Tag Archives: Farming

258. Food systems are built in the market and on farms, not in cozy offices

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Surely, you have heard the following statement many times: “the food system is broken”. It is a nice slogan, especially for activists. The reality is that this statement is rather meaningless. Criticism about modern agriculture is not new, far from that. Some time after my graduation from the agricultural university, I had bought a book titled “Le Krach Alimentaire – Nous redeviendrons paysans” (“The Food Crash – We will become peasants again“). This book, published in 1988, was written by Philippe Desbrosse who worked as an expert with the Commission and Parliament of the European Union of then. The book is a gloomy criticism of modern agriculture, making claims that world agriculture is on the verge of complete bankruptcy and the author wondered whether there still would be farmers and even bread by year 2000. He saw organic agriculture as the only possible and viable option for the future. Well, we know the answers to his questions and the solutions that have been developed during this period. Although his predictions did not come true, he did addressed a number of valid points that are still relevant today, such us the depletion of soils. His solution was just not realistic. Nothing is black and white. Nobody has it all right and nobody has it all wrong. Excessive alarmism never really helps, and neither does denial.

First, there is no such thing as the food system. There are many food systems because there are many different natural conditions, many different types of consumers and many different kinds of governments with different objectives and policies. A farmer selling directly to consumers operates in a system that is totally different than one who sells commodities on the world market. Different markets have different sizes in volumes sold and very different economics as well. The second error about the slogan is to say that “the system is broken”. It is not broken. It actually still works rather well, as it has been able to provide foods to an increasing world population. Not only does agriculture produce enough food, but when you factor in 1) the huge amount of food waste caused by either lack of proper infrastructure and market access or because of negligent behavior from consumers, retailers and food service operators and 2) the large amount of crop production used for biofuels (just in the US 40% of corn and 47% of soybeans), as I described in a previous article (maxed out or a planet of plenty?)

Since the publication of Desbrosse’s book, the world population has increased by 3 billion people! Food production systems are in constant evolution, as they constantly need to meet new challenges and new demands. Today’s farms and agriculture are rather different than they were 50 years ago. They are quite different than they were ten, even five years ago. Only people with little insight in food and agriculture think that food systems are frozen in time. Perhaps, they should visit farms and talk to farmers more often than they do, to realize the ongoing transformation of agriculture.

Food systems are the way they are for good reasons. They are not designed on a whim. There is a strong logic behind them. Although they are not broken, they are not perfect, either. Here, it should be a case of he who has never sinned cast the first stone. Personally, I do not know of any human activity that is perfect. All occupations have their flaws. Perfection does not exist. It is a hard truth to accept for perfectionists who usually are also born critics. What matters is not perfection but excellence. Everything has room for improvement. So do food and agriculture systems. It is work in progress. When you look at it from that angle, the future looks brighter. It means that there is hope. We just need to make work of it, which is much better than criticizing without offering any viable and practical solution or throw soup on Mona Lisa.

Food systems are about viable economics, not intellectual exercises

How food is produced and brought to consumers does not happen per accident. Although food systems are quite complex and are influenced by a myriad of dimensions (see a previous article on this blog: Why changing food systems is a challenge), their success -or failure- always come down to one thing and one thing only: their economic viability. It is about money. I know this is a boring topic that irritates some people but fact is that money plays a role in everything in our lives. Denying it does not change that fact.

There can be as many “intellectuals” assessing, criticizing or conceptualizing food systems as we want, food systems will have to pass the economics acid test. In a way, that economic check up is where the term food system meets its limitations, and where the concept of value chain is a lot more relevant. Indeed, the economics of the food system determine whether it creates value and how it distributes that value from the field to the plate.

It is important to emphasize that food systems need to produce what consumers are willing to buy. It may sound obvious. Yet, this part is often overlooked. If people do not buy a product, it means the end of that product and of its production system. The key criterion for people to buy or not to buy is value. If consumers find that a product has value, they show interest. If they do not see any value in the product, they ignore it and it dies. Then, comes the second part of value: does the price align with the perceived value or not? If consumers think that they get good value for money, they buy. If they think the product is too expensive for what it is, they do not buy. It is that simple.

The result of consumer interest is that the product -and its production system- has potential. But this is not the entire story, yet. The consumer end is only one part of the total equation and this is where the concept of value chain is quite important. All the steps before the point of sale to the consumer need to also find value in participating. All the links of the chain must have an economic interest in producing for the consumers.

