Dispelling the Fairytale Myth of Global Agriculture as a Battle Between Good and Evil

In his recent New York Times guest essay, Sorry, but This is the Future of Food, journalist and author Michael Grunwald suggests that significantly increasing support for factory farming will save the environment. He qualifies this in-your-face oxymoron by claiming industrial methods of producing food will ensure less land and forests are consumed by agriculture as the world strives to feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050. “The inconvenient truth,” he writes, “is that factory farms are the best hope for producing the food we will need without obliterating what’s left of our natural treasures and vaporizing their carbon into the atmosphere.”

He goes on to suggest that we move away from the “trap of assuming there’s virtuous agriculture and evil agriculture,” but makes the point by framing regenerative agriculture as inherently evil because it represents increased land being taken over for farming and ranching. He further erodes his moral high ground by casting regenerative proponents in various shades of crazy.

While this approach may fit neatly into the zeitgeist of the current polarized American political scene, I think it misses the point. Agriculture is not a one-size-fits-all proposition in which there can only be one winner and one loser. Industrial agriculture is not going away any time soon, but it is unquestionably a major driver of climate change and environmental degradation. Regenerative agriculture has already shown great promise as the new gold standard for sustainable farming, but it does require more land and that needs to be taken into account. And while regenerative agriculture shows promise in having a measurable net positive impact on climate change, further rigorous study is needed as these practices are scaled.

Grunwald’s good vs evil scenario is given fairytale status with the suggestion that if the bad guys win, which in this case means anyone supporting regenerative agriculture, the result will be hunger and environmental degradation on a massive scale. The bad guys will scheme their way to win our hearts, pocketbooks and votes, while the guys with the white hats will be prevented from saving the world. The rationale behind this posturing has several gaps, but let me start with one that is not so obvious.

The need to feed nearly 2 billion more people by 2050 is a real problem, and on its own this is obviously a big deal. But stating it so simply implies that population grows at the same rate everywhere across the globe. The fact is that almost all the projected 20 percent net world population increase over the next quarter century will take place in the developing nations of the Global South.

This is important because these countries also happen to be home to around 500 smallholder family farmers, each with less than 5 acres, who already produce over 30 percent of the world’s food and up to 80 percent in some parts of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By choosing to completely ignore smallholders, Grunwald is discounting the estimated 2.5 billion people who live and work on these farms and represent a third of humanity.

Discounting smallholders has profound implications. Factory farms are largely a phenomenon of the Global North, and the notion that they should be tapped to feed the increasing populations in the developing and emerging economies in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceana represents a deep dive into paternalistic neo-colonialism, not to mention the implications for national food sovereignty in an era when global supply chain disruptions are becoming the norm.  

Calling for a revival of the Green Revolution to make factory farming even more productive and environmentally efficient ignores a key outcome of the original Green Revolution. Starting in the early 1960s, the vast majority of research, financing, subsidies, and other incentives were allocated exclusively to improving and expanding industrial agriculture. In its wake smallholders, by contrast, have traditionally been ignored and, until fairly recently, left to their own devices with little or no training or support to improve their productivity and livelihoods.

It is true that smallholders in general tend to have lower yields and efficiencies of operation. But there are many examples, including my own experience over the past 15 years with the Smallholder Farmers Alliance in Haiti, showing that when smallholder farmers receive a minimum of support and training they can increase crop yields by 40 to 50 percent. We currently have close to 10,000 members in Haiti who run their farms on organic principles, and over the last two years we have begun transitioning to regenerative agriculture.

Grunwald notes that, “A coalition of philanthropies — including the Rockefeller Foundation, which financed the work by Mr. Borlaug that set off the Green Revolution — has called for the world to spend $4.3 trillion over the next decade to transition away from industrial agriculture.” He goes on to ask, “But what if that kind of money was deployed to help finance a new Green Revolution that was truly green?” I would counter by suggesting this money would be well spent if 70 percent goes to supporting smallholder regenerative agriculture in the Global South because this is the only place where yields can be significantly increased at the same time as the environmental footprint for production is reduced. Then allocate 20 percent to regenerative agriculture and ranching in the Global North, and 10 percent to support factory farming to be greener.

The original Green Revolution introduced new hybrids that are dependent on chemical inputs and, with the introduction of GMOs in recent years, the yield potential of any given acre of industrial farmland is very nearly maxed out. So why would we ignore the farms that already produce 30 percent of the world’s food and which are capable of producing the added food the world needs by 2050, while at the same time becoming a major force in reversing climate change by switching to regenerative agriculture?

I completely agree with Grunwald when he says, “What the world really needs is a vibe shift” when it comes to agriculture. We diverge, however, as to the nature of this shift. I feel we need a holistic approach with both industrial farming and smallholders having a seat at the table, and with enough support for the latter that they are not handicapped before the discussion begins. Neither side should be demonized, even as the shortcomings of both must be acknowledged. Factory farming needs to be significantly less harmful to the environment. Smallholder farming should be called out as currently being the largest underperforming segment of the global economy, albeit a segment with significant untapped potential. 

The emerging smallholder regenerative movement in the Global South is now at an early stage, involving an estimated five million smallholders practicing at least the core tenets of regenerative agriculture. However, with some strategic and targeted support, regenerative agriculture has the potential to explode into a mass movement involving hundreds of millions of smallholders throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The siloed approach represented by proposing factory farming as the single solution for feeding the world and saving the environment stands in sharp contrast to the major report just released by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that warns climate change, nature loss and food insecurity are all inextricably linked and dealing with them as separate issues won't work. This latest review of scientific evidence was issued with the approval of close to 150 countries.

Let us change the good vs evil fairytale narrative about global agriculture and make the IPBES report the opening chapter in a global plan of action that works towards an inclusive, practical, fair and science-based agricultural strategy. While I take issue with Michael Grunwald on several points, he is to be commended for his strident opening salvo in a consultative process regarding the future of global agriculture that is much needed and long overdue.

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Hugh Locke

President, Smallholder Farmers Alliance