Harmonisation 1.0 - Diet

Now that I have tied up some of my previous topics, I wish to move on to the main idea of my blog – harmonisation. In each section I will take a different part of the human lifestyle and look into how it can be changed to become more sustainable. I will begin by looking at diet. Currently agriculture is the second biggest emitter of greenhouses gases after the energy industry. The 2010 FAO symposium on sustainable diets and biodiversity highlights many of the current problems with our dietary system; these include uneven resource distribution (starving vs overweight people), high energy use, inputs of chemicals into the natural system, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water shortage, and cultural loss.

The picture below outlines the main components of a sustainable diet – these are what need to be achieved by our agricultural systems. We currently live in a society where industrial agriculture takes centre stage for food production, but this is a problem. Because this intense farming is not in harmony with its environment, it is damaging and unsustainable. A new approach to farming must be taken if we are to provide for the increasing population without the destruction of Earth. Fortunately, organic farms are already on the increase, but will this be enough?

Six major components of a sustainable diets - all of these need to be conisdered in our future agricultural systems. Taken from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3004e/i3004e.pdf

A 2013 paper by Vinceti et al. looks at the contribution of forests to a sustainable diet. Rather than removing our precious forests to replace them with fields of crops, they could be used to provide food for the communities that live nearby. Forests are full of nutrient rich, affordable and ultimately sustainable foods such as mushrooms, animals and shrubs, which if used correctly will cause little or no damage to the environment. These wild foods also promote culture and tourism in some ways. It is exciting how many varieties of wild fruit that can only be found in tropical forests – some of which could only be experienced by travelling to the area of supply. This is only one example of how humans and nature can harmonise while providing food for our population.

Here is a TED talk by Jonathan Foley who has some ideas about agriculture which I share: