Category Archives: Economy

First speaking engagement with Turkey

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I recently had the honour to be the keynote speaker at the 5th Aegean Economic Forum. Below you will find the video of the session dedicated to agriculture (my presentation starts at 23:45 and lasts until 26:00). This was the first time I had an assignment with a Turkish organization and I encourage you to watch the video if you have 2 hours available. It was an outstanding session and I was quite pleased to be involved with a group that focused on essential topics before focusing on first world problems and first world solutions, unlike it often is the case in North America or Europe. I have added the text of my presentation below the embedded video, and I have highlighted in bold letters my main messages.

Text of my presentation:

Tonight, I will quickly tell you what changes I see coming and what is needed to adapt to a different future.

We have gone a long way since the beginning of agriculture. For centuries, agriculture worked in local and closed systems at the level of a region. With the development of industrialization, we started to open the loops, and not just in agriculture. We actually created two problems, not just one. On the one hand we have depleted natural resources and on the other hand, we have created piles of waste. We went from a circular to a linear system.

To make it worse, we never looked at the long-term effects and costs of this linear system. We never included these externalities in the production costs. So, waste became an accepted part of consumption society. And we waste lots. In the case of agriculture, the number that comes back regularly is that 30 to 40% of the food produced never gets eaten.

The issue of food waste is twofold. In developed countries, it is a behavioural and organizational problem at consumer, retailer and restaurant level. In developing countries, the main cause is post-harvest, either rotting on the field or because of poor storage and logistics. It is an infrastructure and money problem.

Regardless of the causes, food waste is not just about food, it is about all the water, the energy, the money and the land used to produce, transport, process and sell it. 

For consumers, it is about throwing away a third of their food budget. For a household spending 12% of its budget on food, it means that they voluntarily throw 4% of their budget in the garbage bin. That is rather silly, isn’t it? The total price tag of the wasted food alone amounts to about one trillion US Dollars worldwide. But beyond the money, let’s just think about what a third means.

A third of the world agricultural land is about 10 million km2 wasted (Added note: world arable land is about 14 million km2 and grasslands twice as much, so 10 million km2 is a conservative number, out of caution). This is 60% the area of Russia; it is the area of Canada or the Sahara; it is slightly bigger than the USA or China or Brazil; it is 2.5 times the size of the EU and 3 times the size of India. Because of waste, we need to put more land in production. So, indirectly, food waste is a significant source of deforestation.

Now, if we look at a third of the world population, we are talking about 2.6 billion people. It is almost the combined population of China and India, and more than twice the population of Africa.

Where else than by solving food waste, do we have 33% room for improvement in food and agriculture? It is only a behavioural, an organizational and an infrastructure investment issue. It is not rocket science. All it takes is money and discipline.

Right now, people are gathered at COP26. Unlike what they claim, what is at stake is not the planet, it is the biosphere, which is soil, water, organic matter, climate and of course life.

There is not only one food production system. There is a huge diversity of production systems and they do not pollute equally. There are huge differences between the different regions of the world. Even within one particular system, different farmers have different production and environment performances, and impacts. We need a targeted approach.

The proper way is to look at the different situations and through innovation and knowledge transfer level up the playing field and help producers improve. We must do more to help farmers succeed. They know the problems; they often know the solutions, but often lack the needed support. There is great potential in this field, especially with the introduction of new technologies.

Previous periods of modernization of agriculture were about adding muscle, first with animals, and then with machinery, it literally and figuratively was about adding horse power. The current transformation of food and agriculture is about adding a nervous system and synapses. Drones, satellite imaging, robotics, driverless vehicles, sensors, artificial intelligence and data collection are all extensions of the farmer’s senses and brain, but far beyond human capacities. The principle of precision agriculture is about taking the right action at the right time at the right place. This actually offers the best of all worlds. It helps producing the highest yields by using the very strict minimum of inputs. It helps reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides; it helps reduce the amount of energy, therefore reduce greenhouse gases and it helps reduce the use of water. These technologies go beyond production alone. They also can help monitor the environment and help detect possible impact on the environment immediately. The main issue with implementing new technologies is their cost.

New technologies and precision are the ideal tools to address waste, simply because waste and efficiency are two sides of the same coin. When we reduce waste, we are more efficient, as we need less input for the same output. It really comes down to producing more with less. 

In my opinion, there is no reason to sacrifice yields. Not everybody agrees. The USA think along the lines of increasing efficiency and producing more to meet future world demand. The EU, with its brand-new Farm to Fork policies seems to prefer to reduce production as the way to reduce greenhouse gases. Personally, I am surprised by the EU’s choice. The EU has a highly efficient agriculture, with some countries being the very top, and its carbon footprint is relatively low compared with many other regions of the world. Indeed, the EU, like all other regions, needs to reduce the use of inputs but in my opinion, the EU’s agriculture problem is not so much a carbon footprint one as it is a problem of distribution of productions, in particular a few areas having too high a density and concentration of intensive animal farms. They mostly need to rebalance animal farming and crops. The reason is, as I mentioned earlier, that loops that have been opened. 

The future will be about repairing the damage done. We will have to replace the consumption economy, which is about quantitative growth -about “always more”- by a maintenance economy, which focuses on qualitative growth, or on “always enough”.

Closing the loops is about the biosphere, with a financial element on the side. It is about preserving and regenerating soil, water, organic matter, while mitigating climate and by including the externalities. This means changing the economic equation. The economy is a combination of three components: resources, labour and capital. Next to this economic equation, markets determine prices through supply and demand. The math for both the economic equation and the markets are influenced by policies which set the rules of the game through rewards and penalties, and future choices of the reward/penalty system will strongly influence how agriculture will be organized and how it will perform, because producers will choose what returns them the highest income. A change I expect is the implementation of taxes on some product categories and production systems, mostly because governments need more money. To some extent, it will also influence consumers’ choices although consumers are subject to many more stimuli to make their choices. 

Setting new rules require thinking carefully about how they change externalities and therefore what the long-term consequences will be. It also means looking at the bigger picture. Climate change will affect the food world map. Some regions will not be able to keep producing what they produce today. They will have to choose for different crops and combinations thereof. Other regions will be more suitable to take over. Water availability will be a crucial factor in the future food map. How long can regions that produce and export large volumes of water-rich products to far away markets, from which the water will never return can continue to do so? 

New strategies are required. It can be the adoption of new and better varieties that can resist drought. It can be the use of different production systems, such as the use of cover crops, the use of mulch and organic matter. It can be the development of plants that use fertilizers more efficiently or that have higher photosynthesis efficiency. It can be different irrigation systems and move to a crop-by-drop approach. It also can be production systems that reduce evapotranspiration, for instance by combining a low-level crop under a cover of trees. It also can be desalination of sea water for irrigation purposes. 

The list of solutions is long but the redistribution of the world food map will have consequences far beyond the field. It will redefine geopolitics. All countries will have to rethink both old and new alliances. Feuds and partnerships combined with new natural conditions, and therefore trade, will affect food security.

It is also important to realize that food security, food sovereignty and self-sufficiency are different concepts. It is impossible for all countries to produce everything, simply because of different natural conditions. With more extreme climatic conditions, choices will have to be made. This is why I think that trade will be essential not only for food security, but also to mitigate the effect of climate change. 

Until now, the economic model has been “to produce where it is cheapest to produce”. As such not a bad idea, except that it opened the loops and did not include externalities. True sustainability means closing the loops and including these externalities. In the future, the concept must evolve to “producing where it is the cheapest to produce sustainably”. And this word, sustainably, is going to make all the difference. It will affect availability; it will affect costs and it will affect prices. And as always when prices increase, it offers opportunities for alternatives and also for resourcefulness.

An example is urban farming and there are all sorts of projects. It is estimated that 20% of all food produced in the world is produced in urban areas. Next to food production, it also has a social function and can help mitigate some of the effects of climate change. The question is often to figure out how to organize urban farming. There can be community gardens, people can also use their balconies to grow food, or old buildings can be transformed into farms. In cities, the roof surface is huge and roofs can be an ideal location to set a garden. Actually, some supermarkets are already growing perishables such as tomatoes, lettuce and strawberries on their roofs and sell them day-fresh to the consumers visiting their stores.

On the consumer end, there is plenty of activity, too. Suppliers offer products with green claims, true or not by the way. There are campaigns of information as well as disinformation about the impact of various food groups. Protein is one of these areas, and the fight to meet the need for protein is on between animal farming and alternatives.

But what do consumers want? They want food to be available, affordable and safe. There is also strong demand for natural, although natural is a rather unclear term, and most of the time, it means “not artificial”. They want healthy foods, and the rise of obesity and diabetes reinforces this demand. Because of climate change, consumers have become more discerning or at least try to be about which products they consider responsible or which ones they see as harmful for the environment. Production methods will matter more and more and a good example of this is the growing concern for animal welfare. Another strong trend is authenticity, which is also an unclear term rooted in some nostalgia and often means that it must not be “industrial”, or at least not be perceived as such.

Other areas that consumers look for are value and values. Value is not new but it becomes more complex. It is rooted in perception and psychology, not to say ego and status. Values have become increasingly relevant with the presence of social media. Consumers buy from suppliers that are aligned with their values. They are keen on knowing the food producers’ views on their role in society and environment. For a food producer, this can be tricky, as often it will take only one word or message that goes against the consumer’s values and they decide to stop buying. Social media have made people extra sensitive and touchy and bad publicity spreads like fire on social media platforms. This is a new dimension that food producers need to consider very carefully. Social media can make you and can break you in a heartbeat.

Transparency is important. Most suppliers see it has providing consumers with every bit of information but this is a herculean task and one can wonder if this is the right approach. Let’s face it, only very few consumers want to know everything from beginning to end about the history of the product they buy. Transparency is not so much about information as it is about trust. They want to know enough about the producer to feel confident buying the product. They want to have the assurance that the producer has nothing to hide and will answer honestly all questions. The food producer’s business needs to be on display as if it were behind a clear –transparent- window where consumers can look at anything they want in complete freedom.

Traceability is a cousin to transparency. It is essential to trace the source of a problem, should one arise, but it must be much more than that. It must be a proactive tool. Knowing why something went wrong is nice but it is after the facts. A good traceable quality assurance system is what producers need. This is where new technologies – “the nervous system”- can be useful by allowing a full online in real time quality control that has the ability to flag any deviation and stop the production line immediately. Having a proactive system that will prevent quality issues to be sent to the customer will spare many frustrations and save lots of money.

But next to better production methods and new technologies, one area that needs to improve in the future is to help people eat better. It should be the moral duty of food producers to take good care of their customers. In this area, we are still in an era of marketing-driven business, which is about having consumers buy more. It will have to change from quantity to quality, and the promise will have to be kept, indeed. An advantage of social media is that it will expose those who make false claims and false promises. Consumer information is going to be another front for suppliers. A system like NutriScore is drawing more and more criticism. It seems to have become a marketing tool and is no longer a true nutrition tool. If it does not get fixed, it will lose all credibility and in fact reinforce the feeling that the industry is always trying to deceive consumers.

So, what segments can be the winners of the future?