The essential point of a value chain is that money enters that chain only from one end: the price that the consumer pays. That amount of money goes into the value chain pot, if you wish. Then, the trick is to make sure that all the links of the chain can get a share of what is in the pot so that they can continue to produce and participate. For each of the partners in the value chain, the share of the money pot that they get must cover their individual costs. No business can survive if they get less money than they spend to produce. The pot that I am mentioning is going to have to be shared through a cascade of commercial negotiations between all the links of the chain. They are all one-on-one negotiations and they do not take into account their impact on the other chain participants. As usual, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and that plays a critical role in the strength and the viability of the entire system.

Of course, they are many aspects that influence costs. Just to name a few, it is obvious that market size (volumes), government regulations, quality standards, infrastructure (logistics), relative bargaining positions (commercial negotiations) and training producers to have the proper skills for the new system strongly influence the total cost from producers to consumers. Every change in these criteria affects the total costs and how the money pot can be shared. These are major factors from the down-and-dirty business reality. These factors are never considered by the “food systems theoreticians” I pointed at earlier in this article. There are two main reasons for that. The first one is that this reality is very far away from the thinking of the theoreticians. The second one is that, they tend to perceive day-to-day business activities as not being part of the intellectual conceptualization. They fly at higher altitude. In other words, it is not their problem. Except that, with that very attitude, those who attempt to design the new, beautiful and ideal(istic) food systems often set food producers for failure.

A few examples for illustration

To explain what kind of consequences changing food systems causes, there is nothing like a few examples. I will try to be as concise as possible.

The rise of supermarkets. They have changed food distribution dramatically. Their success and growth are strongly related to cars and mobility. They have strongly influenced infrastructure and logistics. Their professional procurement approach has also changed dramatically the availability, the standards, the origin and the prices of the foods they sell. Their dominant position has also forced food producers to offer larger volumes and also to get bigger to rebalance the bargaining position. This has led to consolidation and much larger food corporations.

Role of government policies. A good example is the European Union. Its history of subsidies has shaped its post WW2 agriculture. It has deeply transformed the size and the purpose of farms. That in turn has also had profound consequences on the social fabric of rural areas. EU standards on quality, animal welfare and the ban on GMOs have also had a strong impact on the cost structure of foods and on the competitive position of European agriculture compared with other agriculture behemoths like the US or Brazil. Their policies will also have huge consequences on future European agriculture production volumes and trade.

Dogmatic policies ignoring market reality. Perhaps the most “beautiful” example would be the mandate from the French government to impose a target of 20% of organic dairy production a few years ago. They offered financial support to farmers to carry out the transition. Only problem has been that there are not enough consumers willing to pay the extra price for organic milk and organic dairy farmers had no market for their products. The result has been a massive crisis leading to many of the farmers who switched to organic to abandon organic production at great cost to them. Consumers did not perceive much of a value difference and would not pay for it. No real market research had been carried out but just dogmatic objectives. Result: financial disaster and major hangover.

Market-driven dairy success story. In Senegal, there is a dairy company called Laiterie du Berger. Their main product is yoghurt that they sell to urban population in the country. It has been a market-driven approach lead by France’s Credit Agricole (banking), Danone (one of the world’s leading dairy companies) and several NGOs. They started from the market end and partnered with local dairy farmers, most of whom were Fula people with small herds and low technical support. Laiterie du Berger has organized milk collection and as the business was growing and making progress, the Fula farmers are now getting technical support for their operations and better genetic material for their livestock. The result is that the farmers produce more milk per cow, produced the quality needed by the dairy company and have now better living standards. The production system has changed and many benefit from it, from farmers to consumers. Similar projects to improve dairy production are also underway in other countries. For instance, Nigeria is partnering with Danish organizations to improve the genetic level of their herds. Indonesia has plans to import more than 1 million cows to produce more milk for their population and one of their targets is to offer milk in schools. These are examples that show how a market-driven approach leads to 1) changes in production systems and 2) improve life quality. These are pragmatic and economic approaches not based on utopian dreams.

