Confirmation Bias and Negative Externalities
This is a transcript of Episode #133 of the Eat For The Planet Podcast. Listen to the audio below.
This episode is a bit unusual. I don’t have a guest. Instead, I just wanted to share some thoughts about the way we view the problems in the global food system and how to solve them.
Let’s start with how we view our current economic model for food.
A rather simple or naive way of looking at it – one which I found myself aligned with for years – was the view that you can break it down to simple free market economics.
Essentially, the entire system could be summed up as a demand and supply problem and that market forces manage to keep things balanced.
Here’s what I mean by that:
If demand for a particular food product goes high, the price goes high because of supply constraints, and it sets in motion a cascading symphony that leads to more capital and other resources being allocated to produce the particular product, which then increases the supply, and eventually leads to a lowering of prices. And all the consumers who wanted that particular product get what they want - an abundance of choices, at competitive prices.
Let’s put aside subsidies and the fact that big parts of the western economic model for food (at least in the United States) don’t operate as a free market because at some point after World War I, economists, ag experts and politicians got together and proposed we detach agriculture from the free market using legislation to support commodity crop prices and subsidize agriculture.
But even if food and agriculture in the U.S. operated exactly under the rules of free market forces, the model is inherently flawed because it fails to account for the impact that such a model has on resources (whether earth’s resources like land and water used in food production, or resources like people, whether farm or factory workers or animals involved in food production). In addition, the entire model fails to account for the impacts of the use of chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, the fossil fuels and other resources utilized in packaging, storage, transportation, and the greenhouse gases emitted during the entire life cycle, and not to mention tremendous wastage of food that happens when such activities are carried out at scale, globally.
The flaws in this model are clear no matter what food product is being produced, distributed, and consumed.
Now, of course, the negative externalities vary in degree depending on the product being produced. For example, producing meat from cattle, using industrial farming methods is obviously infinite degrees worse compared to producing meat from plants, no matter how industrial the plant-based meat production is.
But the fact of the matter is we cannot ignore that there are some negative effects. To deny it would be irresponsible.
Sticking with this example, it doesn’t mean plant-based meats are inherently a flawed solution. Not at all. Given that 99% of all meat consumed in the U.S, comes from factory farms, the impact of plant-based meat as an alternative to animal protein cannot be understated.
But to say that replacing animal-based protein with plant-based protein fixes our entire food system would obviously be a bit of a stretch.
And here is where our limited viewpoints come into play.
Not everyone is even framing the problem in the same way.
If you look at the food system from the lens of sustainability or animal welfare or both, plant-based meat can be a very game-changing solution.
But will it automatically improve the condition of farm owners, and farm workers, or will it lead us to be better stewards of the land and our watersheds, or will it ensure equitable distribution of food at fair prices for every human?
In fact, in some cases, some of the new products and technologies may actually amplify these inequities instead of alleviating them.
That’s why we need to have these conversations and be open to creating space to allow more solutions to get the spotlight and the attention they deserve. At least, that’s what I plan to do.
The problems with the food system are complex and it’s going to take more than one or even a few good ideas to change the way things work today.
As the brilliant systems thinker Donella Meadows put it in her writings about food policy issues “The present controversy, I believe, arises from three major areas of difference: Firstly, the boundaries of space and time within which the contenders view the problem, Secondly, the theories by which they explain the cause of the problem, and thirdly, the values underlying their respective choices of preferable costs and benefits.”
She added “Each individual combines these three factors into a consistent mind-set or world-view that influences not only their policy position but also the facts they perceive as relevant and the questions they ask to elicit new information. Moreover, in debates about food, the participants seldom state clearly the world views that determine their positions. As a result, arguments rarely address real differences, produce mutual understanding, or lead to a basis of action.“
What I just read from Donella Meadows describes exactly what’s happening today in the movement to transform our global food economy.
The questions we need to ask ourselves are:
How quickly are we looking to solve a problem with the food system?
Why do we believe the problem exists?
And what do we value?
The third point is very important because while we may all say we value having a food system that is sustainable, equitable, more humane, more just, our values and our world-views shape what we prioritize, and by doing so we inadvertently leave out some values in the process.
The bottom line here is that there it’s not about being right or wrong on the solutions, but understanding and acknowledging our particular world-views, so perhaps we are able to see the limits of our solutions, and thereby create room for other seemingly conflicting solutions to coexist, rather that assume they are in competition with your ideas.
So if I could sum up the point I’m trying to make here, I think we need to widen the lens through which we view the problem with our global food system. It doesn’t mean we have to abandon the values we personally hold dear, whether it is preserving our natural habitats, preventing species from going extinct, ending animal suffering, ensuring food security, or food sovereignty, or food justice or environmental justice.
But it means acknowledging that we might not solve all of them at once, and that’s why we need a multitude of solutions at the same time. It also means we have to not be afraid of challenging our own assumptions and questioning solutions that we might find ourselves drawn to because they match our values or our goals.
If we want to improve the ideas we believe in, we have to be fearless enough to shine a light on their limitations.
So I’ll end with saying, let’s ask ourselves and others better questions.
That’s what I intend to do.