Food, being essential to survival, is a basic human right. Choice, being a consequence of freedom and independence, is another. Put together, these two ingredients brew up a mean concoction of a strong outcry for the choice of food to be offered to an individual. New trends such as growing wealth and a shrinking globe has exacerbated problems brought forth by the increase in both quantity and variety of food, such as overconsumption or even rampant wastage. Technology has been touted as the silver bullet fix-all for mushrooming woes in light of this shifting attitude towards food, and rightly so. The benefits that it has brought us are largely able to reverse problems brought about by the widespread exchange of food across the globe.
Poverty today is one of the most pressing problems that humanity face, characterised by close to non-existent incomes which struggle to offer coverage of the most fundamental human needs. The north-south divide is indicative of how geographically separate the developed and developing countries are, and it is inevitable that given the geographical immobility of benefactors and beneficiaries of food aid, vast distances have to be covered for the transport of food to such regions.
Apart from physical scarcity of food that the developing countries face, physical scarcity of resources such as land required to produce food is also a pertinent problem. Landlocked countries such as Afghanistan or land-scarce countries like Taiwan or Hong Kong find it extremely unviable to produce food domestically, despite having the financial capacity to do so. Resources could be much better channelled to more efficient pursuits instead, which minimises opportunity costs. To illustrate this theory of Economics, an apt illustration would be the United States of America, who turned into a net importer instead of exporter of food recently. The entrepreneurial talent of Americans and their innovative edge would be put to much better use if they were spearheading developments in technology or more value-added services, despite having the land and resources to produce enough food to feed their people. Steve Jobs would never have had the chance to manufacture the iPhone which revolutionised the world, had he been stuck on a field with a buffalo ploughing land.
Yet, it is not new to us that forms of transport popular today have heavily unfavourable impacts on the environment. The increased recognition of problems regarding environmental degradation decries unnecessary transport of food over large distances, for fear of the impacts left on the environment. This is by no means crying wolf: drinking a bottle of imported water has the environmental equivalence of driving a car for one kilometre, and an inconspicuous kiwi has released an average of 12 times it weight in carbon emissions during the transporting process. The prevalence of cross-continent transport has been rising, with people brandishing wads of cash in demanding more exotic food for their palates. Tea leaves grown in India is prized in Europe, as are native North American herbs like oregano being sought after by Asian countries clamouring to become more westernized. In fact, premium prices of imported food have done little to quash the rising demand. Such superfluous transport has been falsely promoted by higher prices which consumers perceive to be a result of better quality, instead of the additional toll imposed for environmental damage.
In a bid to cater to this growing prevalence of transporting food, a whole new sector has sprung up to respond to the demands for keeping food fresh. At its helm are the engineers of genetically modified (GM) food. Through simple alterations to a tomato, the GM tomato is now able to prolong the ripening process and extend the freshness window: a vital consideration of fresh produce. Foods similar to the likes of the GM tomato have opened up a can of worms, bringing more ethical, social and environmental questions and problems to an already trouble-fraught world. Among the more pressing ones include growing inequity due to firms enjoying the privilege of patents, and the inability of manual farmers who are unable to hold their ground against mass producers with the cost advantage of being able to afford engineered seeds.
In essence, transport of food over vast distances has immediate merits (of better standards of living and efficiency in using resources), as well as peripheral benefits (from GM crop that are widely accepted due to their enhanced nutritional benefits). Although such transport may seem gratuitous and unnecessary, to condemn and restrict the transport of food across continents may be akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The rate of technological improvements today has seen to it that the environment is getting its fair share of attention. A direct consequence of this macroeconomic consideration is that even though the act of transporting food is debilitating per se, the benefits brought about by this convenience is likely to eventually outweigh the cons in the future, even though it might not be as apparent now.
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