The points I have presented before, such as quality, clean, healthy, authentic will do very well. Foods and recipes that are rooted in nostalgia and tradition have great potential. This is especially true in mature markets that I see evolve into a mosaic of niche quality specialties. Of course, because not everybody is wealthy, there still will be a large market for low-cost staple foods sharply priced, but with increased standards about health, environment and ethics.

Over the last few years, perhaps the most disputed battlefield has been protein. Animal farming is being challenged. A lot of investor money flocks to tech protein alternatives. Plant-based imitation meat and seafood has received a lot of publicity. Many claims have been made about their potential. So far, they come short of those claims. The segment has room to grow but it will not replace animal farming. Performance on the stock markets is poor and the investors’ money is now moving somewhere else. I see better potential for smaller private producers with a low profile, catering to the need of consumers with wholesome products instead of high-tech meat imitations. If the stigma is currently on meat, the next category to be demonized will be ultra processed foods. Investors have also moved into what used to be called lab meat, a product that still struggles to find its name. Although they make regular claims about readiness to deliver large market quantities and being price competitive, it is still not really clear whether it will happen on a large scale. Other alternative protein sectors include the use of bacteria to produce specific protein. Perhaps, it will have some potential for animal feed, but more surely in the medical field. And of course, there are insects. There has been a lot of publicity but success is slow to materialize. One problem is the price. Just like all the other alternative proteins, they are not price-competitive with animal products. Producers of insects try to push it in Western countries’ markets but this is not the right place. There, people do not want to eat bugs. Westerners like soft and meaty. That is why lobster and shrimp are in demand. They are large aquatic insects really, but their look does not matter because they contain lots of flesh. Crickets don’t. It is that simple. I see insects having more potential for animal feed, if it can be price competitive.

The protein fight is useful. It has put animal farming on the spot and forced producers to find solutions to reduce their environmental impact, and it works. The sector has already come with innovations to reduce its methane emissions, and although there still is a lot of work ahead, the improvements are getting noticed. This is the beauty of the fight between industry and environmentalists. As long as the industry does not feel threatened, the initial reaction is always : “no, it costs too much”, but when the industry sees that it will lose business and it will cost them dearly, they are actually amazingly innovative, fast and cost efficient. 

Perhaps anecdotal is the fact that Bill Gates, who has been an investor in alternative protein and a man behind the claim that it would replace animal farming in a decade, which is not going to happen, has now invested in a cow milk producer (Note: the company’s name is “Neutral”) that gets the milk from farms where new technologies are being used to reduce methane emissions. He is pragmatic and he is moving on. Others will follow him. 

As animal products are concerned, all the forecasts for the long term show a further increase of consumption. In particular, poultry is by far the biggest winner. Aquaculture could do very well, too, if consumer prices become more affordable. You are in an area with great potential for the production of fish, shellfish, crustaceans and seaweed.

To conclude,

Feeding a population of 10 billion individuals is a huge challenge. It will require changes in the way we produce and in the way we consume. 

My main concern is that the conversation has become more and more polarized and intolerant. Instead of opposing systems and points of views, we need to listen and think carefully. Nothing is black and white and there is no one-fit-all solution. There is no silver bullet that will solve the problems so that we do not have to change. Instead, we will solve the problems through a combination of many solutions. Some will be of a technical nature but technology is only as good as how we use it. Technology is not only about high-tech, and innovation is not only about technology. The key is the way we think, and we need to be flexible with thoughts and ideas. 

Pragmatism will be essential. Whatever works is good, even if it is sometimes goes against our prejudices. Remember what Deng Xiao Ping said when he changed the course of China 40 years ago. “It does not matter if the cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice”. 

Our attitude will make all the difference. I expect that we are going to rediscover old wisdom and that many solutions will come from the past but in a modern jacket, as it is already happening. Money will make a difference, too. There is plenty of it around. All it will take is some effort. 

Succeeding will also require humility and cooperation. Nobody knows everything and nobody can solve all the problems on their own. Engaging in a positive and constructive dialogue is what will shift the conversation from a sterile win-lose debate into a win-win vision.

You can read more about my thoughts and views about the future of food and farming on my website blog and my books. 

I thank you for your attention and I wish you a fruitful session.

Copyright 2021 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Ecological accounting vs. financial

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When it comes to sustainability, the debate always shifts to the respective weights of money, people and environment. As we all know, these three areas are always tricky to reconcile. Here, I am going to give my views on why that is. In fact, it is not that difficult to understand. It comes down to the concept of externalities that I have addressed many times in previous posts. You can see the list of all these posts at this link I am really amazed how absent this term of externalities is from conversations about sustainability and about the future, because externalities are the very cornerstones that will determine our future. Talking about sustainability without mentioning and digging into externalities is purely and simply a useless exercise. Externalities being the long-term effects of human activities, it really raises the issue of the me/here/now vs. the others/somewhere else/later. This simple statement sums up the dilemma about both future and sustainability. In my opinion, not talking about externalities when addressing sustainability and future comes down to not taking the topic very seriously. Another area of discussion that I do not hear enough is the idea of closing the loops. Our materialistic consumption society based on always more has grown by opening the loops and ignoring externalities. To have a future we must close the loops again. The discrepancy between the me/here/now and the others/somewhere else/later is another expression of that.

To clarify, just have a look at the picture below. I compare Nature’s accounting with man-made financial accounting. I believe it makes everything much clearer. The way humans have organized their financial accounting is about having a snapshot of the financial situation of an organization or of an individual. Since it is a snapshot it is limited in time. We look at the financial situation over a defined period (week, month, quarter or year). As it is a snapshot, it is frozen at a particular moment. A few minutes later, another snapshot would show a different financial situation. Everyone who has had to do some accounting knows that. We allocate things in certain ways, most of which are arbitrary and dealt with just to make sure the snapshot looks good. It is just like having a portrait taken. Accounting makes sure that the subject is showing its best profile and under the nicest light possible. But because of this moment frozen in time, man-made financial accounting is of a linear nature, which also fits very well, or at least accommodates itself quite well with a system in which the loops have been broken open. Financial accounting, as its names tells, is about money and money only. The social and human balance-sheet does not appear in there, and neither does the impact on the environment. They are externalities. They are matters that are neither limited in time, nor linear and which are way beyond money only. Just imagine how things would look different if instead of our current currencies, we all shared one same currency, which would be CO2. Just think what it might do for the way we internalize the environmental externalities.

That is what Nature kind of does. Our little accountant bee from the picture could tell us more about that. Nature’s accounting is not based on a snapshot, it is an ongoing process. It is not a photograph, but it is a movie! And a very long one that has no beginning and no end. What can be more circular than that? And to be this circular is must have closed loops all interacting with each other. That is how Nature works. Humans, on the contrary, look at accounting of organizations as independent units from each other. The interactions are not factored in. There is no comprehensive accounting for the entire system, which makes each organization focus only on itself and leaves the others deal with their own. Human accounting limits co-responsibility and collaboration on our long-term impacts.

Instead of practicing creative accounting, Nature’s loops just constantly rebalance themselves. Nature works according to the most fundamental market liberalism there is. If something is out of balance, it readjusts itself. If that means that some populations see their numbers being decimated, so be it. That is the price of rebalancing life with resources. It is brutal but it is highly sustainable. Nature’s does not print money, does not maintain an imbalance for the sake of not affecting populations. Nature does not play musical chairs with its economy, as we do. For example, in financial accounting, there is always the game of improving the working capital for the closing date of the fiscal year, one part of this being to postpone payments to suppliers for just after the end of the fiscal year, but try to get the customers to pay their bills before the end of that fiscal year. That way, the working capital is lower and the numbers look better. That is the beautiful portrait snapshot approach I mentioned earlier. What we do with working capital, we do with externalities, too. We try to pass the inconvenient hot potato to others. In man-made economy, we also fight “natural’ market forces as much as we can. And even liberal capitalistic countries who champion free-market economy do this. Just see how much money has been printed pumped and into the economy after the subprime crash of 2007-2008. Just see how much money has been printed and pumped into the economy to deal with Covid-19, just to try to keep the economy (herewith I mean the GDP) afloat as much as possible. Just also look at all the subsidies of all sorts to keep systems running while they have no future, and the food and agriculture sector is no stranger to that. In our consumption society system, we have done nothing else than subsidize activities that produce negative externalities, and we can read “subsidizing” as actually “rewarding”. While Nature rebalances to function at the lowest energy level possible, we fight the rebalancing with the highest energy level possible. Should we really be surprised that this cannot go on?

Actually, human economy and its financial accounting do not work in parallel with its ecological counterpart. All the money we print to support our gigantic consumption levels is nothing but a loan that we take at Nature’s bank. All that printed money is used to use (well deplete and burn mostly) natural resources, while we have not earned that money, which is actually the right to use these resources. On top of that (literally), with broken-open loops, we pile up mountains of waste with the resources we deplete. Breaking the loops is not one problem, but it consists of two problems. One is running out of useful resources, the other is accumulating waste that kills us. We do this for the “me, here and now” and just like we play with working capital, we play the exact same game between generations. The generations that have benefited from this world of abundance are playing musical chairs with the following generations. The former do not want to factor the externalities in their lifestyle and just pass them on to their children and grand children. This is why, in terms of environmental impact, we are using resources much faster than we should. The problem is that Nature’s patience is not unlimited (here, read “resilience” for “patience”). It is a matter of time before Nature’s is going to ask us to pay the interest. The boomers won’t pay the interest. They leave it to their offspring. Nobody wants to take ownership of the externalities. It has become part of our culture. It is only fair for the young ones to push back now. They have started realizing that they are going to be left with the bill to pay, possibly in a system where Nature’s approach to economy will be stronger than the man-made system.

My purpose is not to depress you, although we all know that we are running out of time and climatic events certainly are cause for perplexity, to put it mildly. There are not many ways to rebalance our environmental impact. The most important is to reduce waste, which means reducing consumption volumes, From the 3 Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle), Reduce is not popular because it means lower GDP and our politicians and economists freak out at that thought. At least, reuse and recycle leave some hope for GDP. Even the word Recession is unbearable. It is now called the R-word instead. As a society leader, if you cannot say the word recession and accept that it happens once in a while, because recessions are good, they are like slimming down after the excesses of Thanksgiving and Christmas, to get back in better shape, you have no place as a leader. Actually, you are a liability to society.

We are seeing more and more attempts to internalize the externalities. Unfortunately, they are always referred as taxes, which is another word that nobody wants to hear. So much for the quote “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”. Perhaps, it is no wonder that we see an increase in incivility. To make our world sustainable, which means having a future, we cannot keep the same economics as now. Then, we must change the economics. We must change the way profit is built up. We must change the way we organize taxes. Money always talks and people will always welcome change if they make more money. Considering the amount of money printed, as I mentioned above, we clearly have the ability to put money at work to solve the challenges that we are facing. Yet, everybody seems to wish that when the Covid-19 problem is behind us we can revert to where it was before the virus hit us. Why on earth should we revert to a system we know leads to disaster? There was a great opportunity for our leaders to organize a shift of economics for before and after the pandemic, by putting money at work to create a healthier economy. No, most of that money has gone to the stock markets instead. We are missing an opportunity to change economics. We are missing an opportunity to reward good behaviour while penalizing damaging activities. Money talks and rewards are even more important than penalties to get acceptance for change. People always manage to dodge penalties and they do not cooperate. Opposite to that, people love rewards and cannot get enough of them. Not only do not they dodge rewards, they actively look for more. Here is a sadly underused potential: more rewards for good behaviour! As we can see, the solution lies in our behaviour and how we want to deal with adversity. This is quite important to underline. Technology alone will not deliver much if we do not want to change. Those who say otherwise are just salespeople trying to make some bucks. If we think that technology will do the work for us, while we do not make efforts to succeed, like spoiled lazy brats waiting for their parents to clean up their bedrooms, we just as well can cut the charade right now and accept the fact that Nature will go on but without us. The planet will be fine, no need to feel self-important by claiming to save it. What we need to save it humanity and life.

