A Decreasing World Food Diversity

Here is the transcript from the ABC's Lateline program featuring Simran Sethi on the 1/10/2013.

You can view the interview here.

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: There are some 80,000 edible plants in the world but only 150 of them are actual being cultivated. Over the past 100 years an increasing number of crops have disappeared. This lack of biodiversity is worrying scientists because it threatens the global food supply. Award winning American journalist and author, Simran Sethi is in Australia as a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne where she's conducting research that's hoped will help provide some answers to the world's biggest food security challenges. She joined me from our Melbourne studio just a short time ago.

Simran Sethi, welcome to Lateline.

SIMRAN SETHI, ENVIRONMENTAL JOUNALIST AND AUTHOR: Thank you.

EMMA ALBERICI: What is the greatest threat to the world's food supply?

SIMRAN SETHI: I think the greatest threat that we're facing is actually trying to grapple with the changing climate and consider where we grew crops now and where we will be able to grow them in the future.

EMMA ALBERICI: If we look at a recent lecture, you mentioned that 75 per cent of the world's food is generated from only 12 plants. Why should we be concerned about that?

SIMRAN SETHI: So what we have done in a very short period of time when you think about the long trajectory of agriculture, right, 12,000 years but in the last 100 years things have radically changed and then changed even more in the last 20 years, is that we are making ourselves more vulnerable by reducing the amount of crops that we grow and subsequently the kinds of food that we eat we're putting more risk into the system because a lack of biodiversity increased development of monocultures and I think what we're experiencing a monodiet, eating fewer things is really resulting in us losing diversity in kind of what we grow and eat and that makes us more vulnerable to different kinds of things that might come up. For example, if we're growing 95 per cent of say our soybeans come from one seed and are grown in one place, if that particular plant succumbs to a pest then we're in really bad shape and that's what's happening across the board through the crops that we're cultivating, that we're growing fewer and fewer varieties. So when something crops up, a different kind of problem we're in a vulnerable position. So over time we're actually increasing the amount of risk we're putting into the system instead of decreasing it.

EMMA ALBERICI: Why are we growing fewer varieties?

SIMRAN SETHI: We're growing fewer varieties, I think, because agriculture is turning into a big business and as we know, with economies of scale and increased deficiency comes a desire to systematise things. So it actually, from a large scale agricultural perspective it makes a lot of sense to grow crops in this way, to standardise production, to grow monocultures so we can apply inputs evenly and relieve the kind of labour that's involved in cultivating crops. But from, I think from a larger perspective of food security this is highly problematic.

EMMA ALBERICI: So what's the answer? Is it about bringing back these lost crops?

SIMRAN SETHI: I think the answer is in two places. I think the answer is to resurrect these lost crops, to support the entities to keep the crops from disappearing. We have NC two conservation, which is saving crops on the ground, both on farms and in the wild, so actually encouraging farmers and researchers to grow these crops to keep them in perpetual cycle. The alternative is XC two conservation, saving seeds and germ plasm in banks. And what that does is of course secure the food system but I'm more interested in NC two conservation, in place conservation because it responds to climate change. It enables farmers to preserve these growing conditions and also keeps the culinary system alive. I think also it's critically important to recognise that as consumers we have agency in this process. We can't expect farmers to grow what we won't eat. So it's critically important that we work toward diversifying our diets as well.

EMMA ALBERICI: Are these things happening? Are people aware of the nature and urgency of the challenge?

SIMRAN SETHI: Honestly, I would say people are becoming aware of this. I honestly was stunned to learn this just two years ago when I started speaking to researchers at the food and agri agri culture organisations and I was in Rome, Italy doing research and I was talking about a completely different topic, focussing in my conversations on transgenic crops and they said there's a bigger issue we're worried about and that's the broader loss of biodiversity, one that's not happening just in seeds, but from soils to seeds, to seeds to pollinators. We're seeing all the pollination services disappearing and so on into our crops, into our aquatic life and into our livestock. So across the board we're losing this rich diversity and we're losing the farming and culinary traditions that accompany it.

EMMA ALBERICI: So what's the role of politicians in this equation?

SIMRAN SETHI: I think this is an increasingly difficult question to answer because of the way political campaigns are funded. And the relationships that we see between industry and government. For me I think one of the greatest solutions is decoupling these and again remembering that politicians are servants of the State and they are meant to serve the public interest. So, you know, 70 per cent of farmers, or the farmers, I should say, that provide 70 per cent of the world's chloric intake exist outside the large scale agriculture system. It's important to support these farmers and these are small farmers working on tiny plots of land. Many of them are desperately poor and we need to figure out ways to make sure that they are able to maximise their yields, that they are able to support themselves and that when we look at the agricultural system we're not only considering the large scale farmer but we're considering these small farmers as well.

