Consumerism, Organic Clothes and Declining Food Supply - Is There a Connection?

In this second part of a five-part series exploring the connection of consumerism to many of the environmental issues we face today, we look at the link between the decline of food availability and consumerism.

One of the largest contributors to the decline in food availability is the rapid decline of available agricultural land, especially in high-consumption countries like the United States. As many have likely already been told, the US constitutes 5 percent of the world's population but consumes 32 percent of the world's resources, and Americans eat, on average, 815 billion calories of food each day, which is 200 billion more than needed. What we eat in excess is enough to feed 80 million people!

But back to the issue of land, William Rees, an urban planner from the University of British Columbia, estimates that it requires four to six hectares of land to maintain the current consumption level of a person living in a high-consumption country; however, in 2005, there was only an estimated 2.1 hectares of productive land available per person. This means people in countries like the US are consuming at rates two to three times greater than the world can withstand. Moreover, if everyone consumed at the rate North Americans do, we would require another four planets the size of Earth to produce food for our needs, and it doesn't look like we have any neighbouring planets willing to take on our burden, so what will give?

Consumerism is a social and economic order that involves people consuming materials in excess of their basic needs. And though these acts have been going on as long as human civilization has been around, it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution and capitalist development came forward in the nineteenth century that consumerism could take place at rates far greater than previously possible. People began to work more, producing goods and building industrial infrastructure (transportation, communication, mining, steel, financial centers), so people began buying their needs instead of producing them by hand.

As capitalism gained more traction over the decades and following century, the people and companies who benefitted from others buying their commodities found better ways to market their goods (such as "saves time," "makes life easier," etc.). And those who were working long hours to earn money to buy more stuff were always looking for ways to make their lives easier, so consuming became the answer. And the real problem was that there was no clear line drawn between how much was just enough and how much was too much. If people could buy as much food as they could afford, they weren't limited by the size of their own garden. The availability of food seemed endless because it now came from markets, not the ground.

But as consumerism demands more land to produce more cotton, food, etc, the capitalist approach demands that we use more chemicals or more genetic engineering (GE) to get more out of the land or more out of the crops.

But is that the answer? There is a lot of new research which suggests pesticides, insecticides, synthetic fertilizers and GE are actually leading to reduced productivity. But even if this "solve it with chemicals" approach did show promise, we would still eventually run out of land! It is an inevitability. The only thing the "solve it with chemicals" approach might do, is slow down the inevitable.

No, the ultimate answer must lie with us as individuals. We must stop relying on corporations or governments to solve our world's environmental issues and food shortages. By choosing to shop and live responsibly we can help mitigate our planet's current food shortage issues.

By choosing to eat less meat and more grains, by choosing to maintain small gardens and by choosing organically produced foods and sustainably produced commodities such as organic clothes over conventional, we can make a huge difference! We just need to start doing it.


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