Copyright 2021 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Happy Holidays!

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Time flies and 2019 is coming to an end. For me, it has been a good year. I have had very interesting assignments with really great organizations and people. From that perspective, 2019 might very well have been the most interesting of my 10 years as “The Food Futurist”. I am also in the process of launching another venture: The Sensible Gourmet (see at the end of this posting to have a glimpse of what I have in mind).

The end of the year is always a good time to reflect as things slow down and almost everyone is taking a break. The end of the year is also the time of COP conferences. For 25 years, world leaders have gathered to do I am not sure what. This year was no different, or maybe it was after all. Previous years always saw the same theatrics at play: disagreements, slight extension and a miraculous last minute non-binding agreement but at least some sheet of paper that would make us believe that it is worth organizing the next conference. This time, this did not even happen. Santa did not bring a shred of hope. Of course, many will blame politicians for the failure. I do it too because it is easy. Yet, should the politicians be the ones to blame? After all, we have the leaders we deserve and we either chose them or let them take that position. Is it that they could not agree or is it possible that there might be a different reason and perhaps a much more sinister one than their being poor leaders? As a highly empathetic person, I always like to try to put myself in the other side’s shoes and even play devil’s advocate. I am sure that they, and their advisers, are all aware of all the reports about climate change and the many challenges that we face. They cannot be that ignorant and stupid. I believe that their problem is not so much about finding agreements as it is about finding workable solutions. We have to be realistic. Even though technology and innovation will bring solutions, our problem is not as much of a technical nature as it is of a behavioral nature. As a futurist, no day that passes by without crossing paths with news of technology and innovation. Purely from a technical point of view, we already have all the technologies to fix all the problems, and we will have more technologies coming our way. The problem is that most of them are not financially competitive, or not competitive yet. One of the reasons is that we have not and still do not include externalities (a very important concept that I have addressed regularly in this blog, books and conferences) in the cost of the goods we produce and consume. That additional cost can be included through regulations and fiscal incentives or penalties, but it takes time. If technical solutions face a financial challenge, so does our behavioral problem. We overconsume, and to add insult to injury, we waste a lot. We waste, energy, water, food, resources, clothing, electronics,  etc… You name it and you can be sure that we waste a lot of it. Reducing waste will mean a relative slowdown in production and therefore an industrial slowdown, and the same thing is true if we decide to consume less. The “3 Rs” have different impacts from a production capacity and thus economic point of view, at least as long as we rate our economies from a quantitative growth point of view instead of a qualitative growth point of view. One of the Rs, recycling, is popular. Why is that? Recycling means that the only thing to change is the source of raw materials. From that perspective, industrial production processes hardly would have to change. It gives an impression that the system would not have to change much, and we know how much we tend to dislike change, regardless of what we say. It is always OK for others to undergo the change but when it hits us personally, it is a different story. Just look at all the demonstrations a bit everywhere around the world to realize the validity of my point. A second one of the Rs, reuse, although less popular is not perceived as too much of a threat. After all, it does not imply a reduction of industrial activity, and the growth of population would mitigate the stagnation. Then, there is the third R, the one that we mention but we would resent from a quantitative growth point of view: reduce. The word says it all: it implies a shrinking of the economy, at least the current economic model. Our economic system is about always more. Reduce goes in the opposite direction. Yet, from an environmental point of view, it is probably the only effective approach. The Great Recession of 2008 was a period when actually, greenhouse gas emissions were showing some change of trend, because consumption was slowing down. “Reduce” works, indeed. A couple of months ago, I read an article from The Guardian and it basically said that the best way to save our future was to stop buying stuff. I agree, and I believe that it is true but how to do that and not end up in a major economic depression? It comes down to have a transition plan, and we do not have that and I wonder if we have any idea of how to do that.

Because of the financial lag for better alternatives, jumping ships without a proper transition would result in short-term economic hardship and politicians do not want that. They want happy people. And people do not want that, either. They do not want to lose their jobs, and politicians know that, too. Who is willing to volunteer to lose their livelihood to save the environment? Nobody wants to do that of course, unless there is some compensation. Just as politicians do, all individuals try to protect themselves from adversity. It is just human nature. How to transcend the fear of loss into a desire for sacrifice, because sacrifice there will be? The question is just when and who. What is needed to answer this question are 1) a conviction that it is meaningful and useful and 2) a sense of hope for the long term. In an increasingly individualistic world, this is difficult to make happening because it requires altruism. One might think that the Holiday Season is the perfect time to ponder about altruism, but that spirit has become a nostalgic thought, really. Nowadays, Christmas is about buying more stuff. The causes of our future challenges are behavioral and collective, and therefore so are the solutions. We may blame the politicians because finding scapegoats takes away some of the guilt from ourselves, but we allowed those politicians to be where they are and we all (well many of us) want always more, so each of us really are responsible twice for the problem. And since we are all responsible, we all have to bring our share of the solution. Waiting for others to do it for us won’t cut it. Doing nothing is not really an option. In the end, the choice is simple: willing to make sacrifices today or having to make much tougher sacrifices soon.

I can understand that reducing consumption might not always be easy but reducing waste is. I have made a comparison between the Canadian average (since I live in Canada) and my household on a per capita basis. In my home, we generate 87% less garbage going to the landfill, waste 99.9% less food, use about 70% less water (and I have a garden and little vineyard that I need to irrigate!), use about half of gas and electricity of the per capita Canadian average. I will give you that I always have been a frugal type but I live quite comfortably. All it takes is a bit of discipline, some organization and planning, simple common sense and some basic sense of money, because reducing waste and consumption saves quite a bit of money that we can use for more useful things.

Perhaps, there is hope after all. All the companies that I follow on LinkedIn post many articles and announcements about how sustainable they are or will be soon. Of course, they must deliver and their claims must be true. Because, it is the holiday season, I will do as if I believe all of what they say. In the meantime, I am going to start thinking of how I will treat my family with a nice Christmas Eve’s dinner. One of my predictions is that cooking and home economics will make a strong comeback because it (meaning proper cooking) helps reducing food waste, it helps making healthier meals, it saves tons of money, has many social benefits and is among the nicest things a human being can offer to his loved ones. It is good for people, the environment and for the wallet. Cooking is going to be one of the most sophisticated skills to show around. Wait and see!

My idea for the dinner is (you’ll have to look up a few things because it is French):

  • Smoked salmon on toast with a shallot and dill sauce
  • Duck magrets (fillets) in a cherries, honey, port and balsamic sauce accompanied with Sarladaise potatoes and mixed vegetables
  • A chocolate “Bûche de Noël”
  • Accompanied with a selection of the wines I make from my vineyard

Enjoy your time with your loved ones and see you again in 2020!

Copyright 2019 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Food wasted is money wasted

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For a change, here is something slightly different than my previous posts. I believe it is an eye opener, though. I have published this article on a new blog that I have started recently, and that I would like to introduce here. The blog is still in the beta phase but shows a strong start. Its name is The Sensible Gourmet. It is more focused on good food, as I like to prepare it at home, sensible nutrition and home economics. My purpose is to show that anyone can make great healthy meals worth of a good French restaurants for just a few dollars. I believe that sooner or later, there will be interesting synergies between both websites. Without further ado, here is the article:

Since it has been making headlines in the mainstream media for some time, you must have heard about it. It is estimated that about a third of all food produced in the world is not eaten and wasted. Recently, I was reading that Canadian households throw about half the food they buy in the garbage. This is bad economics. Here are simple figures to make my point.

You might remember the campaign a few years ago about the challenge of making $5 meals. Those were the days of the Great Recession of 2008 when some people discovered that economy is not always up and economic hardship made them realign their priorities. But time goes by and with economic recovery, being money-savvy has become boring again and who does still care about the $5 meal challenge today? You can see in the text of my Gallery page that all the great dishes I photographed cost even (much) less than $5, so not much of a challenge if you actually can cook and have a good sense of money. So, I will take $5 for a meal per person and with two meals a day that will be $10 per day per person.

Over a year that is $10 x 365 days = $3,650 dollar in food per person

Let’s take the world average of a third of food wasted: $3,650/3 = 1,217 dollars thrown away in the garbage per person per year.

If you take a household of two persons, that is $2,434 wasted per year. For a household of four, that is $4,868 per year. In the shameful case of the Canadian average of 50% (apparently, American and Australian households do not do much differently than the Canadians), these numbers become respectively $3,650 and $7,300 per household per year.

Another way of looking at the impact on household budget is to take the share of the food budget in the entire household budget. In Western countries, food represents roughly 10% of the household budget. Then, it is easy to see that 50% food waste represents 5% of the household income, and a third would represent 3.3% of the income.

Just as in my previous article about cooking in which I presented a calculation of how much money cooking can save you, you can see how much money you can save by not wasting food. That is free money that you can use to pay your mortgage or anything else useful to make your life better now or for the future.

These two examples, cooking at home and not wasting food, save literally thousands and thousands of dollars per year to your household, and the amazing thing is that this is YOUR money. You can make it work for you or join the legions of people struggling financially because of poor sense of home economics. This is easy money to keep on your bank account. All it takes to save this money is just some sense of organization in the kitchen and a bit of discipline.

After reading the article about the poor Canadian performance (I live in Canada), I did my own estimate of how much food I throw away, and I got to a figure less than 1%! Next to that, I compost all food scraps and I use the compost in my garden where I grow my own produce, which also saves me money and it is all produce free from any chemical whatsoever!

And when it comes to food waste, there is of course the issue of waste at the level of restaurants and retailers. Don’t hold your breath too much. I have heard about this problem for about 50 years and it clearly has not improved all that much despite the active communication campaigns when the issue makes the media headlines. I recently read that the US retailers Kroger and Walmart were re-evaluating their “ugly produce” concepts as they notice that consumers prefer to pick the pretty ones, which sounds like they might give it up. So much for social and environmental responsibility that we always hear so much about. When it comes to the $$$, then it is a different tune. There is a reason why there are different quality grades and why people make the choices they make. It is called market and price. It is also about knowledge and perception. it is also about store ownership. I can tell you this: when I was a kid, I used to go with my father on the market. We made sure that we would never throw anything away and that all our products would be sold by the end of the day. It required sensible planning and also the proper commercial thinking, which sometimes included to adjust the pricing on slow days. Money always talks to customers. it also talks to business owners. Trust me when it is your money that is in the business, you look at it quite differently than when it is someone else’s.

