​BLOG POST: The Law of Opposites – Nations Exit. Cities Thrive.

BLOG POST -  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” — Charles Dickens

I'm Shrikant Ramakrishnan, Global Business Development Director at Plantagon. This week I'm presenting some thoughts on the UK, Brexit and food. 

According to Newton’s Third Law, all forces come in pairs. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Without pain, you couldn’t comprehend joy. Without vulnerability and trust, you couldn’t comprehend love. Without hunger, there can be no nutrition.

The very challenges inherent in life make it possible to thrive. Without said challenges, there would be nothing to overcome. You can’t possibly have “the best” of times without simultaneously having “the worst” of times.

Without opposites and without contrast, you couldn’t possibly have a choice. But you do have a choice. Thus, you are empowered.

The law of opposites  -  equal and opposite reactions.

There’s never been a more competitive and challenging time to live. Thus, there’s never been greater opportunity for success, abundance, and happiness in the history of the world.

The world is currently audience to the stage for one such eventuality - as a result of UK voting for Brexit. The choice of a majority in UK, in this empowered world.

The mighty Great Britain is at a crossroads of sorts. Internal divided opinion apart, the decision and the way forward now beckon challenges and opportunities in abundance.

Lets start with what Great Britain started with, a few millenniums before. Trade and The East India Company.

At its height in 1922 the British Empire governed a fifth of the world’s population and a quarter of the world’s total land area, but its legacy divides opinion.

United Kingdom is currently bracing up to face some basic issues in their Food Policy. The National Farmers Union (NFU) President warns of rising food prices combined with a weakening pound and a strained food imports regime. All this adds to the deteriorating self-sufficiency levels, currently at 60%.

Difficulties facing U.K farmers could also be compounded by a shortfall in labour, as EU workers who have come to Britain due to freedom of movement laws may no longer be able to pick fruit and vegetables.

Minette Batters, deputy president of the NFU, told MailOnline: “Prices will have to go up to ensure farms stay in profit. “Many are already being paid below the cost of production prices and that is not sustainable.”

The real agenda facing the UK food system and food systems at all levels - local, national, regional, European and global – is the need to move rapidly to a more sustainable basis. The food systems built by the rich world are now widely agreed to be unsustainable. Ecosystems are under threat from food. Our food systems are too carbon intensive, and waste water, land and material resources. They play major roles in threatening the future. The health externalities, too, are immense. Diet is the greatest contributor to the burden of disease. Food is systemically wasted. The UK and EU have to address this challenge whether together or separately – and the rest of the World can either lead this multi-pronged approach or watch and take notice.

The Food Research Collaboration paper explores the food terrain of UK and the facts are as follows:

• The UK is heavily dependent on other EU member states for food. UK food production is below 60% of consumption and particularly reliant on imports for fruit and many vegetables.
• The UK suffers a huge food trade gap of £21bn. Not only is the UK reliant on the rest of Europe for food but this imbalance is a drain on the national balance of payments.
• The post-Brexit food world will now be characterized by volatility, disruption and uncertainty. Food import costs will rise if the price of sterling falls. UK exposure to world commodity prices and competition with large trade trade blocs would rise.
• The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) are significant control mechanisms in food and both need further reform. CAP has paid large sums to food and farm corporations and the CFP has produced waste and mismatch fishing. The CAP has pushed up land values while the CFP has put many fisherfolk out of work. But many failings have been addressed and there is a case for further improvement rather than abandonment.
• The initial focus of the Brexit debate has been farming rather than food, yet the UK food system employs more than six times more people outside farming. It is food that matters as well as farming.
• The EU food system needs urgent reform and a change of direction. If current change is too slow and vested interests are too powerful, Brexit merely adds new complications, risks and uncertainties.
• The key questions facing the food system include sustainability, demographic change, changes in diet and supply chains and the shift to more healthy foods. The UK and the EU food systems, whether the UK stays in or leaves, need to move rapidly in a more sustainable direction.
• The UK, EU and global food systems face immense challenges and Brexit is a diversion. With over 4 decades of involvement in the EU the Brexit now generates additional food system stress.
• Brexit now means that a vast and complicated range of contracts, trade deals and systems of governance, which underpin UK food, would have to be renegotiated.

It is well established today that the sustainability challenges faced by the entire human population must be addressed and engaged with - by academics, civil society organizations and the people themselves. They must be addressed with renewed vigor. We must not lose sight of the real food challenges. They remain urgent whatever the course, whoever the actors.

With the entire future at stake – pardon my arrogance, isn’t it time to rewire our thought processes towards sustainability and local needs.

People live in cities today. People consume. Systems need to be woven around people – not just infrastructure. For people to survive, they need affordable and nutritious food as a basic necessity.

Cities are the new nucleus and people its core. The Law of Opposites – Nations Exit, Cities Thrive.

Shrikant Ramakrishnan,
Global Business Development Director
Plantagon International AB

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DISCLAIMER: This is a blog. That fact means nothing. It is not a peer-reviewed journal, a final archive of my writing, a sponsored publication, or the product of gatekeeping and editing. That does mean something…it means that while the ideas and thoughts are often vital and personal, the writing and views need not subscribe entirely to Plantagon. It is essentially as it came from the keyboard: spontaneous, unproofed, unrevised, and corrected afterward only when necessary to address mistakes that grossly effect the intent. Where such changes have been made they are explicitly noted… In your response section, try and be polite please.

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Please watch out for up-coming blog post by:

• Sepehr Mousavi, Sustainability Strategist, Plantagon and Chair to Swedish Standards Institute ‘Sustainable Urban Food Production’ committee
• Joakim Rytterborn, Head of Research & Development at Plantagon