INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this presentation is to bring us back down to earth, or rather to the lands once teeming with life, not to add to the global angst , but to try to define, urgently, priorities for action so that life continues to generate life on the lands of the earth which are disappearing, drying up, rotting, panicking, becoming sterile and themselves starved, are on the verge of no longer being able to feed us.
Indeed, under an overheated sun, devastating famines will return, driving hordes of emaciated people onto the roads and paths. But we want to draw attention to another, paradoxical, malnutrition-related famine (since one manifests as obesity) that is just as lethal. These are the products of an agricultural revolution: the industrialization of life itself—soils, flora, fauna, the micro and macro levels, and the rhythms of life—an industrialization that, in a vicious cycle, exacerbates global overheating.
1) THE FIRST TYPE OF FAMINE: TOTAL MALNUTRITION
"Acute food insecurity" exists "when a person's inability to consume adequate food puts their life or livelihood in immediate danger ." Chronic hunger is defined as "when a person is unable to consume enough food to maintain a normal and active lifestyle over a prolonged period." [2]
The first type of mass famine caused by radical or chronic malnutrition is as old as humanity itself, always lurking in the human collective unconscious. It is the black horseman of the Apocalypse, the wolf at the door imagined during the great famine of 1315 [3] , and has certainly only disappeared in its metaphorical form. More recently, the great Chinese famine that ravaged China between 1958 and 1961 was bluntly described as the Three Years of Natural Disasters. According to government statistics, it caused an additional 15 million deaths. Unofficial figures tell a different story. A former journalist with the Xinhua News Agency, after spending 10 years gathering all the information, estimates the number of victims at 36 million. [4]
Indeed, while it is true that natural disasters did not spare China during this period, the great Chinese famine was the result of an agricultural revolution. This is nothing new, as major agricultural revolutions change not only techniques but also the ways in which labor is divided and products are distributed.
The so-called Neolithic Revolution [5] , which was the first agricultural revolution, is, according to one agronomist , primarily the tragic story of 15,000 years of famine [6] . According to the anthropologist Yuval Harari, it is even a vast fraud [7] . For historians, it is more simply one example of the paradox of progress, which advances in fits and starts: a regression follows a progression on an upward curve. Centuries of tragic famines were necessary before, little by little, changes in agricultural, social, legal, land, political, and environmental practices fed an ever-growing population. It was in this way that, slowly but surely, the cultivation of wheat and other food crops allowed humanity to multiply as never before. [8 ]
Indeed, the world's population is experiencing unprecedented exponential growth, to the point where some believe it is not progressing but regressing. This began with Malhus [9] , who was quickly discredited or forgotten. Concerns resurfaced forcefully in 1967 when Paul R. Ehrlich, then a professor at Stanford University, published The Population Bomb . Armed with statistics documenting an unprecedented population explosion, he predicted a massive famine in the short term, for the 1980s, declared a state of emergency, and demanded immediate political action to limit population growth. A year later, the famine in Biafra received widespread media attention. The image of emaciated, swollen-bellied "little Biafrans" was superimposed on that of the planet Earth, so blue and so small that humanity discovered it when setting foot on the moon. The word "limit" began to be uttered , a word abhorred, according to Hobbes, by Sapiens . [10]
In 1972 The Limits to Growth (LTG) was published t[2] I" To study the consequences of exponential growth in a finite world, a global model has been constructed that examines the interactions of five fundamental variables: population, food production, industrialization, depletion of natural resources, and pollution. However, there are physical limits to expansion. Before the year 2100, the system will experience overheating followed by collapse if the growth of the various variables is not curbed."
The report struck a chord with the general public and was also received with immense interest in nformed circles (more than 20 million copies were sold).[14]
But it was sharply criticized, especially as the news became more reassuring. The prediction of a return of the great famines was invalidated by what was called the Green Revolution of the 1970s and 80s.
The process that led many farmers in the South to follow the example of farmers in the North and to cultivate only a limited number of cereals, legumes, roots and tubers, previously selected for their genetic yield potential per hectare, is called the "green revolution
The international agricultural research centers behind this "revolution" had focused their efforts on the selection and creation (through hybridization) of cereal varieties capable of withstanding harsh weather and effectively intercepting solar energy.
Planted at a higher seeding density than traditional varieties, they allowed a significant increase in yields.
Official optimism persisted until 2013. The report published annually by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP) consistently showed improvement. Hunger was declining: since 1970, the proportion of undernourished people has been almost reduced by two-thirds.[16]
Gradually, the Club of Rome report gathered a layer of gray dust on the shelves of think tanks. The meager portfolios of agriculture ministries were entrusted to elected officials at the beginning or end of their careers. Global discourse focused solely on economic growth and the new physical or virtual territories opened up by the opening of borders. Major famines had vanished from public consciousness, and almost no attention was paid to climate change, which was nevertheless beginning to be documented. At the dawn of the third millennium, something new captured all attention, if not all fantasies: the robot.
