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Autistic economics

Rickets and scurvy.

Just the mention of these diseases suggests we are talking about some point in history when things weren’t as good as they are now. And yet in the UK cases of rickets – a bone-softening disease due to too little vitamin D and calcium – have risen by 400%.

Likewise cases of scurvy – brought on by a lack of vitamin C – which causes lethargy, tooth loss, and other bone and skin problems are on the rise. Children’s’ diets, say experts, are worse than in wartime Britain.

When it comes to health we are going beyond backwards into a world where food is a major cause of disease, when it should be the wellspring of health.

Where junk food goes, disease will follow – that much is clear. We only have to look at the data for countries like Singapore where junk food culture was not the norm until recently.  There, fast food junkies are developing diabetes and heart disease at alarming rates.  

And yet we continue to proclaim that we’ve never had it so good, that food has never been so cheap or plentiful. The founders of companies like Microsoft, Google, and other tech companies, looking to make new profits in new markets, are turning to food and even health supplements, safe in the knowledge that, as with our electronic gadgets, their profits will be protected by patents.

But they also enter the food market assured of success by an economic and political system that doesn’t acknowledge what it calls ‘externalities’ – that is to say, the health, social and environmental degradation which make up the true cost of the food we eat.

This narrow view of the economics of things was not long ago described as ‘Autistic economics’  by a group economic students who felt that economics, as taught in universities today, is increasingly dogmatic and disconnected from the world of sociology and psychology, as well as from the continuum of history and emerging ideas and trends and human needs.

In other words, the guardians of conventional economics can add and subtract but lack the social skills and sensitivity to recognise the impact their ideas have on people, families and communities. Without these skills, of course, they also lack any motivation to change.

I was reminded of all this when I received an invitation to a December conference by one of our partner organisations the Sustainable Food Trust. The True Cost Accounting in Food and Farming conference may sound like a bit of a dry mouthful, but the issue is key to anyone interested in a sustainable future.

To make food cheap requires that we close our eyes to the environmental costs of industrialised farming: the direct damage to land, water and air (and any costs associated with trying to clean up that mess), the profligate use of energy and water, the impact of pesticides on non-target insects like pollinators, the long-term damage that fertilisers and irrigation do to soil, and the suffering of the (often) migrant workers who help produce all this bounty.

It must ignore, also, the fact that most of these industrial monocultures exist not to provide food as granny would have recognised it, but to become ingredients in junk food. That junk food, in turn, has dire effects on health including diabetes, heart disease, dementias, cancer, reproductive abnormalities and more.

These, in turn, impact not only on human productivity but the human psyche and our general level of suffering. Consumption of junk food is also directly related to crime and anti-social behaviour – with all the costs that these bring to society as well.  

It also fails to take into account the massive government subsidies (money that comes out of our pockets in taxes) that prop up the industrial farming world, be they direct crop subsidies, payments for conservation, energy, water, pollution and waste management subsidies and even marketing assistance.

If our food and farming system were truly accountable, all these costs would be reflected in the price we pay at the till. Instead they are fragmented and farmed out to other areas of our life where the impact is less direct and more easily ignored.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Our food system can be a force for good and for health and for sustainability, but first we need a clear picture of its impacts in their entirety.

We urgently need to make this change because one thing is for certain: we pay for these things now, or we pay for them later.

Pat Thomas, Editor