TED: Carolyn Steel - How food shapes our cities

Summary

This script explores the complex question of how cities are fed, highlighting the remarkable process of food production, transportation, and consumption. It delves into the historical evolution of food systems, from ancient agriculture and urbanism to modern industrialization, and the environmental and social implications of our current unsustainable practices. The speaker advocates for a reconceptualization of our relationship with food, suggesting a shift towards a more sustainable and integrated approach, reconnecting cities with nature.

Takeaways

• 🌏 The global challenge of feeding cities is often overlooked, yet it's a remarkable feat that cities are fed at all given the scale of food production and distribution required.
• 🌾 Our cities are increasingly dependent on vast agricultural landscapes, such as soybean fields in Brazil, which are transforming the natural world to sustain urban populations.
• 🥩 The rise of urban populations and meat consumption is leading to a significant portion of global grain crops being fed to animals, which is an inefficient method of food production for humans.
• 📈 By 2050, the urban population and meat consumption are expected to double, posing a major challenge for sustainable food production and environmental impact.
• 🌲 The loss of rainforests for agricultural land and the inefficiency of food production, with a high calorie cost in fossil fuels, are unsustainable practices.
• 🚫 Despite the abundance of food produced, there is a lack of appreciation for it, with significant waste occurring in countries like the USA.
• 🌱 The concept of 'copia' (food and place) is introduced as a way to re-envision how food shapes our lives and environments, advocating for a more integrated and sustainable relationship with nature.
• 🏛 Ancient cities like Rome relied on 'food miles' and military conquests to secure grain, highlighting the historical importance of food in shaping urban and political landscapes.
• 🚂 The advent of trains in the 19th century revolutionized food transportation, enabling cities to grow without geographical constraints and altering the relationship between cities and their food sources.
• 🛒 Modern food systems have made food acquisition easier but have also distanced us from the process of food production, leading to a lack of trust and appreciation for food.
• 🌱 The speaker suggests that re-establishing local food networks and community projects can help reconnect urban populations with the origins of their food and promote a more sustainable lifestyle.

Q & A

What is considered one of the great questions of our time that is rarely asked?

How to feed a city is considered one of the great questions of our time that is rarely asked.

Why is it remarkable that cities get fed at all?

It is remarkable because every day, cities like London require a massive amount of food to be produced, transported, bought, sold, cooked, eaten, disposed of, and this process is repeated daily for every city on earth.

What is the relationship between the increase in urban population and the demand for meat?

As more people move into cities and adopt a western diet, the demand for meat increases, leading to more grain being fed to animals instead of directly to humans.

Why is feeding grain to animals before consumption by humans considered inefficient?

It is inefficient because it takes 10 times as much grain to feed a human if it is passed through an animal first, due to the energy loss in the conversion process.

What is the estimated increase in the urban population and meat and dairy consumption by 2050?

By 2050, it is estimated that the urban population will double, and there will be twice as much meat and dairy consumed compared to current levels.

What is the environmental impact of the current food production system in terms of rainforest loss?

Every year, 19 million hectares of rainforest are lost to create new arable land, while an equivalent amount of existing arable land is lost to salinization and erosion.

How does the speaker describe the relationship between food and cities in the pre-industrial world?

In the pre-industrial world, cities were shaped by food both physically and socially. Food was at the center of the city, and streets and public spaces were the places where food was bought and sold.

How did the advent of trains change the way cities were fed?

The advent of trains allowed for the first time to grow cities of any size and shape in any place, effectively emancipating cities from geographical constraints and enabling the import of food from far away.

What is the significance of the term 'copia' as introduced by the speaker?

Copia, derived from the ancient Greek words for food (ctos) and place (topos), represents a concept where food is recognized as a fundamental ordering principle and a powerful tool to shape the world better.

What is the role of community projects in the vision of 'copia'?

Community projects, such as greenhouses and local markets, play a crucial role in 'copia' by reconnecting people with nature and promoting local food production and consumption.

What message does the speaker believe Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government conveys about the relationship between the city and the countryside?

The message conveyed is that if the city looks after the countryside, the countryside will look after the city, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between urban and rural areas.

Outlines

00:00

🌎 The Challenge of Urban Food Supply

The script opens with a profound question about how cities are fed, a process we often take for granted. It points out the daily miracle of providing food for a city like London, which requires a complex system of production, transportation, and disposal. The speaker highlights the inefficiency of our current food system, particularly the conversion of grain into meat, which is a less sustainable method given the projected increase in urban populations and meat consumption by 2050. The script also touches on the environmental costs, such as deforestation and the loss of arable land, and the shocking statistic that a significant portion of food produced in the USA is wasted. The speaker emphasizes the need for a reevaluation of our food systems, hinting at the historical roots of this issue.

