TED: Carolyn Steel - How food shapes our cities
Summary
TLDRThis 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
- π 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.
- πΎ 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.
- π₯© 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.
- π By 2050, the urban population and meat consumption are expected to double, posing a major challenge for sustainable food production and environmental impact.
- π² The loss of rainforests for agricultural land and the inefficiency of food production, with a high calorie cost in fossil fuels, are unsustainable practices.
- π« Despite the abundance of food produced, there is a lack of appreciation for it, with significant waste occurring in countries like the USA.
- π± 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.
- π 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.
- π 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.
- π 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.
- π± 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
π 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.
π³οΈ 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.
ποΈ 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.
π± 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.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Urbanism
π‘Food Miles
π‘Agricultural Landscapes
π‘Meat Consumption
π‘Sustainability
π‘Food Waste
π‘Industrial Age
π‘Permaculture
π‘Copia
π‘Allegory of Good Government
π‘Food Systems
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
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