The Guardian Sustainable Business Blog features a post about the need to develop a new paradigm for food production that is based on people and biodiversity not fossil fuels, toxic chemicals and monocultures.

Says author, Vandana Shiv, “the economic crisis, the ecological crisis and the food crisis are all a reflection of an outmoded and fossilised economic paradigm”. He argues that production in agriculture (output per unit input) is falsely measured because not all outputs and inputs are considered.

As things currently stand, it is only the single commodity to be produced for the market that is measured as an output and for input, purely the labour involved.

In biodiverse agro-ecosystems, the outputs measured should include the compost, energy and dairy products from livestock, the fuel and fodder and fruit from agroforestry and farm trees, the diverse outputs of diverse crops. Similarly, all inputs should be measured; capital, seeds, chemicals, machinery, fossil fuels, labour, land and water.

If all outputs were measure then small, biodiverse farms would be seen to produce more and be more productive. But under the current system, low-output, high-input chemical, industrial monocultures are considered more productive.

Shiv believes this ‘fossilised measure of productivity’ is at the root of the multiple crises we face in relation to food, agriculture, unemployment and the environment. He calls for a move to using real indicators that reflect the true health of nature and the real wellbeing of the economy.

Read the full story: Futurnomics of food