Copyright 2019 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Why we are not solving the climate challenge

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The latest report on climate change published last week was not cheerful. Instead of making progress towards the goals, it appears that we are off course and actually deviating further away. None of the G20 countries will achieve their goals. The world has had plenty of notice and time to act, but clearly success is further away than before, but probably less so than next year and the years after. Why is it so difficult to do the right thing, then? Well, there are a number of reasons for this and this does not bode well. Here they are, in no particular order.

Reason #1: We are not scared, yet

Whenever a devastating climatic event hits us, it is not really perceived as a threat for those who have not been affected. Like any dramatic piece of news, people read about it, think how terrible it is for a few moments and then move on and forget. It is a bit like car accidents. Everyone thinks that it won’t happen to them. Even if you are a good driver, you never know when a bad one will cross your path, and it is the exact same thing with climate. The consequences do not stay within the borders of the countries that produce emissions. It takes only one bad neighbour to spoil it for everybody. The consequences go all over to the neighbours just as well. In my book We Will Reap What We Sow, I addressed the denial and procrastination by making a comparison with Pharaoh in the movie The Ten Commandments by saying that the leaders of the world may pay attention when their first born will be killed in such a natural disaster and just like in the movie, they might grieve for some time and then decide to taunt fate again. I believe that is exactly where we are heading.

Next to that, as long as insurances are willing to cover the damage, a false illusion of protection will still exist. Be assured that if insurers decided to not cover climate change related damages, the debate would change rather quickly. Last summer, there was a wildfire rather close to my place. It was the second year on a row that the region had been hit by forest fires. I can tell you that this time, considering the location and the direction and strength of the wind, I was seriously worried. We were lucky and the fires were eventually contained. We had to breathe very smoky air for weeks and our air quality was worse than Beijing or Delhi, though. In my opinion, we should be a bit more scared by what is going on than we currently are.

It is difficult to scare people by talking about just a couple of degrees in 80 years from now. Presented in those terms, it sounds benign. That, too, is part of the procrastination problem. We need to hear where there is going to be devastation, how big it will be and how much it will cost. If the problem is big and serious, it must sound that way.

Reason #2: We have no real vision for a different, better world

It is nice to look at alternative energies and all sorts of innovations, but they will not happen unless the numbers (meaning the $$$) work out well. That is the problem. Technically, everything is possible. We could replace fossil fuels rather quickly but the economics as stated today do not stimulate change. To change the economics, it would be nice to start by stopping subsidizing the disaster, but we do not do that. The problem with climate a change and economics is that there is a simple reality: it will cost money and we all will have to pay a share. The worst part about this is that the longer we wait to invest in our future, the more expensive it will get.

But beyond the boring money concerns, what we need is a vision of our future world. How will it look like? How will people be able to have a decent standard of living (oops, money matters again)? What are the jobs of the future and which ones will disappear? Will it be a safe or dangerous world? There are many questions to answer if we want to create good will for change. There is no such thing as fear of change as such. Fear of change is actually the fear of loss. What I might lose is the primary concern. To alleviate this concern, clear and reliable vision is a prerequisite, and we do not have any at this moment. There is too much focus on problems and not enough on solutions. Without a vision that speaks to people, there is no reason why they should get excited about change.

Reason #3: There is no plan

Since there is no clear and strong vision, there cannot be a plan. When it comes to climate change, all we hear is an abstract-sounding target of limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees maximum, even though it sounds specific. What does that mean concretely for our daily lives, starting today? Who is supposed to do what and by when? All the climate agreements have been non-binding, which means that, in terms of determination, they compare with the average person’s New Year’s resolutions. It is obvious why the agreements are non-binding. If they were, there is not one single country who would commit. Countries have goals. It almost sounds like a plan, except that the goals are not really specific. Indeed, which sectors of society, business, governments and non-governmental organizations are supposed to do what? Does any industry have goals to achieve? Not really. Look at the car industry. Since the economy runs better, they have decided to stop the production of small cars and focus on larger cars, mostly SUVs and trucks, which consume more fuel  than the smaller sedans. Why? Just because the profit margin on larger vehicles is higher. At least, during the Great Recession of 2008 and the following years, when gas prices were much higher and the economy was hurting, sales of small economical cars were out performing the big gas guzzlers. Maybe economic hardship is what is needed to fix the problem. We just never really learn, it seems. Let’s face it, we have no plan and everybody does what is in his/her best interest, or just suits them best, on the short term.

If we and all the leaders in all sectors of society had a plan, there would be clear instructions about what is required from us. Nobody is giving instructions to people like me about how I should and could reduce my environmental footprint. There is a lot of PR and marketing, though, but the underlying message from businesses is really the same as before: buy as much goods as you can from me. It is all about volume, while the solution is to replace volume to shift from always more to always enough.

The most important part of the plan would be the transition plan. Setting targets without defining all the concrete practical steps and how to measure progress is rather pointless. How do we get from situation A to situation B? How long does it take and how do we ensure progress? Let me know if you know because I do not see anything of the kind.

Reason #4: There is no collective coordination

Besides the goals, a good plan would indicate clearly what the respective responsibilities are of all organizations and individuals. It would be clear what the contribution of each entity needs to be. This is essential for a plan and in particular for the transition plan. Since we are all in this together, success is about team work. Everybody must be motivated, must believe it is the right thing to do and participate. How many of you have received clear goals and a mandate to participate?

Yes, we can fix the problem. We did fix the hole in the ozone layer, didn’t we? We also fixed acid rains, didn’t we? How did we do that? Simply by defining very clear and specific goals and allocating them clearly. The team knew what to do, who had to do what… and they did it. Regarding climate change, we are just 25 years late. Countries reject the blame on each other instead of finding good agreements on how to fairly solve the problems and help each other out of trouble.

Reason #5: We prefer to blame than to fix

As I mentioned earlier, emissions from one country travel all around the Earth. Eventually, we all own and share all emissions, not just the ones we create. We are collectively responsible and the problem can be solved only collectively. That is tricky in a world where individualism spreads everywhere. The result is that we focus much more on who is to blame than on fixing the problem. We have limited time to fix the problem, but once it is fixed, we will have ample time to figure out who was to blame if we think it is a useful way to spend time.

Let’s face it, everyone who indulges in the consumption society is to blame, but of course, as Jean Paul Sartre wrote “Hell is the others”. Unfortunately, we have created a society in which we all feel so entitled to pretty much everything; we have lost the sense of what the value of things really is. Our entire economic system is about more for me here and now. Of course, changing this philosophy will not be easy because to fix the problem is going about to give up something and that is tough. Of course, we can choose not to act and Mother Nature is going to fix it for us. I suspect that then all the consumption aficionados will turn to their mother (nature) and say angrily that is it not fair and that they hate her. That is always how it goes when mommy decide to clean the little one’s messy bedroom. So who will fix it:  we or Mother Nature? The choice is ours.

Reason #6: Short term prevails

This is a basic human nature trait. The short-term always comes first, before the long-term. It is certainly interesting to try to bring a message of responsibility about future generations but the human animal is not wired that way. Only very few people are truly altruistic and have the willingness to give up their own interest. The only way to get people to have a balanced approach between the short term and the long term is by creating a trade off that is worth it. Here, the key word is trade. If we want people to give some of their short-term comfort for future generations, we must give them something in return. Give and take is a very basic human characteristic, too. So what can we trade off? Let’s not be naive, what will work is always something of a material nature, in particular money. As time runs out, there is not much time for cute negotiations. We are going to have to bribe the current generations to do something for the future ones. It is just that simple. Of course, somebody is going to have to pay for it. My guess is that it will be all of us, present and future. There is no real alternative to that, and it is time we all realize this it is what it is going to be.

Reason #7: Lame leadership

I wish I did not have to say that, but it is truly part of the problem. Our leaders are not really leading when it comes to climate change. As I mentioned earlier, they have not presented a vision of where our world is going and how our lives, private and professional, will be in the coming decades. They have no detailed specific plan to transition to the future and they do not have the gut to enforce change. They mostly give lip service. I understand that. When you have to face elections every so many years, you do not want to upset the voters. You do not want to put their jobs at risk and you do not want to cause a recession or worse. That, too, is very human. But the job of governing is not about trying to please all the time. Just as there is a difference between being friends and being parents, there is a difference between being a head of state and being a demagogue. In exceptional times, tough decisions come with the territory. As a leader, if you cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen! Being a leader is first of all to take good care of your followers so that they can make it to the destination. Communication is a crucial part of leadership, especially when it comes to change. A leader must explain what must change, how it must change and what it will take to succeed. There is never enough communication about change. It is the only way of making it sink in the people’s minds. They have to get acquainted with the idea and they also must be part of the conversation to develop a sense of ownership of where things are going. About the climate change issue, the communication has been insufficient by far. This lack of communication is largely responsible for the lack of trust in politicians and why the people think their leadership is disconnected with the reality of their daily lives and concerns. Leaders must reassure people. Instead, they too often worry them. Other important thing to mention is that every society has the leaders it deserves.

Reason #8: There are powerful opponents

Not everybody is pleased with the potential change that the climate change challenges are calling for. This is the main reason why they work hard to discredit the scientists who report about their findings. As I said earlier, fear of change is really about fear of loss and the climate change deniers are no different than the average man about that, even when they happen to be millionaires or higher. What are they afraid to lose? Well, it is always about the same: money. Either because they would have to accept higher costs of operation or possibly seeing their business die or simply lose their jobs and livelihoods. I can understand such a fear when the person in question could lose his/her job and not find employment easily and land into financial hardship. I find it much more difficult to understand that from billionaires who have nothing to worry about in terms of financial security. Actually, I would expect from true captain of industries that they see opportunities in new business activities and venture into them for both their benefit and society’s. Perhaps, it depends if they are billionaires by hard work or just by birth.

Reason #9: We are addicted to materialism

The so-called consumption society has been acting like a drug dealer in a way. Most people are so hooked on buying stuff that they can’t stop. The banks have contributed greatly to the problem but lending money too easily so that people who cannot afford stuff can go to the mall and buy just like the rest. The flip side of this addiction is that withdrawal is not easy. Everything is about tempting the client. It is not just businesses that lure consumers but peer pressure joins into pushing people into buying more stuff. Perhaps, it is easy for me to say this because I must have some sort of a temptation resistance gene. Marketing leaves me completely cold and I buy something only if I need it, not because someone wants to sell it to me. My wife calls me a minimalist. I am not sure what that means but maybe I am. All I know is that I live happily and I do not have any creditor breathing in my neck. Along with this personality trait of mine, I also have no problem making sacrifices if needed. I can wait to buy something. In a way, my motto could be “if you don’t need it don’t buy it/if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it”.

About climate change, sacrifice will be part of the game one way or another. I believe that it will be quite useful to realize that life cannot be about instant gratification all the time and that happiness can be found through many other ways than through buying “stuff”. Of course, such an approach is going to conflict with our dominant economic model.