05:02

🛳️ Ancient Food Miles and the Evolution of Urban Feeding

This paragraph delves into the historical methods of feeding large cities like Rome, which relied on 'ancient food miles' to import necessities from afar, often through military conquest and control over grain reserves. The speaker illustrates how cities were shaped by their food sources, with streets and markets named after the food they traded. The paragraph also discusses the transformation brought about by the advent of trains, which allowed for the growth of cities without geographical constraints, leading to a disconnection between cities and their food sources, and the shift from visible, social food markets to more anonymous, centralized systems.

10:04

🏙️ The Modern Disconnection from Food and Its Consequences

The speaker discusses the modern alienation from food in urban environments, where food is no longer a social event but an anonymous commodity. The paragraph describes how modern food systems have made the process of feeding cities more difficult, despite their promise of ease. It points out the irony of these systems being unsustainable and our growing dependence on them. The speaker suggests that we need to rethink our relationship with food and nature, proposing the concept of 'copia' as a way to reshape our urban environments to be more connected with food production and consumption.

15:06

🌱 Envisioning Copia: A Sustainable and Connected Food Future

In the final paragraph, the speaker introduces 'copia' as a vision for a future where food is central to life and community, and where urban environments are symbiotically connected to the natural world. The paragraph outlines what a 'copia' society might look like, with local food networks, community projects, and a reconnection to the process of growing and consuming food. The speaker argues for a reconceptualization of food's role in shaping our lives, advocating for a return to a more organic and sustainable relationship with our food systems, and posing a question about what a modern allegory of good government, reflecting this relationship, might look like.

Keywords

💡Urbanism

Urbanism refers to the design and organization of cities and the way of life associated with them. In the video, it is highlighted as a concept that emerged around 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent and is intrinsically linked to agriculture, as it allowed for the establishment of permanent settlements due to a stable food source. The script discusses how urbanism has evolved, especially with the advent of modern transportation, leading to cities becoming detached from their immediate natural surroundings.

💡Food Miles

Food miles is a term used to describe the distance food travels from the time of production until it reaches the consumer. In the context of the video, it is mentioned in relation to ancient Rome, which imported food from far away places, demonstrating the lengths to which cities would go to sustain their populations. The script uses the term to illustrate the historical significance of food transportation and its impact on urban development.

💡Agricultural Landscapes

Agricultural landscapes refer to the areas of land where farming activities take place, often characterized by fields, crops, and other forms of cultivation. The video script describes these landscapes as 'extraordinary' and notes how they are often unseen by the majority of people they support, highlighting the disconnect between urban populations and the origins of their food.

💡Meat Consumption

Meat consumption is the act of eating animal flesh and is a significant dietary choice with environmental implications. The script points out that as more people move to cities, meat consumption increases, leading to a higher proportion of the global grain crop being fed to animals instead of directly to humans. This is presented as an inefficient method of food production in relation to the environmental costs and resource use.

💡Sustainability

Sustainability in the video is discussed in the context of food production and urban living. It refers to the ability to maintain processes or conditions so that they can continue over the long term without causing harm to the environment. The script raises concerns about the current trajectory of urban growth and meat consumption, suggesting that these trends are unsustainable and will require innovative solutions to ensure the continued feeding of growing urban populations.

💡Food Waste

Food waste is the discarding or loss of food, which can occur at any stage from production to consumption. The video script mentions that half of the food produced in the USA is currently thrown away, indicating a significant inefficiency and lack of value placed on food within modern societies. This concept is tied to the broader theme of resource management and the need for a more sustainable approach to food systems.

💡Industrial Age

The Industrial Age refers to a period of significant industrialization, which began in the 18th century and marked a shift from agrarian societies to industrialized ones. In the script, the Industrial Age is associated with the transformation of cities and the way food is produced, transported, and consumed, leading to a disconnection between urban dwellers and the origins of their food.

💡Permaculture

Permaculture is a system of agricultural and social design principles that aim to create sustainable and self-sufficient ecosystems. The video script suggests that a shift towards permaculture could be part of the solution to the challenges of feeding urban populations sustainably, by reconceptualizing the relationship between food production and urban environments.

💡Copia

Copia, derived from the ancient Greek words for 'food' and 'place,' is a term introduced in the video to describe a vision where food is recognized as a fundamental organizing principle of society. The script proposes that by embracing the concept of copia, we can reshape our cities and food systems to be more integrated with nature and less wasteful.

