Give peas a chance: Transformations in food consumption and production systems

Abstract

Food production chains can be organised in a variety of ways. Conventional ‘industrial’ agricultural practices are based on advanced breeding techniques and major inputs of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Food produced in this way is transport-intensive, requires high-energy processing, relies on modern retailing systems and demands high-tech kitchens. Many argue that the industrialised systems should be dismantled and replaced with alternative methods of agriculture, food processing and distribution that emphasise social and environmental sustainability. This paper looks at the environmental and social sustainability of different strategies for food systems by analysing the whole chain of production, processing, distribution and consumption activities of the production of frozen peas, a vegetable that is ‘symbolic’ of modern food systems and the UK diet.

Introduction

Technological innovation and the changes in supporting economic and social structures that come with it (collectively known as “innovation”) will be central to the achievement of sustainable production and consumption in all areas of human activity. If current systems of production and consumption are unsustainable in terms of their resource usage, ecological impact and long-term environmental effects, then new systems of provision will be needed, entailing new processes, new products, new services and new management practices. If these do not exist, they will have to be invented and launched into social and economic use. Conversely, new forms of social relationships that are innovated with environmental improvement as their goal will inevitably use products and processes in new ways. There is thus a strong relationship between innovation in socio–economic arrangements and innovation in the material products and processes in which they are entwined—socio–technical systems of provision as they might be called [1]. Consequently, understanding the processes that are likely to underpin these developments is crucial for policy intervention to achieve desirable forms of sustainability.

In this paper, we begin an exploration of socio–technical systems for the provision of food. As an example of our approach to such explorations, we look at the dynamics of the system for the production and consumption and production of the frozen pea in the UK. We analyse the frozen pea system to identify the sources of technological control and innovative solutions in dealing with the system's ‘unsustainabilities’. We might expect that similar analyses could be done on the systems of provision of other types of food (and indeed these are the subject of a research project from which this paper is derived).

According to Robert White, ex-President of the US National Academy of Engineering, Industrial Ecology is “the study of the flows of material and energy in industrial and consumer activities, of the effects of these flows on the environment and of the influences of economic, political, regulatory and social factors on the flow, use and transformation of resources”[2]. The direction of flow between the ‘physical’/‘material’ world and the ‘social/economic/political’ world is, in this definition, one in which the social ‘influences’ the physical. But, as work in innovation studies continues to show, it is possible to see the physical–social relation in a different way, with the process of innovation being ‘embedded’ in structures of social relations (including those that inform consumption patterns and practices)[3]. A key idea is how we can re-think the link between the flow of materials, a flow which Industrial Ecology is especially skilled at analyzing, with the social, economic, and organizational structures which cause physical flows to be and become ‘clumped’ (concentrated/dispersed) in particular ways. We can also proceed to identify empirically the location(s) of actual innovative change within those structures. We can further identify potential sites for innovation, together with constraints on change and possible reasons for resisting change.

As one of us has argued elsewhere [4], the notion of ‘sustainability’ in its broadest meaning, as opposed only to the reduction in the environmental impact of individual products or agricultural or industrial processes, requires thinking in ‘systemic’ terms. Transforming human activities with respect to food implies a focus on the whole system of agricultural, industrial, retailing and household ‘sectors’ and their interrelationships, with their strongly connecting regional, national and international dimensions. In addition, systemic thinking is concerned with more than the production of food, in agriculture and food processing factories; it also includes distribution and the preparation of final meals whether this be in individual households or in more communal arrangements whether commercial or non-commercial. We can thus define Food Consumption and Production Systems (FCPSs) to include the whole ‘chain’ of human-organized activities concerned with the production, processing, transport, selling, cooking and eating of food and the disposal of the wastes of such activities [5], [6]. Thinking ‘systemically’ allows a focus on an important, if neglected, aspect of sustainability, namely the intimately connected relationships of all stages of production and of production with the institutions of consumption.