Reason #10: The economy and financial system is all about growth

All our economy revolves around always more. In a finite world, it is just a matter of time before such a model comes to an end. In biology, there is a distinction between growth and development. And it is a very important distinction.  I believe that when it comes to economy and finance, the distinction between the two terms has blurred out and it might very well be the root of a misunderstanding that might prove very costly in the future. I am all for development, but I have mixed feelings about growth. As an example, I would mention an animated graph that has been circulating recently on social media about the variation of GDP per country between 1961 and 2017. It is a cute animation, but I do not find it all that interesting because the GDP depends for a part of the size of the population. A graph showing the GDP per capita would have been a better indication of the wealth of the inhabitants of the different countries, although an average does not say much about distribution. I also would have preferred to see a graph showing the distribution of that wealth with the people of the countries, as this would be a good indication of whether the countries takes good care of their people or not. I also would have liked to see the graph with the ratio debt/GDP and deficit/GDP. I suspect those graphs would have told very interesting stories. For a country, the GDP is just the same as what the sales revenue is for a business. It is not a particularly good indicator of the profit or of cash-flow.

Growth is also the magic word for stock markets, and in particular of the share price. Since the entire financial system is locked in stocks directly and indirectly, any stock market crash will affect everyone, because even people who do not own stocks depend on the markets (just think of how deep in stocks some pension plans are).

This is why the climate is tricky to handle because if company stocks from environmentally damaging companies or industries crash, the entire system can potentially implode. The best way to prevent this would be to have a plan, and in particular a transition plan ready so that company could transition smoothly and thus avert a market crash, but we haven’t got that. As we all know, there is a lot of short-term activity on stock markets and there, too, short-term prevails over long-term. Speaking of short term, CEOs have to present their results quarterly to financial analysts. Compare that with elections only every 4 or 5 years!

Reason #11: We are increasingly disconnected from Nature

This is a consequence of how our societies and economies have evolved since the first Industrial Revolution. Today’s most obvious consequences are mass production and mass consumption, which relocated human populations from rural and agricultural areas into urban centers and the trend, continues. There are a couple of generations who have never really been in much contact with Nature. Surveys for city people about where they think food comes from are always revealing. In particular, with animal products, it is amazing to see how many people do not make a connection between eggs and hens or between milk and cows, or even between a live animal and its meat. I strongly believe that when we lose the connection with nature, we also lose a sense of where we come from and what we are about. If we do not understand how Nature works, it is difficult to respect it and when we do not understand our biological nature, we also lose respect for life. Unfortunately, we look at ourselves less and less as biological entities and more and more as legal entities. This trend worries me.

In a way, the so-called primitive societies (which I am less and less sure that they were that primitive at all) had a strong respect and fear for the forces of Nature. The term Mother Nature that I have used above is reminiscent from this respect and fear. We would not mess with it because we understood that we could be punished. Once the connection with Nature fades, the punishment part fades too. Then, we are just too happy to take and not give back and this is a serious mistake. Sustainability and circular economy are all about giving back so that the cycle can continue. This part we tend to have forgotten and this is why we shifted away from always enough to always more and that we will have to revert to the original concept because always more is not sustainable but always enough is. Here is your challenge!

Reason #12: We put too much faith in technology

Understand me well, I am all for technology and innovation. That said, technology is only as good as how we use it. I have mentioned in earlier articles how important this subtle distinction is. I am convinced that as of today we already have all the technology we need to mitigate climate change and have happy lives. So, why don’t we solve the problem? Once again the magic word is: money. For many of these technological solutions, the economics do not favour them, but favour the current destructive system. A part of the problem is in the allocation of where subsidies go. We encourage non-sustainable systems to survive while we do not reward enough sustainable solutions. Another important aspect of whether technology can help us overcome the challenges lies in our behaviour and that is independent of technology. Technology can only help us if we want to help ourselves first. Keeping our same bad habits of wasting and overconsumption and hoping that some new technology is going to clean the mess for us without us having to make any effort of any sort is completely delusional, not to say completely immature. There cannot be any solution if we do not change ourselves. I could paraphrase both Einstein’s quote saying that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result and Ghandi’s saying that we must be the change we want to see.

Copyright 2018 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Running out of time or simply not running at all?

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Last week, the UN had a message. We must take unprecedented action if we want to avert a catastrophe because of rising temperatures. The tone is pessimistic, and we all should be, too. We have had warning after warning and let’s face it, we have not done much to really address the challenge. It kind of reminds me that episode from The West Wing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RzF-Wg2g-k (the interesting bit starts at time point 1:00). It is not that concerns about modern technology and so-called progress are new. We knew long before there even were COP conferences, the Kyoto agreement or Al Gore’s Inconvenient truth. Sixty years ago, In 1958, the American (ironic isn’t it, considering the current US views on climate change) movie The Unchained Goddess was already warning about what was coming (see it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ph_7C1Jq4 – duration 55 minutes). Sixty years ago, I was not born yet. All that time, we have chosen to not think about it and mortgage the future (possible bankrupt it) for the sake of short-term fun and I guess trying to be cool in some way.

The thing with procrastination is that the longer we wait to take action (and we already have procrastinated more than long enough), the steeper the hill on which we will have to fight the battle. The longer we wait, the more expensive it will be, but I suppose we all think it is someone else who will pay. I consider highly likely that the consequence of that will be a triple bottom line crisis: environmental, social/human and financial (The 1929 Great Depression will look like a holiday camp in comparison). That is my prediction. I am thrifty and cautious on predictions but history tells me that I tend to have a talent for predictions.

There has been and there is no shortage of conferences. You know those places where the self-proclaimed elite meet in obscenely luxurious surroundings enjoying a good time with plenty of good food and drinks. I wrote in an article a few years ago that the “deciders” (who never really decide anything that involves their accountability and commitment) should carry out their negotiations in a locked room without food, water and energy and be released only when they have done their work. I still think it is a good idea, although I have absolutely no expectations that it will ever happen. Well, except when Mother Nature is going to take charge of that.

The question now is: are we going to take unprecedented action? The answer is easy: NO. The obvious clue is that the news lived for about 3 days on the media websites and was not even the main headline. It gives a feeling of humankind is on the brink of extinction, but there are more important news. Perhaps. Clearly, not many people really care. Now that the economic crisis of 10 years ago seems to be a thing of the past (psst: beware it is coming back) and gas prices have been back to lower levels than a decade ago (psst again: they are rising again), car manufacturers have focused their production on the gas guzzlers again. Bigger cars that satisfy the fragile egos of males with insecurity issues in the downtown area is what sells. Well it sells because smaller, more efficient cars do not generate enough margin in comparison, and therefore are not going to be produced. Have you noticed how cars never get mentioned as a problem for climate change? No! Cars are fine and the more they consume, the better it seems to be, not to mention the decisions from the USA to pretty much eliminate anything that tried to alleviate the problem. Apparently, the real problem is agriculture and especially the cows. Those damn cows have been sneakily waiting their hour to take their revenge and finally free eradicate humankind by farting. OK, I will drop the cheap sarcasm. It is true that agriculture contributes to the problem, but I resent agriculture being singled out this simplistically. I will get back about this in a next article.

Agriculture is like most industries. It has evolved from mixed systems in which its by-products where reused and recycled on the farms. As one of my teacher at the Agricultural University used to say: animal production has moved from making high-value protein and fat from cheap food scraps to making cheap fat and protein from high-value feed ingredients. The loops have been open and food production moved from a circular system into a linear one in which by-products are considered useless and thrown away and replaced at the input area by their “replacement” produced with much resources and energy. The good news in this is since we knew how to have a circular food and agriculture, we can revert to it. The only problem is… $$$. The industrialization of agriculture led to much more affordable foods, just like most other industries that enjoy the so-called consumption society, which is actually a transaction society. Sellers do not really care if you even actually use their products. They just want you to buy again and again. This economic system is purely production-driven and linear: large volumes from large capacity units to keep costs low. The problem is this picture is that never ever are the collateral long-term costs taken in the cost break down. These negative externalities, as they are called, are never factored in the accounting and of course never addressed at the quarterly financial reports. There is no true circular economy without factoring externalities in the costs. Here is a note for the young readers, if you have been reading this far without falling asleep with my drivel: you, my poor friends, are the ones who are going to foot the bill of externalities that your parents and grandparents are leaving behind. They are the lucky ones because they have lived in obscene abundance on credit and you are the ones who will pay the interest. Unfortunately for you, Mother Nature (from whose bank the interest will come) does not do bailouts. She does not do politics or BS either. She does not print currency. Mother Nature is a ruthless accountant that believes not in liberalism or socialism or whatever dogma humans have invented to give a meaning to their lives. Mother Nature only lives by immutable laws of physics. Mother Nature is kind, though because she sends us message after message to warn us. We, on the other end, we act like squatters who do not even look in the mailbox to go through the unpaid bill reminders or threats of eviction notices. I hate to bring it to the young ones, but your life is going to be quite different than what you parents and grandparents have enjoyed. I am not a spring chicken anymore, but not really old (at least, that what I like to tell myself), and I am sure that I am going to face a very different world in the coming decades. For me, too, the good times are going to fade out. At least I will have had some. I suppose I could complain that it is not fair to me because I live quite a simple and frugal life and my environmental footprint is low. It won’t matter because life is not fair, and that is a fact of life. If everyone were like me, Wall Street would crash in less time than it takes to type “Wall Street”. I spend very little. I drive about 5,000 km per year and walk or bike every time I can. I repair instead of replacing every time I can, although it is not easy. Yep, I know how to repair socks, believe it or not, and I do it when it is needed. I cook all my meals and as you can see on my good food page, I eat quite well. I have a garden that produces a large chunk of my produce yearly needs. I can and preserve the summer surpluses. I make my own bread, and I also make my own wines. I have a little vineyard out of which I am going to make 6 different types this year. I have a small car because I need one, since I live in a rural area, but it unlike my neighbors who seem to need big engines, my little mules runs a gentle 5 liters/100 km (or if you prefer 47 miles per gallon). Speaking of fossil fuel, I am also the only one in the neighborhood who uses a broom instead of a gas-engine blower and uses a push mower instead of a gas-engine lawn mower, and the funny thing is that I do the job faster than my neighbors and much more quietly, which is a bonus. Another bonus is that it keeps me fit. I have a six-pack while my neighbors have beer kegs.

My point, I suppose, is that a good life is not about lots of stuff and/or being so afraid of missing out on something that you need to be addicted to consumption. Actually, the issue is not so much about consumption as it is about excesses, and the always more, as I have mentioned in previous articles (do a search in the window on top of this page), while we should strive to always enough. When you have enough, you are good every time. If you never have enough, perhaps it is time to reflect about why that is so.

Excessive consumption is only the visible part of the problem. The other –hidden- part is waste. And how wasteful are human beings. The amounts of resources, water, energy and food that are wasted are staggering. Earlier, I was mentioning my little car and my neighbors’ thirsty vehicles. On a same trip, at the same speed, I am sure that they consume between 2 and 3 times as much gas as I do. The extra gas consumption does not add anything to the outcome of the trip. Though, the result is that I use fewer resources, emit fewer gases than they do per mile, and most importantly of all: I spend between half and a third of the dollars at the pump. I have more money left for other things. Frugal pays off, big dividends.

A large part of the waste is truly a behavioral problem. Technology may help, but if behavior and attitude towards waste do not change at the same time, do not expect technology to save us. It won’t. Only WE can save ourselves, technology won’t, other people won’t. It comes down to the quote from Ghandi “Be the change you want to see in the world”. We want technology for a simple reason: we do not want to change because we are lazy and lack self-discipline.