When did we become aware that climate change was not a minor, significant trend but a meta-phenomenon? There is no precise date. Le Monde Diplomatique speaks of a slow awakening of awareness [17] . Certainly, the 1972 Stockholm Conference placed environmental protection on the map as an international concern, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was created, but the impact was still minimal in the world's think tanks. It wasn't until the beginning of the third millennium and the heightened anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence that we came back down to earth. And so it was only in September 2017 that a US report "noted that after a steady decline for more than a decade, world hunger had increased again in 2016, affecting 815 million people, or 11% of the world's population, driven by conflicts and climate change."
It was understood at the time that this was not a mere hiccup of progress. Computers were compiling data that lent credence to the Club of Rome's scenarios, which had been constructed within a limited universe. In 2017, the world's population stood at 7.6 billion and is projected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new United Nations report. And in 2017, the area of arable land had decreased considerably.
We do not wish to enter into a discussion on what constitutes overpopulation [19] , nor to propose concepts such as "Actual Population Density" [20]. Let us stick to the likely hypothesis of a return of major famines on an increasingly limited planet: 9,500 m² of arable land disappears worldwide, which is almost 1 hectare less every second (counter). Up to 30 million hectares of cultivable land are lost each year due to environmental degradation, industrialization, and urbanization—an area equivalent to the size of Italy. Erosion removes 25 to 40 billion tons of topsoil annually, severely impacting the soil's capacity to store carbon, water, and nutrients, and significantly reducing agricultural yields. [21] FAO estimates that one third of all soils are degraded due to erosion, compaction, sealing, salinization, loss of organic matter, depletion of nutrients, acidification, pollution and other phenomena caused by unsustainable land management practices.
The result: unless new approaches are adopted, globally the total arable and productive land per person in 2050 will represent only a quarter of the 1960 level.
"It can take up to a thousand years to form one centimeter of soil. Given that 33% of all global soil resources are degraded and human pressure is intensifying, critical limits are being reached and management is becoming an absolute priority," warned Mr. Graziano da Silva.
At least a quarter of the planet's biodiversity lives underground where, for example, the earthworm stands out as a giant alongside tiny organisms such as bacteria and fungi. These organisms, particularly plant roots, act as key drivers of the nutrient cycle by improving the supply of nutrients to plants, which in turn support above-ground biodiversity. [22]
The impact of drought on livestock and food crops will increase food insecurity in Africa “in pastoral areas of Somalia, southeastern Ethiopia, eastern Kenya, as well as in western and Sahelian countries such as Senegal, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso .” Only southern Africa is expected to see an improvement in its situation in 2018, thanks to increased cereal production last year and lower food prices. Finally, according to the report, Yemen will continue to face the world’s largest food crisis. Worse still, the situation is expected to “deteriorate” this year due to “restricted access , ” “economic collapse,” and “epidemics . ” [23]
While African countries were previously the most affected, the entire world is now facing increasingly frequent and prolonged droughts. Added to climate change is a soaring global demand for water. A UN report estimates that 20% of groundwater reserves are already overexploited, creating what is known as water stress. [24] “If nothing changes, the planet is expected to face a global water deficit of 40% by 2030.”
THE APARTHEID OF FAMINE
It is not, strictly speaking, the planet that will suffer from hunger, but rather groups of people. A report by United Nations human rights experts reminds us of this with its shocking findings: The world is increasingly threatened by "climate apartheid," where the rich pay to escape the hunger and heat caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers.
Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that the impact of global warming could undermine not only the fundamental rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law. “Climate change,” he continued, “threatens to reverse the progress made over the past 50 years in development, global health, and poverty reduction.” Developing countries will bear about 75 percent of the costs of the climate crisis, the report indicated, despite the fact that the poorest half of the world’s population generates only 10 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.
"Yet democracy and the rule of law, as well as a wide range of civil and political rights, are all under threat," the Alston report stated. "The risk of community discontent, increasing inequality, and even greater deprivation among certain groups will likely fuel nationalist, xenophobic, racist, and other responses. Maintaining a balanced approach to civil and political rights will be extremely complex."
The impacts of the climate crisis could increase divisions, Alston said. "We risk a scenario of climate apartheid in which the rich pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is made to suffer," he said. [25]
To be more precise, the return of major famines risks significantly increasing the number of refugees at the borders of countries themselves at war over the appropriation or reappropriation of a scarce resource: water and arable land. At the fourteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Poznan in December 2008, L. Craig Johnstone, Deputy High Commissioner of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), announced that nearly 250 million people will be displaced by the middle of this century due to environmental degradation. Natural disasters, environmental degradation, and other climatic events or processes (desertification, drought, rising sea levels) are already causing, and will continue to cause in the coming years, dramatic human situations. This will be all the more true given that displacement and mobility linked to these environmental causes will increase due to the consequences of climate change .
