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Showing posts from August, 2016

True Cost of Food and Agriculture

Current agricultural production systems have been calibrated to maximise return on investment, and utilises large amounts of inputs in terms of agrochemicals and energy. However, such production systems often ignore, (i) the contribution of ecosystem functions and services to the production systems, (ii) social aspects of farming, and (iii) the impact of intensive practices on public and environmental health. Thus these systems are increasing financial capital at the expense of both social and natural capital. Moreover, current economic and policy environment also supports such systems by subsidising agriculture with the costs to public and environment health. At the same time, these systems can appear to be more profitable than some of the sustainable alternatives due to their unrecognised and unaccounted costs associated with the above-mentioned damage that they are not being charged for.  Therefore, there is need to recalibrate current agricultural systems by unders