Welcome!

The title of my blog ''How to Food'' is an allusion to our never-ending drive towards efficiency in agro-industrial activities. I will explore how agricultural activities, especially industrial-scale, are transforming land interactions with the rest of the biosphere (Figure 1 below)

               PM Vitousek, ‎1997 ''Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems''

The Haber-Bosh process that converts atmospheric molecular nitrogen (N₂) into ammonia (NH₃) gave way to a revolutionary synthetic fertilizer that provides the essential reactive nitrogen (Nr) to crops (SE Bauer, 2016). Regarded as the ''detonator of the population explosion'' (Vaclav, Mill 1999), it allowed increased yields and the industrialization of agriculture. 

A mountain of Cargill soybeans in Albion, Nebraska

Global food production has become monopolized (see agropoly) by large agrifood interests who continue to flood the markets with processed foods, manufactured from the mountains of soy and corn that governmental subsidies encourage.

''These interconnected systems of overproduction won’t feed the world. In fact, it is both what ails humankind and what starves it'' (Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to food)

Cargill doesn't just process soybeans, it controls and owns most of its supply chains, from the plantations to the supplements added to livestock feed. The number of products sold by Cargill is so extensive, that I got lost figuring them out on their website. How sustainable is an industry which leads to the waste of millions of tonnes of food (consumers in developed countries waste as much as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa, equivalent to about 230 million tonnes)? 

With population growth and increased prosperity, capitalist production will have to expand, seeking the transformation of low-production systems (late-developing countries) to high-input yielding systems and putting further pressure on natural resources. Developing countries require tighter regulations to decrease their susceptibility of undergoing rapid and environmentally detrimental transformations. How can we juggle growth, food security, and conservation? 

I hope you follow along and enjoy the read!