That's a conservative figure. Other scenarios suggest billions of refugees facing acute food insecurity.
SECOND TYPE OF FAMINE: PARADOXICAL FAMINE
The loss of arable land through urbanization and drainage is only one part of the overall problem of malnutrition leading to death. It is a particularly thorny issue because it calls into question the practices of the most recent agricultural revolution [26], the impact of which we are only beginning to measure and which may well be the last.
This is one of the great revolutions on the scale of the Neolithic. It is a revolution whose impact we have yet to fully grasp, an upheaval so enormous that we have almost forgotten it. The development of agriculture in the Neolithic period and the resulting sedentarization constituted a major explosion in the history of humankind… It was from the moment they settled down that Homo sapiens were able to develop a value system, belief systems, and a political and social organization that are still in place today . [27] It is common to say in political science that the state makes war and war makes the state. This is a truncated view of human history. It would be more accurate to add that the state makes agriculture and agriculture makes the state.
The radical industrialization of agriculture changes everything. It represents the disengagement of the state, the appropriation by the private sector of land, subsoil, water, the microbiome, flora, fauna, and its reproductive system. It is, and is intended to be, a total break with all the adaptive and evolutionary traditions of agriculture and the human bodies it nourished. [28] It is part of the great shift of power from the public to the private sector, affecting all sectors of human activity within a new world order governed by market forces. [29] These forces thus authorize all forms of predation and pollution. This predation tolerates no interference from rights, regulations, civic order, or even natural order, since space is plundered and time itself—circadian and seasonal rhythms, epigenetic adaptation—is transgressed.
While the dangers of this type of unregulated predatory activity were understood relatively quickly, and while we are now able to measure the climate footprint of oil and gas giants such as Exxon Mobil, Shell, and BP, the same cannot be said for agribusinesses. Companies in the food sector have been much less scrutinized. The five largest global meat and dairy companies combined—Tyson, Cargill, and Dairy Farmers of America—are responsible for emitting more greenhouse gases each year than all the world's largest oil and gas companies combined. [30]
The blindness was noble. The product (food) is still imbued with the aura surrounding the act of cultivating a field, of nourishing, of giving, of bringing people together around a table, and of saving the world's children from famine. Agribusiness has taken full advantage of this in skillfully crafted advertising campaigns. We cannot forget Nestlé's campaign selling its powdered milk in Africa to save young children [31] (who died in large numbers). We also remember Monsanto's GE promotional campaign, using photos of starving African children under the title "Let the harvest begin!" When Monsanto more recently decided to combat criticism of its genetically modified foods, the walls were plastered with the slogan "Food - Health - Hope." The response to more informed European consumers was that their selfish concerns were preventing Monsanto from finding ways to end world hunger. An article in Le Monde Diplomatique deconstructs the strategy: it is not about proving that their products present no danger, but about promoting them as remedies for malnutrition and public health problems in the developing world and, above all, as an alternative to a very real danger: pesticides. With meticulously crafted and massively funded advertising campaigns, they hope to "turn" the minds of the recalcitrant.
It is an appealing message [32] [33]It is a seductive message with singularly Orwellian overtones [34] .
Far from ending hunger, this latest agricultural revolution only feeds in the very short term but in the long term recreates the conditions of great type 1 famines.
Intensive agriculture with yield as its sole aim is predatory: it empties soils and waters of their life history, that is, of this long adaptation to what Fritjof Capra called the web of life [35] [36] ; likewise, it empties food of the history that links it to the human beings who consume it, in short, of the principle of life evolving over time and which is called epigenesis.
THESE OBESE PEOPLE WHO ARE DYING OF HUNGER
The obesity epidemic, now widely documented and having spawned a thriving weight-loss industry, is the product of a food industrialization that has severed life from its history—that is, from its slow adaptation, body and soul. To make a simple pun, it's culture without culture.
In our impatience, we have gradually destroyed the cultural traditions that not only filled our plates but also shaped and structured our appetites and metabolisms. Traditions are humanity's true glory, for they literally build our bodies and hold them together, giving them their specific form. It would be a grave mistake to assume that this is some kind of superstitious corset that can simply be discarded, thereby liberating the individual, this universal being who can be master of their appetite and form. Without these social mechanisms, our bodies (and minds) disintegrate in the most literal sense. [37]
"The body speaks," said Françoise Dolto. It should be added that it doesn't forget. The constant alteration of diets, including episodes of self-imposed starvation, has resurrected an old fear deep in the gut, accompanied by an almost reflexive urge to store fat. Hunger is hunger, and there is not the slightest difference between the reaction of a Cro-Magnon man to famine and that of a beautiful modern princess on a strict diet.