Developing new products without thinking from a solid market potential perspective. Current champions in this category would be investor-driven start-ups, usually based on inflated ego, and some weird messianic complex in some cases, more than on solid market research and understanding. Beyond Meat and other fake meat tech foods have been superb examples of how not to do things. The insect farming sector is another major flop. Insect farming companies are literally dropping like flies, going bankrupt one after another. They did not do proper market research. First, they got misled by FAO hype on insects. Secondly, they deluded themselves in their own green washing while reality proved rather different and had no idea of supply challenges. Similarly, tech vertical farms have been failures. The main reason has been that they serve very small markets. The world does not and cannot feed itself on expensive basil and arugula. Inevitably, the results are high costs that sales prices cannot cover and few consumers who care for the value of such systems compared with traditional ones. However, early big investors who knew when to exit and to cash in have sometimes done quite well, but perhaps that was their only real goal after all… shhh… Start-ups need to master business basics before making bold statements about saving the planet or revolutionizing food and agriculture. Actually, such megalomaniac claims should be red flags right away.

And I could give quite a few personal examples of business sectors in which I have been involved changes I have led in marketing and production. From my personal experiences, I would say that any change of system goes along with serious changes of economics. Often, costs and prices do not move in parallel and the new system fails for purely economic reasons. In particular, beware of those market surveys that pop up once in a while, stating that a “large” percentage of the population would be willing to pay “more” for a product if it were to be produced “better”. Such market research is usually set up more as a New Year’s resolution wish list than a true research. The intention sounds good but usually when in the store, the consumers look at the price tags and make very different decisions than the ones mentioned in these surveys.

New systems also require serious investments both from financial and skills training point of view. They often require mental changes that either people are not prepare to accept or that will cause resistance that will lead to some compromises. Anyway, the key is to do a lot of thorough number crunching, as the changes are far from simple to work out.

Conclusions

#1 Always be market-driven. Not doing so spells trouble. It is always much better to produce what consumers need and want than to produce and then struggle to figure out who will buy and for what price. Usually that price is significantly lower than what the theoreticians plan for. Market-driven is less risky, has higher rates of success, costs less and is also less difficult to manage. That is a non-negligible advantage. Building a production system for which the market and the entire chain are not buying in is doomed to fail.

#2 Food systems have consequences in terms of market size and costs. Changing a component of the system changes the cost of production and therefore has an impact on consumer prices and profitability. This in turn has an effect on how many people are willing to buy the products from the “new” system and therefore the size of that market. Nothing is worse for producers than a market that is oversupplied, except for a drop in demand because of a price change.

#3 Don’t be an idealist, at least not for too long. Most of the people presenting themselves as food system experts, be it from NGOs, academia or supranational organizations (such as UN agencies, and the EU, just to name a couple), very often seem to follow a particular bias. There are many of those around. Some themes are appealing. In particular small-scale farming and family farms. Unfortunately, such ideological and dogmatic approaches rarely deliver because they overlook the economic realities of all levels from farm to plate. Actually, it would be interesting to know how many of them have really had all that much of a positive impact, if any. At best, those that succeeded remained limited in small niches. Business people are usually more pragmatic and they focus on what works. They usually implement change when it becomes necessary. The food and agriculture industry is actually quite good and finding new ways. Their only problem is that they tend to wait too long and act only under an existential threat. The reason is mostly to not increase costs, but that often tends to be a rather short-term thinking mistake. The idealism part of building better production systems is commendable but it needs to go hand-in-hand with a solid dose of realism. Those who make that move on time will succeed. Those who stick to unrealistic goals will achieve nothing.

Copyright 2026 – Christophe Pelletier – The Food Futurist – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

253. The Future of Family Farms: Navigating Generational Changes

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The concept of family farm plays an important role in the perception of agriculture. Consumers definitely like the idea of a small family-run farm. It gives them a feeling of things well-cared for, and they relate better with such operations because they feel it still has the human scale they feel has disappeared in all sectors of life. Governments and industry are also rather adamant to maintain the family status of farms, as it resonates with the general public. With the many changes ahead, what future will family farms face?

A turn of generations

In most parts of the world, farmers are getting old, in their high 50’s. In many countries, the current generation of farmers is expected to retire within a decade. A number that is often mentioned is that about 50% of farmers will reach retirement age in 10 years from now, in 2035. Here in Canada, I have even read the number of 40% within 5 years.