💡Allegory of Good Government

The Allegory of Good Government is a painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti that symbolizes the relationship between the city and the countryside and the mutual benefits of their interdependence. In the script, the painting is used to illustrate the historical understanding of the symbiotic relationship between urban and rural areas and to prompt reflection on what a modern equivalent might look like in the context of current challenges.

💡Food Systems

Food systems encompass the entire network and processes involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of food. The video script critiques modern food systems for creating distance between consumers and the source of their food, leading to a lack of appreciation and understanding of the environmental impact of food production. The concept is central to the discussion on how to reform our approach to feeding urban populations sustainably.

Highlights

The question of how to feed a city is a complex and under-appreciated challenge.

The daily process of feeding a city like London involves the production, transportation, and disposal of food on a massive scale.

Urbanization and the increasing demand for meat are transforming natural landscapes into agricultural fields to support city diets.

A significant portion of the global grain crop is now used to feed animals, which is less efficient than direct human consumption.

By 2050, the urban population and meat consumption are expected to double, posing significant challenges for food production and sustainability.

Deforestation and loss of arable land due to salinization and erosion are critical issues in the quest to produce enough food.

Western food production is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, with a high energy cost per calorie of food produced.

There is a significant amount of food waste in the USA, with half of the produced food being discarded.

Global food distribution is increasingly controlled by a small number of multinational corporations, leading to a grim outlook for food security.

The origins of the modern food system can be traced back to the ancient Near East and the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture and urbanism first emerged.

Ancient cities were compact and relied on local farmland and centralized food distribution systems, often managed by temples.

Rome exemplified the use of 'ancient food miles' by importing food from distant lands to support its large population.

The industrial revolution and the advent of trains changed the way cities were supplied with food, leading to their emancipation from geographical constraints.

The modern city has become disconnected from its food sources, with food now being an anonymous, packaged commodity.

The concept of 'copia' is introduced as a way to re-envision cities as part of a productive, organic framework interconnected with nature.

Examples of community projects and local markets show the potential for re-establishing a connection between cities and their food sources.

The allegory of good government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti suggests a symbiotic relationship between cities and the countryside, emphasizing the importance of mutual care.

The speaker calls for a reconceptualization of how food shapes our lives and the need to consider permaculture and sustainable practices for the future.

