Panel 2: Policy Options for a fair income for farmers and world-wide food security
After giving the audience a moment to “shake off” one debate and prepare themselves for the next, Sieta van Keimpena, Niek Koning, and Frits van der Wal took the stage to discuss the role of policy in improving (or perpetuating) problems in the global food system.
Sieta van Keimpema opened with a discussion of the challenges facing farmers today. She identified the effects of the abolition of EU dairy production quotas on Dutch dairy farmers – the price of milk has fallen well below the cost of
production, and cheap processed products are being sold very cheaply in the developing world in an attempt to deal with the available surplus and keep prices from sinking further. She argued that, to prevent this kind of situation, we need to have the ability to put the brakes on markets. The Dutch Dairymen Board have consistently campaigned for a controlled volume of production, with export only of products that are distinctive to the Netherlands or can be best produced here, while government strategy wants to conquer new markets with high production.
Niek Koning spoke about the relationship between prices and food security, and the question of whether there is already enough food in the world. He argued that the current state of
global abundance is fed by fossil fuels, and has led to a significant growth in global population, which can only be slowed by economic development. Every rich country historically protected their agriculture to allow development, which in turn slowed population growth. He argued that a number of pressures from water scarcity to demand for bio-fuels are converging and will create threats to global food security in the future. In this context leaving global food production to the market is a huge gamble.
Frits van der Wal introduced the crowd to the Food Security Cluster with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the importance of working across disciplines and silos to develop policy solutions for food security. He discussed the possibilities for transformation in the food system, and the need for fair prices for farmers which allow not just a living wage but re- investment in farms. He argued that policy is usually oriented towards low prices for
consumers, because they are the bulk of voters, although other panelists pointed out that there are also consumers who want farmers protected more than they want low prices.
The panelists discussed the role for the Dutch government in, for example, dictating the terms of international trade (through trade agreements) in a way that either disadvantages or protects farmers around the world. Panelists also discussed the fundamental goals of European agricultural policy (as laid out in the Lisbon treaty), to support stable markets and fair income for farmers, and whether these goals are being met by policy today. They raised concerns about the “bio economy” and use of land to produce non-food products, as well as about the ‘pseudo- liberalization’ in current world markets, where richer countries continue to support their farmers while demanding the opening of markets in developing countries. Panelists disagreed about degree of the impact that rich nations have on internal agricultural policy in developing countries, and the state of agriculture around the world.
The audience raised questions about the relative importance of the economy in an ecological crisis, about the role of policy in determining a fair wage for farmers, and what policy-makers are in a position to make these changes. The panelists helped to raise and address many difficult questions in this debate: how can global development and farmers around the world be supported?; What is the relationship between the needs and demands of local farmers, and those of farmers elsewhere in the world?; What role does dumping from Europe and other developed economies play is undermining development?; What role does global trade play in ending or perpetuating global poverty? In the end this debate ended without a clear resolution, but the evening closed with the thought “There is no solution yet, but there is still tomorrow”.
Throughout both debates Remco de Kluizenaar’s live illustration helped to whimsically capture the key themes and points of the discussions, fleshing out points with charming illustrations of farms and farm issues.
Musical Theatre
We think with our hearts as well as our heads. The second day of Voedsel Anders 2016 opened with a musical contribution by Noortje Braat and Egon Kracht: they shared songs of action, of sadness, and of hope. One particularly poignant piece was a love song to the food system which is passing away. Taking the perspective of someone who has invested themselves, their life, and their hope, in a system which is now, slowly, falling apart, Noortje sang wrenchingly of grief and betrayal, of being blind with love and with certainty, and of awakening to disenchantment. As we push towards transition, finding the legitimacy in the grief of those who believed and invested in the old system, recognizing that losing or rejecting something which you have poured your heart into is a real tragedy, is important to find our way through this transition. Compassion can help us to reach across political divides for allies. Other songs struck a more hopeful note, and dealt with the possibilities for other ways of doing things. Even to a less-than-fluent Dutch speaker, the emotional content of the songs was powerful and gave a depth and urgency to the discussion to follow.
Piet van Ijzendoorn & Arjen Wals: Visions of food system transformation
Piet and Arjen discussed the role that education, among other things, can play in making possible a transition to a new kind of food system, and how we can support this kind of transition.
Arjen opened by addressing the question of how the transition towards a just and sustainable food system can be strengthened. He argued that there is a tension between optimization and transition: do we need to improve the system, or replace it? Some people in the food movement believe that we need to do things better, others argue that we need, instead, to do better things. How do we reach a place where we can involve as many people as possible in the movement? He spoke from the perspective of an educator, and suggested that we need to reject a world view which sees each environmental and social issue as separate. Instead we need to recapture a holistic view which we all tend to have as children, and which is educated out of us.
