What influence does food have on our lives?

What influence does food have on our lives? Well I am sure that to most of us in the western world were food is of a plentiful supply we would think that it would have little to no affect on our lives. In fact if I did not work in the food industry I would think very little about it as well. Its just one of those things that you take for granted.

But just have a look at the average high street. Butchers, bakers, greengrocers, super markets, all kinds of food retailers. And behind them are armies of manufactures farmers and supply chains that all add up to a very sizable part of the economy. And that is only on the high street the microeconomic level

At the macroeconomic level after crude oil and its products such as heating oil and gasoline, coffee is the most commonly treaded commodity in the world. Along with other like wheat, corn, maize, oats and rice.

So why do we think so little about it most of the time. We have grown used to it. As we developed as civilisations we began to farm. Now what is mainly considered to be a rather low tec industry that most of the city dwelling populations of the world have no connection with. But when we first began to farm it was as important as the industrial revolution. We stopped having to live from day to day finding what we could and hunting. We began to control the way and means of the production of the food that we ate. And this gave us more time to settle and make other things that would help us in our production of food. And with city’s and civilisation grew. From small villages to towns and city’s and nation states that collected taxes and waged wars.

Food is a corner stone of our world and will increasingly become more so. As the world population grows and more and more people will need feeding. So more food will have to be produced but on the same amount of agricultural land. And to do that people will have to come to grips with the new and more completed arguments of genetically modified food. As we grow as a world population soon the commodities that are traded will become more and more expensive and those who can produce them will hold more and more power.

And the power of food is a very real thing. I was reading not so long ago that America could have brought the old Soviet Union to it knees. And to do that it did not need a bomb of an invasion plan. All they needed to do was not sell them any wheat. With the failure of collective farming under Starling the whole food production system fell apart. American farmers had too much corn and it was sold to the Soviets. If America had not you have to wonder what would have happened.

And with that in mind you have to try and think what the future might hold. Empires in the past have gone to war over the spice trade from the East Indies. Then we must think of what might happen if we start to run short of the very basic food stuffs.

I am not saying that we are on the way to world war three over a cup of rice. But next time you get a burger from what ever store you get them from stop and think. How easy was this and how would it be if it all spotted today.