Fixing our Agri-Food System With Systems Thinking
An exercise in mapping out stakeholders across the agri-food system helped me assess what the whole supply chain looks like and recognize the complexity of where our food comes from.
One of the easiest ways to work through a problem is to break it down into smaller pieces. If the individual pieces of the puzzle can be solved, then when put together, in theory, it should work. Yet, often, when we solve for those individual pieces rather than the entire puzzle we miss critical relationships that make the system hum. Our food and agriculture system has been developed and created by solving individual problems without much attention to the interconnected nature and relationships that build up the system as a whole.
Pest and weeds causing diminishing yields? Let’s develop seed traits so that we don’t have to spray as many pesticides. Issues with storage and perishability of fresh foods? Let’s develop food products that have a longer shelf life and are more conducive to transportation. Affinity for certain types of foods year round? Let’s build out an international supply chain. All of these solutions sound positive at face value. And in some ways they are. But they have also led to a sequence of unintended side effects that have built a food and agriculture system that isn’t all that socially, environmentally or economically sustainable.
These ideas started with good intentions (let’s assume) but what was missed along the way was the interconnected nature of all of these pieces and their links within the system and beyond. All of a sudden pest resistance and superbugs popped up… A health crisis from eating too much of one or two primary foods and losing diversity in our diet emerged… And a supply chain that results in massive amounts of carbon emissions grew. Maybe these were still the best solutions out there. But, if a systems based approach had been taken, work could have simultaneously been done to help counteract some of the consequences from the start.
There is a lot of work being done now to help fix what has been broken. New organizations and companies are designing innovation around a systems based approach. Large agriculture companies like Syngenta are pouring money into pollinator projects and major food brands are sponsoring health campaigns around the country. Whether this is happening because these companies are now realizing the error of their single minded solutions or just because of market dynamics and changing preferences, forward progress is being made.
There are going to be unintended consequences to almost any solution that is recommended but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t involve more stakeholders and industry experts on the front end of the decision making process. We can get ahead of the externalities by thinking critically about the complexities of our food and agriculture system and designing solutions that account for all of the pieces.
For example when looking at introducing a new GMO commodity crop into a developing economy… Yes, let’s look at the potential yield benefits from having drought resistance. But let’s also consider how that will change the social dynamics of the community. Who and what else will be impacted? How would farming practices change? Would other supply chains be disrupted? Some of these questions are going to be impossible to answer ahead of time but let’s learn from where we have been and think about how to engage in this type of discussion sooner rather than later.
Our food and agriculture system is complex. Many problems caused by our piece by piece mentality has gotten us to where we are today. But if we start to look at solutions with a multi-stakeholder lens and include more opinions, diverse solutions and account for the interconnected nature of our food and agriculture system, we have a chance at creating a more sustainable future.