Food waste has become a mainstream topic. I addressed it in my two books but it was before the UN addressed it. Sad that such a large organization with their resources could not figure that out before an independent guy like me working from his home office. I even had estimated the cost right. Can you imagine? Anyway and even with the higher profile the issue has received, they are a few waste issues that I never read about.

Obesity is presented as a health issue. It is, but it is also a major waste issue as well. Over consumption of calories that end up being stored in body fat are wasted calories. They serve no purpose, since the overweight people never really benefit from them, or when they die, the fat is buried under ground or cremated. Totally wasted calories that never fulfilled their purpose. In a world where, like in developed countries, people consume twice their nutritional needs in calories, fats and protein, feeding 9 or 10 billion people is not feeding 9 or 10 billion people; it is feeding 18 to 20 billion!

Other waste topic, I never read about (but I suspect I will in a few months from now) is also about fat: the fat in the meat that consumers cut off and throw away. The sad thing about fat in meat is that it requires much more energy for an animal to grow fat in its tissue than it requires to grow muscle. For the biochemists among you, the difference is fat requires two times as many ATP (Adenosine Tri Phosphates) to fix the same amount of fat than it does for muscle. ATP is the fuel used in mitochondria, the microscopic power plants inside our cells. Roughly, throwing fat away cost twice as much as throwing lean meat.

And what to say about food recalls? Food that is unfit for consumption gets destroyed and all the resources used along the entire value chain to produce have been wasted. It represents a lot more than just the tonnage of food that must go to destruction. I suspect the reason why we never connect the dots between the links of entire value chain is just because the different links of the chain are active within their own area. In a linear system, collateral waste and externalities are always someone else’s problem. In a circular system, it is everyone’s problem. It creates very different dynamics in terms of co-responsibility and solidarity and also willingness to act.

I hate waste, and in particular food waste. I am very rigorous in how I manage the foods I have at home. Unfortunately, it happens sometimes that something goes bad. It is rare, but it happens and it ticks me off beyond belief. Ask my wife about that! When that happens, I always cut out just what is not edible at all but no more than that. I will pinch little crumbs of bread out where the mold is and I eat the rest. Sometimes it does not taste great, but if I screwed up, it is only fair that I get some punishment for it. It never made me sick. All in all, I do not think that I waste even a pound of food a year, so I guess I am doing fine. Further, any organics, such as potato peels or even egg shells all end up in the compost that I use in my veggie garden. In town, we have a yard waste collection schedule from the municipality, but I hardly ever use it. I recycle all I can.

My conviction to meet the “unprecedented” efforts to curb the effect of climate change is to live a good but simple life. There is nothing that frustrates me more than those who oppose action on environment and jobs. They are not mutually exclusive. Actually they can work together, but the rules and laws need to change and integrate the externalities. Unfortunately, I do not see government leaders or business leaders even trying to get this done. After all, it is easier to pass it onto the next generation.

Trying to keep up with the Joneses or impress one’s little social circle with stuff is not my thing. Actually, moderation helps appreciate things better. Much better. Instead of wasting money on always more stuff, I prefer to buy quality stuff that lasts and to buy only when I need something. If I don’t need it, why should it clutter my home while not fulfilling any function? That is pretty stupid if you ask me. A long time ago, I posted on this blog an article titled “We will change or eating habits, one way or another”. You can be sure that sustainability, especially with a world population growing, is about “we will become frugal, one way or another”. Sustainability and excess do not match well. Be assured that Moderation is a key word if we want a prosperous future, and prosperity really is about inner harmony and happiness. Prosperity is not about more stuff; that is for empty people. The other key word for the future –and that is in stark contrast with our current philosophy of economy and of life is: Humility. How do we move from a world where so many of us use social media as their own narcissistic issue of People magazine in which they take center stage as self-proclaimed I-am-the center-of-the world-look at me? I venture for some time on Twitter and I left. I did not even try Facebook as soon as I got the form asking for personal information on my screen, and I think it was the smart thing to do.

So, will we make it? I believe the answer is the same as the one I gave to a journalist who was asking me if I thought we could feed the world in 2050: “Yes we can but it will take a terrifying crisis before we do what it takes”. I ended up Future Harvest with “we can but will we?” and We Will Reap What We Sow takes it from there. The cover has two halves: a prosperous farm field and a devastated barren land. I see many more signs that we are heading towards the latter, not the former. Maybe there is hope, though. Today, the Great Pumpkin said that he did not think climate change was a hoax after all.

Copyright 2018 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Changing economics to overcome future challenges

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First, a personal story

A year ago, I moved away from Vancouver to the Okanagan Valley Region some 300 miles east from Vancouver. There, I bought a property with a decent yard where I will have a garden and with a small vineyard. In some way, it is an illustration of what is necessary to foster sustainable practices. The parallel is obvious with some of the global challenges the world is facing and will continue to face in the future. For eight months of the year, the area looks and feels quite similar to the Mediterranean. Precipitations are not abundant with an annual quantity of only 337 mm. Clearly, water is scarce and needs to be preserved, even though an extensive system of lakes fed by mountain snow ensures an adequate supply of water. The region is quite agricultural with many orchards and vineyards, all thanks to irrigation. There are also many lawns in the area and the estimate is that about 25% of the water consumed in the region is just to keep the lawns green.

My plan is to install rain barrels to collect the water from rain and snow and use it for the yard. This is where the economics do not go in parallel with all the talk from politicians about sustainability. Around the house I would need five rain barrels. The lowest and best retail price I can find is of about $80 for a 200 liter barrel. To set up my water collection system, it will cost me $400 to provide me with a 1 cubic meter storage capacity. In comparison, the price for a cubic meter that the municipality charges for water is $0.30 per cubic meter. In the most ideal situation, that is if I were able to collect all the rain and snow through my five barrels, I would at most collect about 30 cubic meters per year. In money, it comes down to a saving of roughly $10 per year. To break even, I’d better hope that the barrels will last 40 years, which they might, but considering my current age, there is a fair chance I may have moved to a much smaller underground dwelling by then. Of course, my example is about quite a small investment and if the return is lousy, it will not change my life. At least, the barrels will help me save water.

The point of my story is that the comparison between cost and benefit would deter most people to consider buying rain barrels. It just does not make financial sense, if money is what matters. I always say that money talks and what it says here is to forget about being sustainable. One of my neighbours also considered installing solar panels on the roof of their house. After comparing the price of the panels plus installation and maintenance with the electricity savings, they discovered that it would last twice the life of the panels to break even. In terms of money, solar panels are a different kettle of fish than my five rain barrels. Recently I saw the price of a propane generator that produces 3650 watts for Canadian $350 while a solar panel that produces 100 watts is sold for Canadian $250. I can understand people decide to not pursue the solar option.

The economics of water and energy savings that I just described can be extrapolated to the much larger picture. All through the food and agriculture value chains, many changes for more sustainable systems face the same kind of dilemma. What makes sense from an environmental point of view often does not make sense financially in the current economic environment. Demanding more sustainable production system is quite legitimate and sensible, but the conditions must also be there to make it happen. The numbers have to add up for farmers and businesses to make the switch. As usual, money is of the essence and it can come from different sides.

First, the purchase price and the cost of operation of alternatives have to come down and be competitive. Either suppliers are able to drop their prices or offer more efficient systems. Governments also can help through subsidies to ease the pain. Subsidies, being public money for the general interest, it is only fair that we all must pay if what we want is a sustainable. Subsidies must of course be set up properly and be effective

Second, the customers, which in a fair value chain would be eventually the consumers, have to pay for extra cost of the better production systems, simply because our consumption societies with their sense of entitlement have to understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Such a realization also means that producers also understand that mass production that only deplete resources do not fit in the long-term picture and that value will have to replace volume.

Searching for a new economic model

With the many challenges arising from a growing world population, it becomes more and more obvious that the economic model of the past six decades needs some refreshing. As such providing consumer goods at an affordable price for the masses is not a bad idea. Helping people to have a more comfortable and pleasant life is certainly welcome by most of us. The problem is that the so-called consumption society is not so much aboutpillars-of-economy consumption as it is about people buying and giving their money to someone else. In the current system, consumption is optional. Research has shown that consumers use 75 to 80% of the goods they buy no more than once.  What really matters is the act of purchasing the goods. It is good for growth and the GDP, currently the leading metrics for the state of the economy. The problem is that mass production has gradually shifted from affordability to cheapness and from value to price. It has focused mostly on volume and has not taken into account that consumers would have to get rid of what they bought after usage. Negative externalities have been kept external indeed. Short-term financial results have had the preference and long-term impact has been ignored. The system is hitting a wall and issues of greenhouse gases emissions and waste of resources are now becoming urgent matters to address. All industries will be affected one way or the other. Food and agriculture will be no exception.

The big question is how to change the system without having it implode. That is not an easy one to answer but sooner or later it will have to change. Vision and leadership are crucial to manage the transition. I wish I had seen more of it. So far, I see and hear more about pro this and anti that. It is highly insufficient and produces more noise than results.

In my opinion, the problem is not so much about growth as it is about what growth means. Over the past decades, growth has been mostly about volume numbers. It has been a quantitative growth. I believe that the best transition towards the next model is to focus on what I call qualitative growth. It is not so much about volume as it is about adding value to the buyer. For consumers and countries, qualitative growth would be to quantitative growth what EVA (economic value added) is to turn-over for a business. It is about prosperity.

For food producers, such a shift will lead to a different approach. The most valuable areas of value added for consumers and society lies probably in providing good and enjoyable nutrition, yet affordable, through advice and education. The industry will have to help consumers eat better and help them have healthy diets. It will go beyond just supply food. Consumers will also have to rediscover what proper nutrition is. Initiatives such as the Global Access to Nutrition Index can play a pivotal role in helping food producers make the transition towards quantitative growth. The food sector has also an important role to play in keeping our environment livable. The trend towards transparency is an important part of the evolution on both health and environment fronts.

Of course, such a change of economic model means that the economics must change, too. It is also essential that those who do the right thing must be rewarded. A new reward system must be introduced in the set of rules and regulations so that producers get the proper incentive to make the shift because adding the type of value that I mention to consumers also requires a different price tag in the store, or at least a different breakdown of costs and benefits along the entire chain from producers to consumers. How to distribute fairly the cost tag of the change is still open for debate. The reward system has to apply for the business activity by allowing margins to be comparatively competitive in the new situation. Consumers doing the right thing must also be rewarded. The reward system should also apply at the remuneration level. In particular, the share of qualitative improvements in companies’ bonus systems will have to increase at the expense of qualitative growth targets.  The adjustments needed in the food and agriculture sectors will not end in this sector. They will have to include other area of government. In particular the health sector will have to be involved, as the consequences of the quality of nutrition on health are obvious for individuals and society both at the personal as at the financial level.

I also believe that such a shift in economic model will mean that business partners within the value chain will have to challenge each other to carry out the transition and it will become a critical point in choosing with whom to do business in the future.

Copyright 2016 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

 

 

China is evolving – A look towards future consequences

Aside

Recently, interesting economic news has come from the Empire of the Middle. On the one hand, financial markets reacted worried on the softening of the Chinese economy, but on the other hand they reacted rather positively about the first corporate debt default allowed in the country. To me, all of the above is good news. If financial markets get a bit nervous for a few days, then so be it! It cannot be a complete surprise that at some point the growth of the Chinese economy would slow down. Double-digit growth cannot last forever, and growth cannot keep going on a straight line without some corrections along the way. If markets are worried about a growth of 5% for China, then how will they react when China lands into a recession, as it surely will happen at some time?

