The technological boost of our times is not limited to robot automation and artificial intelligence. A lot of progress is being made in the field of biotechnology with direct applications and implications in agriculture. Genome sequencing and genome engineering are just two examples of ways in which the field is to a large extent a beneficiary.
However, despite the ambition that drives them, such technologies are failing to eliminate malnutrition or to make the agricultural system sustainable on a global scale.
What’s worse is that capitalism takes over. A very recent detailed report from IPES outlined the current trends in agriculture and the food industry and identified the key causes: concentration of power/money and growing inequalities. The title sums it up all too starkly: Too big to feed. Based on this report, recent mergers give a few huge firms the power to dominate, control and profit from the industry.
Surely this is not the way forward. We need a global people-centered food policy, fighting against capital interests — if we are to have the food we want, to drastically decrease malnutrition, and to create a sustainable food industry that the planet urgently needs.
Europe has a lot of power to go against the tide in this way, but the EU is disintegrating. All of us need to take action and not let things deteriorate further on our continent.
 
Aris is a member and volunteer of the DiEM25 movement.
 

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