This is the modern paradox: the more we believe in individuals' ability to exercise "rational" and scientific control over their bodies, the less willing we are to accept the constraints of dietary traditions. However, the further we stray from them, the more uncontrollable our bodies become. We are trapped in a vicious cycle.
There is no universal table, but cultural tables. There is no universal earth, but earths; there is no universal human body, but bodies.
We have unwittingly caused food-related genocides among traditional societies that survived for thousands of years on a diet adapted to their environment. The rapid shift to processed foods is always a catastrophe , a disruption of which diabetes mellitus and obesity are manifestations. Among the best-documented are Indigenous peoples ( up to 70% of adults in some communities suffer from "dangerous overweight"—meaning they are on the verge of developing diabetes), the Pima (who have the highest incidence of obesity in the world), and the Nauruans ( 80% suffer from morbid obesity , and 40% from type 2 diabetes ).
This is not a local phenomenon but a universal one, resulting from this food revolution based on profit and therefore the temptation of advertising. The memory of famine in all human beings is still so vivid that it is difficult to resist the allure of fat and sugar even in rich countries: Although there is some link between obesity and poverty, it should be emphasized that obesity rates in rich countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are among the highest in the world. Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF and professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University, titled one of his articles: " America, Exporter of Obesity" [38]
It is difficult to ignore the following observation, he explains : the rate of obesity among adults in Mexico has exploded since the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. Although the causes are multiple, foreign direct investment directed towards the food processing industry in the wake of the adoption of NAFTA, as well as the advertising efforts associated with it, have very clearly contributed to the problem.
In Mexico, consumption of sugary drinks nearly tripled between 1993 and 2014, with the new tax on these beverages only slightly reducing demand since its implementation. Canada, another NAFTA partner, has also experienced a rise in obesity, largely due to a significant drop in fructose prices caused by U.S. imports.
In Japan, they had understood for some time, since they called McDonald's the revenge of Pearl Harbor , the young people dying of premature heart attacks.
The metaphor is the message. The war of man against man continues.
[1] This text is taken from a presentation given at the ACFAS Congress held in May 2019 at the Université du Québec à Hull. Louise Vandelac chaired the group " Planetary, Energy and Agri-Food Emergencies: Research, Policy and Democracy Issues." The program can be found on the website https://www.acfas.ca/evenements/congres/programme/87/600/605/c
[2] http://www.fao.org/news/story/fr/item/1110443/icode/
[3] Hunger and Appetite (February-April 2007)
By Questes · Published April 7, 2007 · Updated February 26, 2019
https://questes.hypotheses.org/827
[4] https://chine.in/guide/grande-famine_2493.html
[5] characterized by the transition of hunter-gatherer tribes and communities towards agriculture and sedentarization
[6] Claude Bourguignon, agricultural engineer and founder of the Laboratory for Microbiological Analysis of Soils (LAMS), calls them the "three deaths of the soil"74.
[7] Around 12,000 years ago, the human way of life began to change drastically. We stopped moving around and foraging for food and instead brought plants and animals to us. This change, known as the Neolithic, or Agricultural, Revolution , heralded the beginning of agriculture as we know it. Generally, it's considered an unquestionable advancement that led to improved living conditions, increased lifespan, and ultimately to the development of technology and all the perks of modern life. But many anthropologists and historians now question whether the advent of agriculture was the pure progress that we denizens of the developed world all presume it to be. In his new book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind , historian Yuval Noah Harari of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem even goes so far as to call the Agricultural Revolution "history's biggest fraud." Y. Hariri cited in Was the Agricultural Revolution a Massive Fraud?https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/03/the_agricultural_revolution_historys_biggest_fraud.html
[8] Stephen Pinker emphasizes this point in a controversial work: if we look beyond local and temporary setbacks and consider the long term, the number and severity of major famines decrease, and we can hope that they will eventually disappear. (The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Its Decline)
[9] It was in 1798, in the first edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population [1][1]Following French tradition, we will call here "1st… , that the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus formulated his "principle of population"
3"If left unchecked, population growth is geometric. Subsistence only increases arithmetically." (Malthus, 1966 [1798], p. 14)
[10] It is inherently insatiable, a "general inclination of all mankind", into "a perpetual and unrelenting desire to acquire power after power, a desire which ceases only at death"
[11] The Limits to Growth (in a finite world) (in English The Limits To Growth ), also known as the "Meadows Report", is a report commissioned from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by the Club of Rome in 1970, published in English in 1972. The French translation, published the same year, was titled Halte à la croissance? and then took its current title upon the re-edition.
[12] For a summary, see Yves Mongeau's The Club of Rome and its Critics. The MIT team identified five main factors determining and limiting global growth: investment (industrial production), population, pollution, nature.