The case for conversion-free food

Today, global food production comes at a massive cost to both people and planet. We depend on natural ecosystems to produce, provide, and adapt for our health and nutrition as well as to spur economic growth.

There are more than 570 million farmers worldwide cultivating about half of Earth’s habitable land to feed more than 7 billion people—and counting. However, only a few hundred companies control the world’s food production, trade, and consumption.

Year after year, global food production carves away at the remaining natural ecosystems and habitat on the planet and stresses the food system’s ability to withstand shocks— all while greenhouse gas emissions rise, water becomes scarcer, species fade into extinction, and people continue to live at the margins In particular, commodity markets pose unique challenges as smallholder farmers bear all the risk of production and reap little benefit. Commodity-dependence often negatively impacts a farmer’s economic advancement and the country’s economic development. Both individual and national growth is minimal compared to the dramatic environmental expense.