Towards a real sustainable agri-food security and food policy: Beyond the ecological fallacies?

The recent rises in food prices represent the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and a ‘canary in the mine’ moment for world agriculture. They are underlain by a continuing ‘race to the bottom’ and speculative process whereby systems of resource production and exploitation are continuing to rely upon ‘infinite supply’ assumptions and narrow technological solutions to ‘feeding the world’. I argue here that these conditions are leading to a dominant policy framing that tends to marginalise diverse and place-based agro-ecological systems by creating a new legitimacy for bio-economic rather than eco-economic solutions. Government and policy-making bodies need to redefine and widen their approaches to agriculture and agri-food in ways that recognise its social, cultural, political and spatially diverse contribution in a post-carbon world