. Furthermore, a progressive trend of

negative impacts of climate change on farming is concluded in another study, which revealed

a decrease in spring rice yield of 2.4% by 2020 and 11.6% by 2070 in Vietnam27.

Agriculture of Southeast Asia is strongly vulnerable to climate change. It is happening now

and the worst is yet to come. There are many reasons that prove the region is particularly

vulnerable. Most of Southeast Asia’s 563 million people are living concentrated along

173,251 km coastlines that could be impacted directly by sea level rise24. In addition, the

region is extremely dependent on agriculture for livelihoods – the factor contributed to about

11% of GDP (2004) and accounted for about 43% of total employment (2006) in all regions –

that can be impacted seriously by global warming consequences such as droughts, floods, and

tropical cyclones. Moreover, although millions of people in Southeast Asia have overcome

extreme poverty in recent decades but about 93 million (18.8%) Southeast Asians still lived

below the $1.25-a-day poverty line – and they are at risk to climate change. Clearly, the

region not only in a desperate need to eliminate poverty, it also need better farming practices

that would be more environmental responsible.

Alternative  model  of  business  operation  that  will  be  more  resistant  to  reliance  on  fossil  fuels      It is not easy to find a suitable economic model for food production that will be more resistant

to reliance on fossil fuels. However, the cooperative might be a model that reduce dependence

on oil and produce safe food for the community.

                                                                                                               26  Dasgupta S., Laplante B., Meisner C., Wheeler D., Yan J., 2007, The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4136. 27  ADB (Asian Development Bank), The economics of climate change in Southeast Asia: A regional review, 2009. Availlable: http://www.adb.org/documents/books/economics-climate-change-sea/default.asp (accessed August 12, 2009)  

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According to International Co-operative Alliance, cooperative is “an autonomous association

of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and

aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise”. This model

concerns about every member in community and relationship among all participants with

concept that share profit for all stakeholders. Cooperatives bring incredible value to people

and communities around the world. They are businesses that are owned and controlled by the

people who use them and that return profits back to their members28.

In food system, cooperative can:

-­‐ Help members achieve a sustainable lifestyle as organic producers.

-­‐ Improve the chances of preserving the land as true diversified agricultural production

land.

-­‐ Educate and support the local community as and future farmers to the economic and

environmental advantages of sustainable, local organic agriculture.

-­‐ Develop Organic Seed production with quality to support organic agriculture

growers.29

Cooperative model has a long life and are showing its effectiveness with the economic

challenges. This model is perfectly suited for local food production to reduce the use of

fertilizers, pesticides, reduced shipping, and thus reduce dependence on oil.

 

 

                                                                                                               28 http://www.cdi.coop/whatsacoop.php 29 http://www.siskiyoucoop.com/about.html