Personally, I find China’s performance over the last 30 years quite impressive to say the least. I am old enough to have seen dramatic changes about that country. When I was a kid, all the news from China was rather sad. There was a chronic situation of near-famine, and what I heard then, true or not, was that the Chinese had only one bowl of rice per person for a whole day. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution directed by Mao Zedong did not exactly spelled prosperity, by far not. After the arrival of Deng Xiaoping, things changed and a new direction took place, which had led the country to where it is today. Pragmatism took over from blind dogma. Deng Xiaoping’s quote “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” summed it up nicely. I have to admit that I was still rather young and did not pay much attention to what happened in China. That came later during my professional life. In the early 1990s, the price of wheat increased, and this became cause for concern in the poultry industry, in which I was working by then. I remember a conversation with one of my customers. We came to the conclusion that China had decided to feed its people, and that was the sign of a new era. Since that day, I have followed with much interest the evolution of China, and until this day it has not stopped fascinating me.

Bringing a country of 1.5 billion people in 30 years from hunger to the world’s largest economy is no small deed. Western economies with a much lower population should know, since they struggle to provide enough jobs to their populations, which in many cases would fit in only one of the large Chinese cities. Chinese leaders have shown a remarkable pragmatic approach in the way they have carried out this change. They have performed an impressive balancing act to stay in power through economic development that allowed the population to not have enough reason to start a revolution, which is the only way to change a government when there are no elections. Feeding their people was definitely a sound strategy to achieve the double objective of power continuation and increasing prosperity. However, this economic success has come at a high price. China suffers from major environmental damage, and the rest of the world also undergoes the consequences. This is where the news of the past few days sends some interesting signals about the future. China is now entering a phase of optimization. Growth is not anymore just about more, but it is about better. Phase one, providing for the basic needs seems on its way to completion. Now, focusing on the quality of future growth becomes necessary, as keeping the course of the previous decades would probably soon lead to make the country hardly liveable. But allowing the pace of growth to slow down in order to get the time to improve the situation and clean some of the damage is not the only sign that shows that Chinese leaders have the confidence that the country has achieved a level of economic prosperity sufficient to absorb this slowdown. The recent debt default of the solar panel company Chaori shows that China has decided to stop to protect business from failure, as until this case, various levels of government would guarantee the debt. The message seems to be that the economy is strong enough to take such hits. This is a strong signal that China will no longer bail out businesses and that they will let market forces select the winners and the losers. That is quite the move toward liberalism. A number of Western countries do not appear this bold, lately. In the same area of a changed economic philosophy, China is also currently allowing market forces to regulate the value of its currency, which is currently weakening, even though Western countries have always put pressure on China to re-evaluate the Yuan. The ability to persevere on long-term objective and not let outsiders interfere more than necessary is one of the quality of the Chinese that I like particularly. They do what is good for China and do not allow foreigners to undermine they progress. They run their economy with the same resilience and determination as they did with the Long March. Personally, I like the approach of the Chinese leaders. They are smart, focused and pragmatic. The new generation of entrepreneurs and executive also shows these good qualities. I also am quite impressed by the enthusiasm and curiosity of young Chinese students. They have the momentum on their side and it feeds their desire to succeed.

As I mentioned earlier, a couple of decades ago China decided to feed its people, mostly to avoid social unrest that could get out of control. In the area of food security, China has, like in the rest of its economy, achieved impressive results, but at a high cost, too. I believe that part of the current shift in economic philosophy can be looked at from the perspective of Maslow’s pyramid of needs. The objective number one for China has been to meet the basic needs: food, shelter, safety. Although there is still a part of the population living in poverty, the basic needs, from a collective point of view, are more or less met, as the majority of the population has now entered the middle class or better and the rest seems to follow in that direction. In the first phase, it is clear that environmental damage was under little scrutiny, as the end justified the means. After all, hungry people are not picky about what they eat, if it means surviving. In the today’s Chinese society, just eating what is available is no longer the only priority. Once the basic needs are met, the emotional takes gradually over from the biological. Consumers start to think and to question. It is not anymore about surviving today only, but about living in the future. The population is expressing its discontent of the quality of life and against the environmental recklessness of businesses more and more often. If food was used to be considered a potential source of unrest, now the problem has shifted to air and water. Heavy air pollution, contaminated water and the sight of thousands of dead pigs floating in the river that flows through Shanghai, as was the case a few months ago, are no longer tolerated by the population.

China Food Map (Photo: Zhang Yanlin/Asianewsphoto)The phase of optimization is also going to take place in food and agriculture. The situation about corn is a good indicator. Until 2012, China was self-sufficient for corn. With the increasing demand for meat as a result of economic improvement of the population, China has now become a net importer. The type of demand for the various food groups, together with the environmental toll of pursuing the objective of food self-sufficiency has reached its limits. It is important to acknowledge the performance of the Chinese agriculture, though. Even is the cost of achieving food security is high, one needs to remember that China is the world’s largest producer of rice, wheat, pork, eggs, fruit and vegetables, and cotton. It is the second largest producer of corn, behind the US. Considering the size of the country, being the main producer for all those commodities is quite an achievement. Yet China, announced last February that it was changing its objective, and that grain self-sufficiency was no longer sacred. It makes very good sense. The long term is as important as the present. China needs to work hard now to protect and restore its soils and its fresh water. On other area where the country can also achieve substantial results is by fixing post-harvest losses. Infrastructure will be developed further. Optimization of the food value chains will also take place, largely in the form of a consolidation of businesses. The seed sector will be interesting to follow in this regard, as many small seed producers will either disappear or be absorbed by larger entities. Considering the crucial role of genetics for crop yield, this rationalization of the sector should also contribute to a further improvement of the Chinese agriculture.

With land purchases abroad, world agricultural production up, international trade and a more astute food stocks strategy, China does not need to try to produce all its food itself. The bulk of the basic needs is covered. Now, it is time to optimize and repair without having to fear shortages. The focus is going to be more on waste reduction and efficiency than before. It definitely will be about doing more with less, to use a commonly used expression. An example of this tightening of standards is the so-called Green Fence for the recycling goods that China imports. Now the recycling materials need to be cleaned to enter the country. China simply does not want to use its energy and water resources. They want the waste producers to do that in their own countries. That is wise.

Another area for optimization is food safety and food quality. In a previous article , I wrote about a strategic shift towards speeding up the learning curve to meet higher standards. The shift from quantity to quality is a reflection of the pyramid of needs. When people have enough to eat, as is the case in large Chinese urban centers, they start to look at how food is produced and question what they do not like. Food security is for most no longer a worry, as the alarming rise in overweight and diabetes shows. When food security is no longer a worry, the focus shifts to food safety. That is quite normal.

My expectation is that China is no longer in the logic of just copying and producing cheap low quality. Although this reputation is still quite alive in Western countries, in my opinion it is incorrect. But after all, similar prejudices lived long about Japan, too, until the time that Americans realized that Japanese goods were of a better quality and Japanese companies were better run than their domestic counterparts. We will see the same thing about China. Some people will wake up too late. The Chinese are quite awake. Don’t worry for them.

Although the food industry, like all industries, resents criticism, it is actually the sign of a developed society. Basic standards do not satisfy anymore. People look for the something extra, and that is where opportunities arise. Those who listen to consumers and offer them what they want increase their chances of capturing the high-margin market positions. Let’s face it; markets for undifferentiated commodities are attractive mostly because of the large volumes they represent. In China, too, health and environment will be the drivers of future food supply. This will definitely offer good possibilities in the future. The Chinese will also take a look at their diet, and the per capita consumption of meat, just like economic growth, will not keep increasing forever. In the same way as it did in Western countries, it will reach a plateau, probably in 10 years from now, and later will gradually decline, for the same reasons as it is doing in the West, and also because the population of China is expected to decrease to 1.4 billion by 2050 and to 1.1 billion by 2100. That decrease represents a lot of consumers. It will be important to notice this change of trend on time. When consumption of certain food items in Western countries reached that plateau, most companies did not anticipate it. As usual in such situations, denial is the first reaction. First the change of trend is considered a temporary hiccup. Investments to increase capacity have often been made on the expectation of continuous growth, causing an overcapacity of production, and the production capacity needs to be used fully to be economically efficient. This creates a lack of flexibility and all producers enter the difficult times with the same cost profitability concerns. When the stagnation appears to last, producers like to think that indeed there will be a consolidation of the sector, but they usually all seem to think that they will weather the storm and will not be affected. Of course, it never works that way. Bad things do not happen only happen to others. Then, the crisis follows and usually a vigorous restructuring takes place. I have seen this many times and it is amazing to see how history repeats itself. There is no doubt that when food consumption will have reached its top, the same mechanism will show. This time, the problem will be quite robust, though. To supply China, production volumes will be much higher than previous similar scenarios of stagnation in the various Western regions. Further, just as much any marginal increment of consumption per capita multiplied by 1.5 billion means large volumes, any decrease of consumption will represent significant pain. This point is not here, yet. There are years of growth for most food groups ahead, but it is time to start thinking, and especially start planning, about a change of strategy. When the plateau appears, differentiation will become the main theme, and niches will be the place to be. Considering that the Chinese culture is long-term oriented and that relationships are a fundamental element of business in China, I would recommend starting paving the path for this shift sooner than later. After all, 10 years pass quite fast.

Copyright 2014 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

A couple of billion reasons why Africa is a priority for the future

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More than three years ago, I had posted on this blog the list of the 16 most populated countries in the world by then. It helped put things in perspective in today’s world, but looking ahead, another table is more useful. Here is the list of the 16 most populated countries in 2050 and 2100 according to the UN.

2010
Country

Population

(millions)

% of world population
World

6,794

 
China

1,337

19.6
India

1,180

17.3
USA

309

4.5
Indonesia

231

3.4
Brazil

193

2.8
Pakistan

169

2.5
Bangladesh

162

2.4
Nigeria

155

2.3
Russia

142

2.1
Japan

128

1.9
Mexico

108

1.6
Philippines

92

1.4
Vietnam

86

1.3
Germany

82

1.2
Ethiopia

79

1.2
Egypt

78

1.2
Top   16

4,531

66.7

2050
Country

Population

(millions)

% of world population
 

      9,551

 
India

1,620

17.0
China

1,385

14.5
Nigeria

440

4.6
USA

401

4.2
Indonesia

321

3.4
Pakistan

271

2.8
Brazil

231

2.4
Bangladesh

202

2.1
Ethiopia

188

2.0
Philippines

157

1.6
Mexico

156

1.6
RD   Congo

155

1.6
Tanzania

129

1.4
Egypt

122

1.3
Russia

121

1.3
Japan

108

1.1
 Top   16

6,007

62.9

2100
Country

Population

(millions)

% of world population
        10,854  
India

1,547

14.3
China

1,086

10.0
Nigeria

914

8.4
USA

462

4.3
Indonesia

315

2.9
Tanzania

276

2.5
Pakistan

263

2.4
DR   Congo

262

2.4
Ethiopia

243

2.2
Uganda

205

1.9
Nigeria

204

1.9
Brazil

195

1.8
Philippines

188

1.7
Bangladesh

182

1.7
Kenya

160

1.5
Mexico

140

1.3
 Top   16

6,642

61.2

Immediately, some interesting information appears. China is already reaching a plateau and it will decline later. Most of Asia will have reached its peak of population by mid-century. India’s population is going to keep growing in the coming decades and with regards to food security, the country has still lots of work ahead. However, with the growth of its middle class, the situation should improve gradually in the future. The continent that will see the strongest population growth is Africa. Between now and the end of the century, eight countries will account to over half of the world’s population increase from currently 7.2 billion to 10.9 billion, with six of these countries being on the African continent. These eight countries are Nigeria, India, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia and the USA. It is worth noticing that the population of Nigeria will pass the population of the USA before mid-century. For a country the size of Texas, the challenge is huge, especially considering the current political instability. Other small countries such as Tanzania and Uganda are going have to cope with a very strong population increase.