Of course, this presents a major challenge. Replacement is needed. The question is who will and who can take over the farms. Perhaps, the most difficult challenge for new farmers is to be able to buy a farm. Agricultural land prices have increased strongly over the past two decades and farms have become unaffordable to many farming candidates. One of the reasons behind the price increase is that agricultural land is now seen as an investment by people who have no connection or activity in agriculture. Aspiring farmers cannot compete with Big Money. Then, what is left to them?

Of course, one must buy only what one can afford. This could mean that new farmers might have to settle for less land, but can it be economically viable? The type of ownership -and owner- might also bring a new type of farming structure. There will be land owners who farm. Others will not farm the land themselves. The ones working the land might not be owners, but rent the land. It is easy to imagine all sorts of constructions between ownership and actual physical farming depending on how the money flows. As such, this is not new. In all times, there have been large land owners who would not do much of the actual work. There also always have been people farming the land based on a lease contract, or remunerated on what they produce from the land they work. The difference now is that the turn of generations also comes together with the end of the farming family that established the farm.

For very long, farms have been transmitted from parents to children. This is not going to be quite the case in the future. Many farmers’ children have chosen different career paths. They are simply not attracted by the farming life, for various reasons. They have decided to leave agriculture and have a life somewhere else. In many cases, this leaves the parents with no successor. On the other hand, a substantial number of aspiring farmers are not from farming families. They come from the cities, but they want to get into agriculture, also for various reasons. The question that comes now is: how to organize the succession? And that is not an easy process, especially from a psychological point of view.

A difficult transition?

For farmers, especially those who come from families who have owned the farm for generations, this feels like an end. Often, the idea of accepting to pass the farm on to a total stranger is not easy. From numbers I have seen in Canada, it appears that initiating a succession process is something that the men rarely do. The farmers’ wives are the ones who generally start the process. Let’s face it, letting go of a farm is a heavily emotionally loaded moment. For potential buyers, the main problem is of a different nature. The most important for them is to have a solid project. That is not easy, either.

Depending on all the different situations, many outcomes are possible for how farm ownership will look like in the future. What will the new farmers be looking for? They can choose for a smaller size and focus on niche high-margin productions. But they also can choose for large efficient commodity farms if they can finance the purchase, unless they would do that as tenants paying a rent to the non-farming owner. Everything is possible. What matters the most for the future is that farmers make a decent living out of agriculture. That has always been a challenge everywhere in the world, and it has always been a challenge at any time in history. Economic viability will determine what the farms of the future will look like and what they will produce. Future business models will be key. Of course, another question that may arise is whether all the farmland that is to change hands will find a farmer. If not, what happens to the land, and what happens to production volumes?

What is a family farm and its future?

The discussion of the farm size is going to happen, one way or another. Just for illustration, here are some statistics from the USDA / National Agricultural Statistics Service: in 2022, family farms represented 95% of all US farms. Small family farms made up 85 % of all farms. They represented 39 % of the farmland and accounted for only 14 % of the value of agricultural products sold. Midsize family farms represented 6 % of farms and produced 16 % of total agricultural value. Large-scale family farms, though only 4 % of the total, generated 51 % of the value of all agricultural products.

Non-family farms represented just 5% of all farms but accounted for 19% of the value of agricultural products, so more than all 85% small family farms together. This shows another reality of agriculture, which is that the lion’s share of agricultural production comes from a minority of farms. If farms become too expensive for individuals, could it mean that the share of non-family farms will increase in the future, as being on a payroll would be an attractive alternative for aspiring farmers?

The general public may love the idea of small family farms but to feed the world, large farms play an essential role. My point is not to say whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Reality is just reality. If we want to solve challenges for a successful future, we must not delude ourselves in a romanticized idea of agriculture, but we must make sure that agriculture does a proper work to keep doing what it is supposed to do. I have a video on YouTube in which I discuss whether the farm size matters or not. In my opinion, size does not matter, and neither should the type of ownership. What truly matters is that, regardless of size or ownership, farmers do a good job. Skills and ongoing training are essential. Of course that includes quantitative aspects (volumes, yields, etc.) but also qualitative aspects, such as minimal environmental impact (all human activities have an impact) and sustainability.

