Resilience: The Food Policy Imperative for a Volatile Future

• Date: 01 July 2015

7-2015 NEWS & ANALYSIS 45 ELR 10663

Resilience: The Food Policy

Imperative for a Volatile Future

by Nicole M. Civita

Nicole M. Civita is an Aliated Professor with the University of Arkansas School of Law’s LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food

Law, where she teaches Food Justice, Urban Agriculture Law & Policy, and Global Food Security and directs the Food Recovery

Project. Nicole is also Faculty in Sustainable Food Systems and the Assistant Director of the Rian Fried Center for Sustainable

Agriculture & Food Systems at Sterling College. She works Of Counsel with Foscolo & Handel PLLC, the Food Law Firm.

I. Introduction

Now and for the foreseeable future, these are the conditions

of human life on earth: Hot. irsty. Volatile. Crowded.

Hungry. e climate on the only planet capable of sustain-

ing our species is more hostile now than at any other point

in human history. A s temperatures climb, glaciers melt,

sea levels in acidifying oceans rise, and extreme weather

events become devastatingly frequent,1 disruption is the

new normal.

Human activity ha s tra nsformed the climate. e way

we fuel our , our heedless burning of fossil fuels,

has undoubtedly altered the atmosphere. But so has the

way we fuel our lives, the way we feed our bodies. Unlike

other goods, our use of which can be abandoned or sharply

restricted, we cannot simply give up food. Indeed, with

a growing population, we cannot even realistically and

responsibly set our sights on producing and consuming

signicantly less food. In the words of just about every

grandmother ever, “You have to eat!”

When facing the massive, wicked problems presented

by climate change and planetary limits, it is tempting to

do just that—eat—and litt le more. Bury our anx iety in

a cheeseburger and fries, drown our sorrows in a pint of

beer, keep calm, and eat cake! Doing so, however, will

only compound the crisis and hasten the heating. To sus-

tain ourselves in a n uncertain f uture, we must change our

approach to all of our energy sources, including the most

intimate energy source: food.

If we are to simultaneously produce sucient food under

challenging conditions and rapidly decrease greenhouse gas

(GHG) emissions, we must swiftly abandon short-sighted

land conversions, resource-intensive, GHG-spewing indus-

1.  I P  C C (IPCC),

S  P, C C 2013: T P S-

 B (2013) (Contribution of Working Group I to the IPCC Fifth

Assessment Report), available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/

ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf. Global average land and ocean sur-

face temperatures increased by 0.85 degrees Celsius between 1880 and

2012.

trial agricultural practices, and the routine long-dista nce

transport of most agricultural inputs and outputs. Systemic

changes will need to be complemented by individual and

cultural shifts in dietary preferences and consumption pat-

terns. In other words, we also need to rethink the way that

people and communities consume and connect around

food. Changing our approach to producing and consum-

ing food also requires us to craft agrifood law and policy

around a new imperative. Instead of being propelled by

productivism, we must pursue resilience.

To sustain a growing population on a changing planet,

food policies at all levels—community, regional, national,

and global—must promote judicious resource use, priori-

tize stewardship, align with ecosystems, advance social and

distributive justice, consider national security, and position

us to weather long- and short-term disruptions, both cli-

mate change-driven and otherwise. is Comment con-

siders the power of a profuse human population, reviews

climate consequences of the way we have been satisfying

our food needs, and demonstrates the exigencies of new

approaches to withstand the mounting pressures and dis-

ruptions assailing agriculture. It oers resilience as an essen-

tial organizing imperative for agrifood systems, policies,

and laws. In so doing, the Comment explores the nature

and value of resilience, outlines t he characteristics of resil-

ient food systems, identies benets of orienting our food

future around resilience, and suggests preliminary steps in

the direction of reforming agrifood policy for resilience.

II. The Problem

A. Living Large: Collective Human Transformation of

the Planet

We are in a global mess of our own making. e existence

and prima ry cau ses of the climate crisis are beyond ques-

tion and no longer open for serious debate: 97% of cli-

mate scientis ts agree that cl imate cha nge is both real a nd

Copyright © 2015 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.