Transcripts

how do you feed a

city it's one of the great questions of

our time yet it's one that's rarely

asked we take it for granted that if we

go into a shop or restaurant or indeed

into this theater foer in about an

hour's time there's going to be food

there waiting for having magically come

from somewhere but when you think that

every day for a city the size of London

enough food has to be produced

transported bought and sold cooked eaten

disposed of and that something similar

has to happen every day for every city

on earth it's remarkable that cities get

fed at all we live in places like this

as if they're the most natural things in

the world forgetting that because we're

animals and that we need to eat we're

actually as dependent on the natural

world as our ancient ancestors were and

as more of us move into cities more of

that natural world is being transformed

into extraordinary Landscapes like the

one behind me a soybean field in mat Gro

in Brazil in order to feed

us these are extraordinary Landscapes

but few of us ever get to see them and

increasingly these Landscapes are not

just feeding us either as more of us

move into cities more of us are eating

meat so that a third of the annual grain

crop globally now gets fed to animals

rather than to us Human animals and

given that it takes three times as much

grain actually 10 times as much grain to

feed a human if it's passed through an

animal first that's not a very efficient

way of feeding

us and it's an escalating problem too by

2050 it's estimated that twice the

number of us are going to be living in

cities and it's also estimated that

there's going to be twice as much meat

and dairy consumed so meat and urbanism

are rising hand in hand and that's going

to pose an enormous problem six billion

hungry carnivals to feed by

2050 that's a big problem and actually

if we carry on as we are it's a problem

we're very unlikely to be able to solve

19 million hectares of rainforest are

lost every year to create new arable

land although at the same time we're

losing an equivalent amount of existing

arable to salinization and

erosion uh we're very hungry for fossil

fuels too it takes about 10 calories to

produce every calorie of food that we

consume in the

west and even though this food that

we're producing at Great cost we don't

actually value it uh half the food

produced in the USA is currently thrown

away and to end all of this at the end

of this long process we're not even

managing to feed the planet properly a

billion of us are AES while a further

billion

star none of it makes very much sense

and when you think that 80% of global

trading food now is controlled by just

five multinational

corporations it's a grim picture as

we're moving into cities the world is

also embracing a western diet uh and if

we look to the Future it's an

unsustainable diet

so how did we get here and more

importantly what are we going to do

about it well to answer the slightly

easier question first about 10,000 years

ago I would say as the beginning of this

process in the ancient near East uh

known as the Fertile Crescent because as

you can see it was Crescent shaped and

it was also fertile and it was here

about 10,000 years ago that two

extraordinary inventions Agriculture and

urbanism happened roughly in the same

place and at the same time and this is

no accident because Agriculture and

cities are bound together they need each

other because it was a discovery of

grain by our ancient ancestors for the

first time produced a food source that

was large enough and stable enough to

support permanent

settlements and if we look at what those

settlements were like we see they were

compact they were surrounded by

productive farmland and dominated by

large Temple complexes like this one at

uh that were in fact effectively

spiritualized Central Food Distribution

Centers because it was the temples that

organized the Harvest gathered in the

grain offered it to the gods and then

offered the grain that the gods didn't

eat back to the people um so if you like

the whole spiritual and physical life of

these cities was dominated by the Grain

and the Harvest that sustained them and

in fact that's true of every ancient

city but of course not all of them that

small and famously Rome had about a

million citizens by the first century ad

so how did a city like this feed

itself the answer is what I call ancient

food miles basically Rome had access to

the Sea which made it possible for it to

import food from a very long way away

this is the only way it was possible to

do this in the ancient world because it

was very difficult to transport food

over roads which were rough and the food

obviously went off very quickly so Rome

affect ly waged war on places like

Carthage and Egypt just to get its paes

on their grain reserves and in fact you

could say that the expansion of the

empire was really sort of one long drawn

out militarized shopping spree really um

in fact I love the fact I just have to

mention this that Rome in fact used to

import oysters from London at one stage

I think that's extraordinary anyway so

Rome shaped its hland through its

appetite but the interesting thing is

the other thing also so happened in the

pre-industrial world if we look at a map

of London in the 17th century we can see

that its grain which is coming in from

the temps along the bottom of this map

so the grain markets were to the south

of the city and then the roads leading

up from them to cheapside which was the

main Market were also grain markets and

if you look at the name of one of those

streets Bread Street you can tell what

was going on there 300 years ago and the

same of course is true for fish fish was

of course coming in by river as well

same thing and of course billingsgate

famously was London's Fish Market

operating on site here until the mid

1980s which is extraordinary really when

you think about it everybody else was

wandering around with mobile phones you

know that look like bricks and then the

sort of smelly fish happening sort of

down on the port um this is another

thing about food in cities once its

roots into the city are established they

very rarely move meat is a very

different story because of course

animals could walk into the city so much

of London's meat was coming from the

Northwest from Scotland and Wales so it

was coming in and arriving at the city

uh at the Northwest which is why

Smithfield London's very famous Meat

Market was located up there poultry was

coming in from East Anglia and so on to

the Northeast I feel a bit like a

weather woman doing this anyway um and

so the birds were coming in with and

with their feet protected with little

canvas shoes and then when they hit the

Eastern end of cheapside that's where

they were sold which is why it's called

poultry and in fact if you look at the

map of any City uh built before the

Industrial Age you can trace food coming

into it you can actually see how it was

physically shaped by food both by

reading the names of the streets which

give you a lot of Clues the Friday

Street on the previous slide was where

you went to buy your fish on a Friday

but also you have to imagine it full of

food because the streets and the public

spaces were the only places where food

was bought and sold and if we look at an

image of Smithfield in 1830 you can see

that it would have been very difficult