Further, what is a family farm really? As I mentioned in the introduction, everybody is a strong supporter of family-owned farms, but the reality is a bit more complex than just who owns the land and the buildings. Family-owned does not necessarily mean independent. It is not the same thing. I know that this is a sensitive topic, especially considering the difference in size between farms and their business partners. It feels like David vs. Goliath. The romantic idea of the farmer holding an ear of wheat in his mouth, happily living off the land without pressures from the rest of the world is a nice one but, once again, reality is different. A farm cannot be isolated from the production and supply chains. These chains are quite sophisticated in their organization to ensure that products find their way to the consumers because, well, that is the purpose.

The farm may be owned by the farmer but it also says nothing about all the contractual relationships that exist between the farmers and the other players in that chain. This might become even more prevalent in the future, as some agribusiness companies are already looking at helping young farmers to get in the saddle. Making sure that there will be farmers in the future is quite essential for the rest of the value chain partners. Without farmers, they do not have a business. That said, the help will not be without conditions. Future farmers who can get in the business will likely be bound contractually with the company that provided the support in the first place. it would be unlikely that businesses would bring financial support to see those farmers go to a competitor.

What the future will bring for family farms will depend greatly on government policies. What will be their idea of their respective agricultures? How do they see the future of their rural areas? What role will they want for their agricultures to play in their economies and in geopolitics, or just politics? These are some of the many questions that will have to receive answers and the place of family farms will depend on the answers.

Next week: Animal-plant hybrid products: compromise or demise?

Copyright 2025 – Christophe Pelletier – The Food Futurist – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

247. The Key to Successful Tech in Agriculture: Meet Farmers’ Needs

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A recurrent complaint I hear in the agricultural sector is how slow and difficult it seems to have farmers embrace new technologies. Most of the time, it sounds more like a reproach than anything else, as if there was something wrong with farmers to be so reluctant. I do not agree with that thinking. To me, the main reason why some technologies have a hard time gaining the support of farmers is simply because they do not meet their needs.

I was recently viewing an old video from Steve Jobs. Basically, what he said was that if you want people to adopt a new product, you must first look at the customer’s experience and then work backwards to build the right product for them. He was also lamenting that too often, tech companies think because they have a product that is a technological beauty, the world should just adopt it. Of course it does not work this way, and certainly not in the agriculture sector. I believe a lot of technology developers should find inspiration in Steve Jobs’s statement.

In my work, I get contacted from time to time by venture capital firms who would like me to invest. Usually, with three to five questions, I know whether it is an interesting proposal. Sometimes, I already know after my first question. So far, none of the companies offered to me have survived. Some lasted a couple of years, but all failed for the exact same reasons as I will describe further in this article. This is the reason why I offer my “Second Opinion” in my services.

I recently had the opportunity (or the misfortune I should say) to attend a rather painful presentation from a venture capital operative, supposedly expert in agtech and in artificial intelligence of lately, as many claim to be. Of course, he was to complain about how slow the agriculture sector is to adopt new technologies with the same kind of criticism about farmers as I have mentioned above. The irony here was that he did a terrible job at demonstrating any added value. If this is the way the tech sector tries to sell itself to farmers, it should be no surprise that adoption will be slow.

Farmers do adopt new technologies. They do. A lot. Anyone who has actively worked in the agricultural sector with farmers and visited farms over the past decades will tell you how many things have changed on farms. Just think of GPS, satellite imagery, sensors, drones, computer vision, robots, unmanned vehicles and so on.The transformation has been amazing. They will tell you how many new tools and new technologies they have adopted and integrated in their daily work. Farmers adopt novelties, but not because it is trendy or fashionable. No, they adopt the tools that actually add value to them. Farmers are quite keen on technology. They are just not keen on snake oil. They are busy people. They have a gazillion things to take care of and their time is precious, just as well as their money. Unlike many people gravitating around agriculture, they do not have the luxury to waste time with something that is not ready.

Farmers are the perfect illustration of what Steve Jobs said. If you want farmers to adopt a product or a technology, you’d better make sure it answers an actual need and that what you offer is foolproof. Farming is a business and as such a tool must make the business better. Better can mean faster, it can mean physically easier or it can mean making better decisions and many other things depending of what the tool is about. In the end better is about having better technical and financial results without additional headaches on top of those that Nature and markets send on a regular basis. To adopt a new tool, farmers want it to save them time, otherwise what is the point? They want it to be cost-effective, otherwise what would be the point of replacing an existing trusted and reliable tool. And thirdly, farmers want peace of mind. They do not want to end up spending time to figure out how the tool works or to have to call customer support for troubleshooting all the time.