EMMA ALBERICI: You recently reminded audiences of the Irish potato famine dating back to the mid 1800s. Is there a risk of a repeat of that kind of food crisis, do you think?

SIMRAN SETHI: Indeed. You can look at the kinds of varieties of fruits and vegetables, for example, that we grow. This is sometimes obscured because you maybe go to the farmers market and you see a dizzying array of fruits and vegetables. You think we have an abundance of variety. But in short order all of this is shrinking, the consolidation of our food system is very real and this is happening across the board from consolidation of seeds, two thirds of the proprietary seed market, 10 companies now own two thirds of our proprietary seeds which include hybrid seeds and transgenic seeds which are commonly known as genetically modified seeds. This occurs through the distribution chain in the shipping of our foods, in the distribution of our foods, our groceries. This can definitely happen again. We see, for example, one variety of banana that's in largely the one that we see distributed throughout the world. This banana has replaced another banana that succumbed to a virus. The only difference that is really keeping us from the kind of famine that we saw before is that we just have more food generally speaking available. But it's critically important that when we look at that food that we think about how we're treating it because food has become so cheap, a lot of this food is now thrown away. One third of the food that we grow is lost or is thrown away. So we need to think about the leaks in the system, we need to think about how we approach consumption and start to look at other ways to make sure that people are fed and that people are fed well.

EMMA ALBERICI: There's a particular anxiety in this country about the take over of farmland and agribusinesses by foreign multinationals. Is that a well founded fear in terms of the consequences for Australia's food security?

SIMRAN SETHI: I would say this concern is universal in nature and Machiavelli said absolute power corrupts absolutely and I think what we're seeing is in the consolidation of our food system our increasing food monopolies. As we well know, monopolies are disaster with mobile phones but with food we're talking about something completely different. The profit motive of food and feeding people is one that I think should be of great concern to people and I will tell you the supply chains are getting longer, the accountability is getting far more distant, you know, now if you think about the acquisition of, you know, local corporate local distributors by multinational corporations that what we're talking about is the locus of responsibility is further away. And to me what I think the solution of this is is to really start to recultivate our relationships with local farmers and ensure that those relationships are strong and supported and in place and the only way to do that is through consumer support.

EMMA ALBERICI: But in a globalised world that promotes free markets and breaks down barriers to trade, can anything be done to arrest the march of the multinationals in food production?

SIMRAN SETHI: Eating locally is a revolutionary act and I really don't want to sound trite about that but absolutely. You know, this globalisation has happened in our lifetime. In 20 years we've seen the entire food system kind of upend ed and I think really the solution to this challenge is to start to think differently about how we grow food and how we consume and purchase food and to that end I will tell you that it makes very little sense in some instances to procure food from far away places. It increases the ecological footprint of that food, it increases in greenhouse gas emissions of that particular food. The only way it makes sense is if you look at it from strictly a business perspective in terms of increasing a profit margin. But that isn't the only factor that goes into the cultivation of food and that shouldn't be the only factor that goes into the consumption of food. People are certainly, and justifiably concerned about rising costs of food. But when we actually look at the real price we pay for food, here in Australia it's about 11 per cent. In the US the portion of income dedicated towards food, towards paying for food is around 10 per cent. You look at developing countries like Indonesia that price is closer to 44 per cent. So when we see the globalisation of food and we see the concentration of power we, ourselves, become very vulnerable to price volatility within this market and we become increasingly vulnerable to a handful of companies that are then determining what these prices will look like.

EMMA ALBERICI: Is there one government anywhere in the world that is leading the charge here in trying to change behaviour through legislation or greater public awareness?

SIMRAN SETHI: That is a very good question. A single Government on sort of a national scale doesn't necessarily come to mind. I think of a lot of municipal governments, smaller governments working on a local scale to really cultivate local food systems as a hedge against climate change and against some of this price volatility. A lot of the price volatility we're seeing is because of the modification of food and the use of food. The redirection of food crops an agricultural land towards the cultivation of biofuels and towards increasing cultivation of feed for animals, right, as wealth accrues within the world, as people kind of develop sort of more disposable income they tend to purchase and consume more meat, right. So we're redirecting some of those resources towards feeding animals and towards feeding fuel tanks and that's kind of what's happening on a global scale. I would say on a local scale I see extraordinary things happening. I've only been in Victoria for two short weeks but already looking at sort of the work of the Victoria environmental innovation lab and the work they're doing on food systems to me is one great example. Examples that are closer to the US where I'm from are happening in Berkeley or happening in the midwest in Lawrence, Kansas or happening all over around really trying to find out what foods are available to us readily and easily within our community. How can we support the people who are growing it and redirect those funds that are now kind of sloshing all over the world because of the multinational nature of food, redirect that money and that income within our own community.

EMMA ALBERICI: Simran Sethi, it's been illuminating, thank you very much for your time.

SIMRAN SETHI: Thank you.