The challenge for Africa is clear. Most of the countries with a strong population increase are poor countries that already have serious difficulties to feed themselves. African agriculture has not followed the pace of other regions in terms of productivity and yields. Many rural communities are poor and can hardly subsist. The flip side Africa having lagged in agricultural development is that it has huge potential to increase its food production. At the beginning of the current decade, the FAO estimated the area of unexploited arable land in Africa to be roughly the size of continental USA. By increasing acreage in production with higher yields, there is plenty of room to increase production volumes to sufficient levels. Food production is the not the only problem. To solve hunger, these countries must eliminate poverty. People who have enough money to buy food are not hungry. Only the poor are. And to have enough money, one needs a decent paying job. For the future of Africa, employment is really where the battle will be won or lost. Between now and the end of the century, Africa will have to create 600 million new jobs, and to get jobs, people need to have the proper education and training. They also need to be healthy. As the expectation is that most of the population will be living in cities, another challenging goal will be to build these urban centers and all the necessary infrastructure to move the goods and the people. Such megacities will also need to be food secure and urban planning will need to take food distribution and food production into account. Education, health care, construction, infrastructure, jobs, food and agriculture… This sounds like building an entire continent doesn’t it? And that is exactly what it is. Expect Africa to be a huge construction site! Action must be taken and properly phased out over the next nine decades. If the challenges are many, so are the opportunities and the benefits in the long term.

So what does it take to make this happen? The answer to this question is rather simple. The implementation and proper execution is less so. It will take money, and a lot of it. There is plenty of that, though. The Central bankers of developed countries did not have to think too long to start printing a couple of trillion dollars, emitting bonds and doing the quantitative easing as needed to save the financial sector when the system was imploding in 2008 and since then. Building Africa would not require more money than that. If there has ever been a need for Keynesian economics, the Africa of the coming decades is it! Not only the money pumped in the system would allow projects to happen, but it will be the basis to create the many jobs that will be required to build all that is needed. The challenge for Africans is to have and to provide the training required to qualify for the jobs come.

To rise from its current situation, the task is somehow comparable to rebuilding Europe after World War II. Both the Europeans and the Americans who provided financial help by then can tell the Africans what a great period of prosperity followed for them. Africa needs a Marshall plan of its own, but it also must convince the rest of the world that it will put the money at work. And that is where the second crucial component of success – or failure – resides: leadership. Africa needs strong visionary leadership with integrity that will not only make things happen, but also will keep the energies focused on a long-term effort. Another eighty-six years to complete it all before the end of the century will not be too many. Africa will have to bring forward a new generation of leaders that will follow a course that is quite different from the one many of their predecessors followed. Encouraging investors will require fighting corruption, starting with a leadership by example. Corruption is a theme that I hear regularly from businesses that would like to engage in Africa, but that feel reluctant to do so for that very reason. Endeavours may be risky, but they have the potential to be quite rewarding for those who will dare and have the patience to wait to reap the fruits. As for anything else anywhere else, there will be success stories and some failures, but that is the way the world goes. It will be important to factor in disappointments and a percentage of mistakes and failures to assess the true future return. One thing is sure: searching for a quick return is probably not the best strategy over there.

Africa is diverse. The challenges will vary per country and so will the quality of the leadership. I expect the political geography of Africa to change between now and 2100 (actually much earlier than that). Borders are inherited from the independence from the colonial power and they do not always reflect a good partition for the future. Sometimes this may happen peacefully and sometimes unfortunately not. Note that I never said it will be easy. Nonetheless, the continent must move forward and the countries must develop their economies.

Although it will not be simple, I am optimistic about future changes in Africa. In my limited dealings with young professionals from Africa, I can say that this new generation is highly motivated and keen to succeed. In my contacts, I have many bright, smart and well-educated young African professionals in the field of food and agriculture. I enjoy their energy and desire to change the course of the future. They have travelled and they know quite a bit about food production in other places. They push relentlessly to bring new dynamics and I do believe that they will make good things happen. But they will need all the help and support to have access to the right resources and knowledge to succeed.

For some reason, since I started the Food Futurist, I have always considered that Africa will be playing an important role in the future of food and agriculture. I have believed immediately in its potential and I have never been shy about it. This has sometimes created interesting situations such surprise or disbelief from my audiences and clients. I guess I was a little early with my predictions, but I have had the pleasure to hear some of them who looked at me as if I had a sunstroke who now advocate in favour of Africa’s food and agriculture potential. It just took them a year or two to come to the same conclusion. I guess the first part of my work has been done. Now, I really would like to be involved with organizations that want to build solid pragmatic market-oriented food production in Africa.

Copyright 2013 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Food prices, one year later – Some lessons

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According to the data gathered by the FAO, global food prices are on the decline. They have been so for some time. However, this good news does not seem to make the headlines. Reassuring news does not score with the mainstream media. What a difference with the past year during which all of a sudden they discovered that food might not be taken for granted after all! What have we not heard and read by then. The most absurd theories and pseudo-analyses have been spread around by some who know nothing better than copying and pasting the internet without exercizing the slightest sense of critical thinking. Of course, the fear mongers got plenty of publicity while they really did not contribute to anything productive, as I had described in a previous article (Fear mongering does not build a strong future).

What a difference a year makes! And that is a very good thing. It shows that agriculture and farmers are much more resilient and have much greater potential than some want to make believe. That confirms what I have always claimed and that I relentlessly repeat in my presentations and publications. I have lost the count of how many times I have been told that “Christophe, you are quite the optimist”, in particular about the content of Future Harvests. Frankly, I do not think that I am particularly optimistic. Actually, I can see many reasons why we will face serious crises along the way to meeting the goals of feeding a growing population. That warning is the message behind We Will Reap What We Sow. I see human nature and in particular our leadership, as serious reasons for temporary failures. But if I do not consider myself as an optimist, I definitely have a positive attitude. I truly believe we can manage and overcome future challenges, because I crunched the numbers and I have demonstrated in my literature and my talks that feeding 9 billion people in a sustainable manner is quite possible. It is possible, but it is not a given. There is work ahead. That makes it interesting and exciting.

Next to the potential and the future development that can make us overcome the coming challenges, I am also a firm believer of market forces. Market fluctuations trigger action and reaction. Nothing like high prices and solid profits get food producers increase production. Similarly, nothing like poor financial results have the ability to tamper any desire to increase production. The so-called invisible hand works. Sometimes, it holds a carrot. Sometimes, it holds a stick. It makes things move in the right direction. Over the past year, I have presented during a number of events how market forces would influence prices in different sectors in the years to come. By looking at it from the consumer demand end and by going back in the production and supply chain, I showed how the different actors would react to their own particular situations. So far, my predictions have come true, the reactions of retailers, food service, animal protein producers, crop farmers and input suppliers have been as expected. The drop in global food prices is one of these predictions. Those who attended some of my presentations know what I mean. For the others, here is a link to a video showing an excerpt my talk about the dynamics of future agricultural markets that will illustrate what I am writing about.

The past year contains many lessons. Some of them are about us, and some of them are about how to look at the future. The main lesson is probably that the situation of food and agriculture cannot be looked at in a simplistic manner and can certainly not be described or commented with scary slogans. The population is growing but so is agricultural production. The famine that is supposedly around the corner is far from happening. In a year time, the world population has increased by a few dozen million people, who on average tend to eat more food, and in particular meat. Yet, supply is able to meet demand better this year than last year, as global food prices and grain stocks indicate. Another lesson is that even though severe climatic events affect food supply negatively, there is no reason to panic. The fact that last year a severe drought depleted production numbers in one of the essential producing countries, the USA, the system was able to absorb the shock. There has been no food riot in 2012 like in 2008. The reason needs to be looked at what products were the most affected.  Supply of basic food stables remained in balance with demand. There was no particular shortage of bread or rice in sight. The commodities that were affected were business to business products, destined to the animal feed and the corn ethanol industries. Another lesson is that even though the prices of 2012 did not lead to riots, climatic events are a serious threat and need to be factored in future supply and demand scenarios to build enough of a buffer to reduce the risks of supply disruption. Another area that requires more attention is the regulation of financial markets, and in particular the regulatory aspects. It is clear that derivatives amplify market price fluctuations. By deciding who is allowed to be active on the markets of agricultural commodities and for which quantities, the functioning of markets can be more representative of the physical reality. In particular, the participation of players who have no physical production or supply functions in the food and agriculture need to be taken under strict scrutiny. As it is important to have fair market rules for a proper functioning of markets, it will be also useful to look at the functioning of crop insurance. Last year’s drought in the US cost insurance companies much money, while it appeared that US crop farmers ended up the season with the second highest profit level on record. No one will argue that farmers need to be protected from such unpredictable events.  Insurance should guarantee them a minimum income so that their future would not depend from forces out of their control. That is just fair. Opposite to that, it sounds beyond normal that, thanks to other contributors, farmers could go through such a drought without hardly feeling the slightest pinch in the wallet.

After the past year, am I still an “optimist”? Yes, I do believe that farmers will meet demand in the future. For all the reasons above, I am convinced as ever that the potential is largely there and that the world can absorb tough years. But I would attach a warning to my optimism. It is not because it can be done that it will be done. It is necessary to keep thinking ahead, to come with innovative ideas, products and services to be able to plan and forecast better, to make better and faster decisions. It is also essential to pass knowledge and information better and faster, and to choose the attitude of helping others succeed before one’s particular interest. Our societies have succeeded by acting together. Nobody will be able to do it all alone. Providing help and support will be critical for success, just as much as asking for them will be. It also becomes crucial to be able to look beyond one’s area of business and to connect the dots even – or maybe actually in particular – with events and activities that have, at least apparently, several degrees of separation with agriculture in order to anticipate, adapt and be prosperous. That is the core of what I do, and I can only encourage you to take the same approach.

As markets ease, it will be quite tempting to drop the guard. In my opinion, this would be a serious mistake. The time things seem to be under control is the right time to prepare for the future and to do some foresight. Markets will change again as the bargaining power of the different links of the chain will shift. Be assured that there will be some severe price hikes again. My best guess is within five years from now. Those who will do this exercise will have a strong advantage over those who will procrastinate.

Copyright 2013 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.