So yes, the customer experience comes first. And that is what I always insist on, and have done so since I started The Food Futurist. Innovation must be market-driven. I can imagine that in the early stages, the tech geeks need to build prototypes but then, and as soon as possible, they must team up with users to review what is useful and what is not and develop a product that meets exactly their needs. A great frustration of mine is that farmers are not involved enough in the early stages. As Steve Jobs said, the tech people build something exciting but too often try to push it. If it does not fit, there is only one result: slow adoption or just plain rejection.

There is a picture I like to show to describe what market-driven and results-oriented innovation is. It is one of these kids toys with shapes that have to pass through holes of various shapes. With innovation, it is the same game. If the farmer has a square problem, trying to push a triangular solution, even it is the most beautiful triangle ever, just does not work. Actually, it creates only frustration. If the farmer has a square problem, the solution must be square, too. That is the only way it will fit and that the farmer will adopt it.

I also see an important role for the agriculture sector: they have to say out loud what kind of problems they have and what solutions they need. If it is square, say you want a square solution. If it is star-shaped, say you want a star-shaped solution. That way, the tech geeks, who really love to build things, will also know early enough on what they must work. It will save time and money. It will strongly increase the chances of adoption, which is a win-win for both farmers and tech companies, and it will help improve agriculture faster and better.

Copyright 2025 – Christophe Pelletier – The Food Futurist – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

245. Is EU food and agriculture about to become a museum?

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I was speaking recently at an event in Spain and by the end of my presentation, I had a slide on which I indicated which regions I saw as the winners of the future. The title and subtitle of the slide were:

“Winners: Conquerors

Bold, ambitious and determined fighters”

Being in Spain with many Europeans in the audience, I got the question of why I did not mention the EU among the winners. Fair question, and by the way, Canada, my second country of citizenship, did not appear among the winners, either.

About the case of the EU, I shared my concerns about EU policies which I find counterproductive. Although I find the idea of a Green Deal to make agriculture more sustainable a good idea full of good intentions, I do not have the same enthusiasm about the policies and means used to achieve improvements. I find the policies too much into the ideological and dogmatic and not enough into the practical and realistic, as I mentioned some time ago in one of my YouTube videos on the subject.

As the conversation was progressing with the audience, I lamented that the future would not be for the timid and that in particular that the EU does not seem to know how to stand up to the Putins and Trumps of this world. The EU has a leadership problem. Everyone can see that every day. I went as far as to say that if the EU does not wake up soon, it will end up being a museum. Apparently, this statement had impact. It obviously created a shock, and from a few one-on-one conversations I had later, it sounded like it was a useful shock. The argument of the quality of foods from the EU and their heritage was raised and I confirmed that I, for one, always appreciate these traditional products. Since we were in Spain, I mentioned one of my all-time favorites which is the Jamón Ibérico (I truly am a total fan). Every time I am in Europe I certainly love to go shopping on markets and I love the quality of the foods that I find.

My point about the EU turning into a museum was not that I do not consider the EU as a future winner because of its quality of foods. My point was because of the policies, EU farmers and producers are less competitive and will not be able to grow. The EU market share and influence will decrease because of such policies.

And this is a huge pity because European farmers are at the top when it comes to efficiency, high technical performance, low waste and, yes, product quality. European farmers and the associated industry are actually incredibly innovative and resourceful. Unfortunately, they often do not have access to the same amount of resources or of political support as in some other regions of the world. Personally, it really hurts my feelings when I see such top farmers being bought out and leave agriculture mostly for dogmatic reasons. Just imagine a company where the Human Resource Department would systematically get rid of its top performers for reasons that have nothing to do with performance. It would be stupid, wouldn’t it? Well, truth is that such idiotic actions actually happen in some companies, but that is another story. What is the result down the road? It is a leveling down of the sector, which follows by a weakened competitive position, a loss of market share, of presence and eventually of viability. And that is exactly what I fear is going to happen to EU food and agriculture.

The original European food and agriculture policies were about food security, which made a lot of sense after the harsh time of World War II. It is a good philosophy. It must never be removed for the top priority of the EU, or of any country that wants to play an influential role. I have been thinking of whether there ever was an economic powerhouse that did not have food security, and I cannot think of any. Often, it feels like the critics of food and agriculture take food for granted and do not even understand what it takes to bring it onto tables. My advice here is simple: do not ever take food for granted and make sure that those producing it can keep doing so!

