John Ikerd: The Battle for the Future of Food and Farming | 2019 Soil & Nutrition Conference

The Battle for the Future of Food and Farming
(...and how we can win it!
)
John Ikerd
Our current systems of farming and food production are not sustainable. We simply cannot continue farming and producing food, for much longer, the way we have been for the past fifty-plus years. Climate change is but the latest in a long list of environmental, social, and rural economic problems revealing the unsustainability of the current industrial agri-food system. A battle for the future of food and farming is brewing between those who are striving to "fix" the current industrial agri-food system and those believe it is fundamentally flawed and must be replaced.

Many of the large, agribusiness corporations are scrambling to restore waning consumer confidence and trust by production foods they call natural, organic, antibiotic free, GMO free, humanely raised, cage range, and locally grown. They are being challenged by farmers and food purveyors that go by names such as ecological, biological, holistic, biodynamic, regenerative, and restorative. These agri-food pioneers believe the industrial agri-food system cannot be fixed—that it must be replaced. In the global arena, the agroecology and food sovereignty movements are challenging industry-supported precision agriculture, climate-smart farming, and agricultural intensification for the future of food and farming.

Those who are trying to fix the system have major economic and political advantages. They are supported by a blind faith in technological fixes and the dogma of market-based solutions. However, those calling for fundamental change have the advantage of growing public awareness that past fixes in the agri-food system have only led to more and bigger problems. The key to winning this battle is to nurture this growing public awareness and dissatisfaction into an irresistible demand for fundamental change. This can be done by starting at the local, community level, using currently available public policy and organizational options. Local successes can be leveraged into the economic and political power to change national and global farm and food policies, and in turn, to change the agri-food system. This battle will not be quick or easy, but it can be won.

From the 2019 Soil & Nutrition Conference: https://soilandnutrition.org/

Conference archive freely available at https://bionutrient.org/soil-and-nutrition-conference/archive
Learn more about the Bionutrient Food Association: https://bionutrient.org/

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Dr. Ikerd was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his BS, MS, and
Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He spent thirty years in various professorial positions at North Carolina State
University, Oklahoma State University, University of Georgia, and most ultimately as Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri before retiring in early 2000. He now spends most of his time writing and speaking on issues related to sustainability with an emphasis on economics and agriculture.
The first, Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense (2005), was written for a wide audience of people concerned with the future of the planet and with the continued vitality of global capitalism. Next came A Return to Common Sense (2007), with its call for social change based on our collective notions of what is true, right, and good—our common sense. 2008 saw John publishing two books, Small Farms are Real Farms: Sustaining People Through Agriculture and Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture. In Small Farms, John builds the case for the importance of small farms in sustainable agriculture specifically, and for sustainability in general, while Crisis and Opportunity is a critique of industrial agriculture, reviewing the history of the sustainable agriculture movement, and then providing instances of hope in building a sustainable future. Revolution of the Middle…and the Pursuit of Happiness, published in 2011, “goes a long way” said Fred Kirschenmann, “towards helping us envision how we might…change our vision from pursuing wealth to pursuing happiness.” Most recently, John wrote The Essentials of Economic Sustainability, a synthesis of principles from capitalist, socialist, and sustainable thinking viewed through common sense, with the brilliance of this book lying both in its capacity to be used and understood by people of any ideological or political persuasion and in its cooperative and reconciliatory tone.
John has become a leading figure in the sustainability revolution—one who is capable of deep insights but also has the capacity to engage everyone in the conversation and work. He has found himself at the edge of what is possible in the discipline and has turned his efforts to using his voice and position to advocate for radical change and to help others to both understand this necessity and to be able to advocate for themselves.

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