Arjen argued that although there are reasons to be hopeful as more people pay attention to these issues, the tendency to split into separate disciplines, and understanding people primarily as “consumers” can be an obstacle to developing synergies and building towards transition.
Further, we need to recognize the role of conflict in education and in food system transformation. We need to get to work on developing not just adaptive capacity but disruptive capacity – tools to disrupt the remarkably robust and resilient food system currently in power, and to call this into doubt.
Piet van Ijzendoorn shared the ways in which his own embracing of agroecological farming was made possible by a critical attitude to education and to received wisdom, and an interest in how things could be done differently and done better than they were in the chemically intensive mass- production model that was becoming popular when he entered farming. This led him to a kind of transition within himself, and to the recognition of the need to work with the Earth, rather than against it.
He argued that, to be in control of nature and of our lives, we need to address the problems of huge inequality in the world today. We need to make a transition which is personal, economic, social, and ecological and which moves us from a world view driven by scarcity to one driven by abundance. For this to be possible it is critical that farmers are allowed to really farm, that they have the land they need, that policy is geared towards local food production, not export markets, and that farming itself is oriented towards building up the health of the Earth and the soil. Most of the workshops held here over these two days demonstrate models of transition, examples and ways of bringing about further transition. The panel concluded with the audience sharing their experiences and examples of transition.
Panel 2: Leen Laenens, Jocelyn Parot, Jack Stroeken: Strategies for the food movement
Representatives of VELT (an organization promoting ecological living and gardening in Flanders and the Netherlands), Urgenci (the international network for community supported agriculture), and Slow Food Netherlands, came together in the final panel discussion of the day to discuss strategies in the food movement. Jocelyn opened with a discussion of CSAs, suggesting that one reason they are so potent is because they not only offer an alternative to the dominant food system but are also a brilliant pedagogical tool – a way for people to learn about their food and to understand what transition would mean and look like in their own lives. This can be an antidote to the fear of transition which people invested in the current system and worried about losing their jobs and livelihoods may feel.
The panelists emphasized the importance of a movement being conscious of itself as movement, from coming together in events like this, to developing community charters etc. to allow it to continue to grow and evolve. Finally Jocelyn told the audience that recognizing CSAs as a part of the broader movement for Food Sovereignty, particularly through participating in the first European process on Food Sovereignty, was of decisive importance to the growth of their local movement. European organizations will gather again in Romania in October 2016 and this will be an important chance for the whole movement to come together to develop a shared action plan.
Leen, representing VELT, spoke about the development of a broader food movement in Belgium, and the connections between VELT and the transition movement. She discussed how agroecology came to be a key term in the organization, and how it captures a great deal of what their members mean in talking about ‘transition’. Agroecology and knowledge-sharing can help to grow the movement and develop new ways of working. Further, to grow a movement it is vital that we connect with each other so that we can develop a perspective which is both broad and deep. VELT has facilitated this process locally by developing an agroecology platform – a space for people to meet and exchange knowledge and ideas. These processes, however, will take time: we need to balance patience and urgency for deep and long-term change. Finally, Leen also emphasized the importance of acting on multiple fronts: not just developing or knowledge and understanding but holding governments and companies accountable for their choices and decisions, e.g. through the upcoming Monsanto tribunal and related movements to pressure governments to take responsibility for the survival of farmers, through lawsuits and other means.
The final speaker, Jack Stroeken, representing Slow Food Netherlands, shared some of the strengths of that movement. Slow Food is focused on ‘good, clean, and fair food,’ with a focus on preserving and expanding biodiversity within the food system, in plant and animal varieties, but also in research and farming systems more metaphorically. The movement has grown to more than 100,000 paying members globally (3000 in the Netherlands). Slow Food is organized into local “convivia” and “presidia” and is focused on building alliances between e.g. farmers and chefs in order to help to showcase the positive and the pleasurable in local food. The role of “conviviality,” focusing on the comfort and pleasures of growing, cooking, and eating together has been highly important to the success of the movement, as has the focus on building non-hierarchically, working always from the bottom up rather than from the top down.
The audience joined in to share their own examples of transition, from working with seed banks to preserve heritage plant varieties, to developing a movement of ‘slow science’ to support social movements. The panel concluded with practical advice for movement-building: to focus not on scaling up, but scaling out, cross- pollinating, and finding allies.