For these reasons and to be among the winners, the EU must have bold, ambitious and determined food and agriculture policies. The food and agriculture sector must be vocal about this and must force every EU politician to answer a simple question: do they want to support their farmers or do they want to set them up to fail? It is either one. I cannot be both or neither. Just that simple. Further, the EU should also distantiate itself from the UN FAO goals of all sorts, most of which are more anchored in wishful thinking and ideology than they are in pragmatic reality. Fact is that most of them are lagging and will not be met on time. It is good to have goals, but when they are not realistic or attainable, they should see it as a duty to amend them and readjust goals and timelines. Just a look at the state of the European automobile industry is enough to see the damage that wrong policies, as I describe above, can generate. That nonsense simply must not happen to EU food and agriculture.

So, how to make the EU among the winners and avoid it to become a museum? Well, a couple of principles must be applied:

  1. The EU must produce the quantity (and quality) of food that the EU consumers need, so that there is less need for imports. A market-driven approach is key. Unfortunately, all food and agriculture policies always seem built from a production-driven angle.
  2. EU farmers and producers must be supported by their politicians, so that they are at least as competitive as their counterparts from third countries, which would make it easier for EU buyers to choose EU products first. Saying “choose EU” or “EU has the best food in the world” has about no impact with buyers. In the end, price always plays a major role and often is the major parameter. When it comes to competition, things are very simple: those who do not have a strong competitive position will lose. Like it or not, that is the way it is. And it is even more so with undifferentiated commodities for markets such as foodservice and processing industry for which the product is only an ingredient. For niches such as traditional products or regional specialties, it is possible for producers to protect their turf better, but such niches are not the lion’s share of consumption. Such niches will make a great museum, but what about the bulk of the EU market?

Nonetheless, there might be a silver lining about some of the policies. For example, The Netherlands have struggled with their nitrogen emissions reduction policies. After spending a few years persisting in error and wasting several billions of Euros with no result by buying out farmers and for those who could continue trying to force them into a rigid frame of rules telling them what is allowed and what is not, policymakers are rethinking the approach. Of course, anyone who understands farming knows that such rigid frames based on dos and don’ts simply do not work because agriculture is the opposite of rigid. It constantly faces changes, fluctuations and unexpected events. The Dutch farmers knew that. They wanted a more pragmatic and feasible approach, and opposed the policies but to no avail. Personally, I find essential to involve farmers to work on solutions fir a better agriculture. That was the topic of another video of mine. Farmers know the work. They know what works and what does not. Yet and too often, policymakers do not seem al that interested in listening to their input. That is a mistake.

In The Netherlands, the approach is now changing. Instead of imposing a script, the government now wants to focus on goals of nitrogen emissions reduction and leave it up to farmers to decide how they want to achieve the goals in the most effective manner. They will have to show progress and depending on the results might have to take corrective action if needed. To me, this makes sense. It is about results and that is all that matters. The how is secondary. Now, the thing is that elections are coming next month in The Netherlands and, depending on who wins, the new policies might be abandoned. We will see.

Copyright 2025 – Christophe Pelletier – The Food Futurist – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

My poetry book is published

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My poetry book about food and farming is published and now available on all Amazon online stores. The easiest way to find the book is by typing Christophe Pelletier in the Amazon website search bar.

There is an English version, “Down to Earth” and a French version, “Vers de Terre”. Since my last update, the content has changed somehow. I modified some of the poems and added a few more. There now is a total of 99 of them. The cover also underwent a makeover. I have created a page on this website for the book. To find more information and details about the content, please click click here Continue reading →

Update on my poetry book

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I am almost finished with the book, which will have Down to Earth as its title. I am going to make a French version as well, the title of which will be Vers de Terre.

The book contains 90 poems about food and farming. As a strong believer in the benefits of using both brain hemispheres, I composed poems that range to more “classic” themes to themes dealing with new technologies in food and agriculture. There is something for everyone in these poems.