to live in a city like this and be

unaware of where your food came from in

fact if you were having Sunday lunch the

chances were it was mooing or bleeting

outside your window about 3 days earlier

so this was obviously an organic City

part of an organic

cycle and then 10 years later everything

changed this is an image of the Great

Western in 1840 and as you can see some

of the earliest train passengers were

pigs and sheep so all of a sudden these

animals are no longer walking into

Market they're being slaughtered out of

sight and mind somewhere in the

countryside and they're coming into the

City by Rail and this changes

everything to start off with it makes it

possible for the first time to grow

cities really any size and shape in any

place cities used to be constrained by

geography uh they used to have to get

their food through very difficult

physical means all of a sudden they're

effectively emancipated from geography

and as you can see from these Maps of

London in the 90 years after the trains

came it goes from being a little blob

that it was quite easy to feed uh by

animals coming in on foot and so on to a

large Splurge that it' be very very

difficult to feed with anybody on foot

either animals or

people and of course that was just the

beginning after the trains came cars and

really this marks the end of this

process it's the final emancipation of

the city from any apparent relationship

with nature at all this is the kind of

City that's devoid of smell devoid of

mess certainly devoid of people because

nobody would have dreamt of walking in

such a landscape in fact what they did

to get food was they got in their cars

uh drove to a box somewhere on the

outskirts came back with a week's worth

of shopping and wondered what on Earth

to do with it and this really is the

moment when our relationship both with

food and cities changes completely here

we have food that used to be the center

the social core of the city at the

periphery it used to be a social event

buying and selling food now it's

Anonymous we used to cook now we just

add water or uh you know a little bit of

an egg if if you're making a cake or

something we don't smell food to see if

it's okay to eat we just uh read the

back of a label on a packet um and we

don't value food uh we don't trust it so

instead of trusting it we fear it and

instead of valuing it we throw it

away one of the great ironies of modern

Food Systems is that they've made the

very thing they promised to make easier

much harder by making it possible to

build cities anywhere in any place

they've actually distanced us from our

most important relationship which is

that of us and nature and also they've

made us dependent on systems that only

they can deliver that as we've seen are

unsustainable so what are we going to do

about that it's not a new question 500

years ago it's what Thomas Moore was

asking himself this is the front piece

of his book Utopia and it was a series

of semi-independent city states if that

sounds remotely familiar a day walk from

one another where everyone was basically

farming mad and grew vegetables in their

back Gardens and ate communal meals

together and so on and I think you could

argue that food is a fundamental

ordering principle of

Utopia even though Mo never framed it

that way and here's another very famous

utopian Vision that of ebener Howard the

Garden City same idea series of

semi-independent city states little

Blobs of Metropolitan stuff with arable

land around joined to one another by

Railway and again food could be said to

be the ordering principle of his vision

it even got built but nothing to do with

this Vision that Howard had and that is

the problem with these utopian ideas

that they are utopian Utopia was

actually a word that Thomas Moore used

deliberately it was a kind of joke

because it's got a double derivation

from the Greek it can either mean a good

place or no place because it's ideal

it's an imaginary thing we can't have it

and I think as a conceptual tool for

thinking about the very deep problem of

human dwelling that makes it not much

use so I've come up with an alternative

which is copia from the ancient Greek

ctOS for food and topos for place I

believe we already live in copia we live

in a world shaped by food and that if we

realize that we can use food as a really

powerful tool conceptual tool designed

tool to shape the world differently so

if to do that what might copia look

like well I think it looks a bit like

this I have to use this SL just to look

on the face of the dog but anyway this

is It's food at the center of Life at

the center of family life being

celebrated being enjoyed people taking

time for it uh this is where food should

be in our society but you can't have

scenes like this unless you have people

like this by the way these can be men as

well it's people who think about out

food who think ahead who plan who can

stare at a pile of all vegetables and

actually recognize them we need these

people they're part of a network because

without these kinds of people we can't

have places like this here I

deliberately chose this because it is a

man buying a vegetable but um networks

markets where food's been grown locally

it's com in it's fresh it's part of the

social life of the city because without

that you can't have this kind of place

food that's grown locally and also is

part of the landscape and is not just to

zero some commodity off in some unseen

hell hole cows with a view steaming PS

of hummus this is basically bringing the

whole thing

together and this is a community project

I visited recently in Toronto it's a

greenhouse where kids get told all about

food and growing their own food here's a

plant called Kevin or maybe it's a a

plant belonging to a kid called Kevin I

don't know but anyway these kinds of

projects that are trying to reconnect us

with nature is extremely important

important so copia for me is really a

way of seeing it's basically recognizing

that copia already exists in little

pockets everywhere the trick is to join

them up to use food as a way of

seeing and if we do that we're going to

stop seeing cities as big Metropolitan

unproductive blobs like this we're going

to see them more like this as part of

the productive organic framework of

which they are inevitably a part

symbiotically connected but of course

that's not a great image either because

we need not to be producing food like

this anymore we need to be thinking more

about permaculture which is why I think

this image just sums up for me the kind

of thinking we need to be doing it's a

reconceptualization of the way food

shapes Our Lives the best image I know

of this is from 650 years ago it's

ambrogio laoren setti's allegory of good

government it's about the relationship

between the city and the countryside and

I think the message of this is very

clear if the city looks after the

country the country will look after the

city and I want us to ask now what would

ambrogio laoren cetti paint if he

painted this image today what would an

allegory of good government look like

today because I think it's an urgent

question it's one we have to ask and we

have to start answering we know we are

what we eat we need to realize that the

world is also what we eat but if we take

that idea we can use food as a really

powerful tool to shape the world better

thank you very much

w