I divided the content into six sections (click here to see the table of contents):

  • Fields: poems about plants and agriculture
  • Pastorale: poems about animals and animal husbandry
  • Characters: poems about people from food and agriculture
  • Edibles: poems about food
  • Destinations: poems about countries and their foods
  • Gravitas: poems about serious subjects

I also mixed many poem formats:

  • Sonnet, because of its elegance and structure
  • Haiku, for its powerful and concise impact
  • Villanelle, because it is so musical and light
  • Limerick, just to try to be funny
  • Rondeau, for classicism
  • Cinquain,  for modernity and concision
  • Free style, to let my mind wander without the rigidity of predetermined format, which I did mostly in rhymes but sometimes without rhymes but for a feel of rhythm and visual or sensory impressions

Next to the simple pleasure of poetry, I wrote these poems in a way that can be conducive to read and discuss them with an educational function in mind.

Copyright 2020 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Positively setting the stage in my office

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A substantial part of my work consists of speaking engagements, in particular keynote presentations to conferences. Of course, Covid-19 has been a bit of a disruptor. Yet, many events organizers have adjusted to the new situation and virtual conferences have now become a new format. If I felt at first like I was going to have lots of time on my hands, I have been rather surprised by the ongoing interest for the future of food and farming, and by the many requests for virtual speaking engagements that I have received. I am as busy as ever. In a way, there is some irony –or maybe just a sign that I saw certain things before others- because virtual meetings have been on my list of services for a decade. Few had used that possibility until Covid-19 raised its ugly head. Virtual meeting are now happening.

At first, it was a matter of simply accommodating, getting on Skype or Zoom, just like everybody else. I can understand that lockdowns took everybody by surprise and it is a matter of first things first. I just want to go the next level. Zoom meetings are nice but, and I do not know if you will agree with me, there is a bit of a depressed atmosphere about it. People do not dress as they would for business in the “real” world and everybody looks a little subdued and droopy. It feels a little soft. Often, it has more to do with not setting the camera in the right spot but nonetheless, I want virtual meetings and conferences to feel as dynamic, energetic and upbeat as the “real” ones. We are not going to let the virus get us down, are we? It is a matter of mindset, really.

Virtual meetings will stay, even after we have defeated the virus. The old in-person conferences will return but many people and event organizers will have discovered the value and the benefit of virtual events as well. This why I have organized my home office as a stage, where I can stand and look at the audience right in the eyes (although through the lens of a camera). Every time, I am just trying to replicate the feeling of an in-person meeting. A positive mindset is always contagious, hopefully more so than Covid-19. I have a whole array of tech gizmos to be able to do presentations, as I mention in the video. In a number of occasions, I needed to get in touch with my inner MacGyver.

I just want to let you know that virtual meetings and conferences are on my list of services. I hope that it is something that appeals to you and if you are interested, let’s get in touch and see what we can organize.

Christophe Pelletier

My next book will be a little different

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Over the past few weeks, I have been avidly writing a book of poems around the theme of food and farming. It is now rather advanced and I should be publishing it late Spring 2020. There will be about 70-75 poems. It is a refreshing diversion from my regular activities of food futurist, which tend to revolve around technologies and consumer trends, although I have managed to find some poetry about the future of food and agriculture and those topics. Surprisingly, there is poetry with drones, sensors, data and artificial intelligence. I have been experimenting with different poetry formats such as haiku, villanelles and limericks. It is a lot of fun to do and it good to use both brain hemispheres in harmonious balance and have them fully connected rather than grow one at the expense of the other, which would be like having one huge biceps and the other one all skinny.

Some poems treat of serious matters such as hunger, suicide among farmers, food waste or environmental matters, but most are rather cheerful, like the villanelles and humorous like the haiku and the limericks. It is full of bees, birds, fertile fields, winemaking, gardening, calves, little lambs and piglets. There is also a section that I call “Destinations” that focus on some countries and their food cultures that I particularly like. I am thinking of making a French version of the book when I am finished, as the poems are in English.

I came up with poetry in an unexpected manner. A former member of my team in my time in aquaculture here in Canada, recently died suddenly at a much too young age. Of course, I was stunned as his passing away was the last thing I had expected. He was a great professional and very instrumental in the turn around that I led here, but most of all he was a gentleman with great human qualities whom I held in very high esteem. After hearing the sad news, I started to write my thoughts in the form of a poem about him. Why did I use poetry? I have no idea but it came naturally. “His” poem will be in the book. But after writing that poem, I felt the urge of keeping writing poems, this time around one of my passions, which is food and farming.

That is the story. I will keep you posted with the next steps.