The volume and importance of publications from scientific journals, multilateral organizations (public and private), and social movements regarding the threat posed by the enormous concentration of global agri-food supply in a few products is impressive. In December 2023, the World Economic Forum launched a... devastating report The study not only denounces the harm that ultra-processed foods cause to human health, but also proposes that modern agricultural policies should focus less on increasing supply and more on encouraging regenerative production practices. The work shows that the hidden costs of the agri-food system (i.e., the harm it causes to human health and ecosystem services for which companies pay nothing) far exceed what the world spends on food.
The topic of ultra-processed foods and the large-scale use of antibiotics in animal production was revisited in a 2025 study by Mitsubishi UFG Financial GroupMcKinsey, the seventh largest financial company in the world. The study also warns against the danger of concentrating global agri-food production in a few products and in a few regions. Previously, in 2020, McKinsey had published a... important text Regarding the global risk of this concentration, whose geopolitical impacts must also be taken into account. Ismahane Elouafi, a key leader of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and Shakuntala Thilsted (World Food Prize, 2021) published an article in the British journal in 2024. The Telegraph, an article showing that 75% of the global caloric supply comes from just six of the more than seven thousand edible products known to humankind. In 2024, Elouafi published, in Science, article highlighting the danger of biodiversity gradually disappearing from contemporary agricultural landscapes.
These are some examples (widely supported by scientific research published in top international journals) on which the idea is based that the global agri-food system is characterized by a triple monotony: that of agricultural supply, that of animal husbandry, and that of food consumption itself. The book in which this idea is presented was the subject of an excellent critical analysis by Professor Antônio Márcio Buainain, here on [website/platform name]. Journal of UnicampThis article responds to Buainain's invitation to delve deeper into this idea.Access the article)
With regard to the vast literature on the risks generated by excessive concentration (of products, techniques, regions, and economic power), our book makes two important contributions.
The first is the empirical corroboration of the basic hypothesis that a striking feature of the Brazilian agri-food system (as is the case globally) is its monotony, described in chapters dedicated to grain agriculture, animal production (monogastric and ruminant animals), food distribution, and consumption. This is expressed in the concentration of supply in a few products, in the use of cultivation and breeding techniques that sacrifice diversity and, as a corollary, in an increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods and a decrease in the consumption of whole grain products. in natura or minimally processed across all income brackets.
The second contribution is perhaps even more important and consists of establishing an organic link between the three facets of the monotony of the agri-food system. This is why, although there are, of course, numerous ways of producing, distributing, and consuming food, the overwhelming majority of resources, land, productive capacities, applied science, and consumption itself respond to the signals that derive from the impressive concentration and consequent monotony that marks the agri-food system. In other words, however relevant local particularities may be, there is an unequivocal predominance of production methods that, while decisively contributing to the increase in agricultural supply, are based on techniques that increasingly distance the agri-food system from the requirements of what, in the 21st century, is recommended by the best international science as healthy eating and sustainable production.
The expansion of arable land into areas where biodiversity-rich forests once existed, along with the excessive use of pesticides and other chemical inputs, represents a striking drive to destroy life that does not directly belong to the products one seeks to obtain. In this sense, Buainain's assertion that monotony is different in each place does not seem correct to us..
On the other hand, it seems that Buainain agrees with the diagnosis in our book, according to which, despite its capacity to meet the growing demand for food in recent decades, the global agri-food system presents serious problems regarding greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and food consumption itself. This, in itself, would be sufficient reason to call for a review of the foundations on which this production and consumption system rests.
However, Buainain also makes two other criticisms. One of them is highly relevant; the other, however, does not seem to be based exactly on what the book suggests.
The first criticism is that there is a contrast between the strength of our diagnosis and the relative precariousness of the proposed solutions. The diagnosis of triple monotony emerged within the scope of research conducted at the Josué de Castro Chair at the University of São Paulo. The book was launched simultaneously with the creation of a National Institute of Science and Technology on this topic, bringing together seven research organizations to which the authors of each chapter are affiliated, and five support organizations. We know that solutions to monotony are neither simple nor obvious, and that the costs and risks of a transition process to overcome it must be rigorously estimated. Although solutions are presented in the six articles that make up the book, it is clear that we are still far from a robust set of proposals capable of guiding disruptive changes in the current functioning of the agri-food system. What the book highlights with quite consistent data (and this is acknowledged by Professor Buainain) is that underlying the contemporary agri-food supply are accumulating socio-environmental problems that will not be automatically resolved by some kind of self-correction.
And here arises our most important disagreement with Professor Buainain's text. According to him, our approach is dichotomous and simplistic, as if the dividing line between diversity and monotony were clear and distinct, leading us to underestimate the costs and risks of the changes we advocate. As a consequence, according to Buainain, we flirt with a romantic, if not naive, view of the changes necessary to confront monotony (which, in his view, is perhaps an unavoidable trait of the current system). What we advocate for the agri-food system, according to him, would correspond to what handicrafts are to industrial production. Our eye would be fixed on the rearview mirror.
The root of this accusation, which does not correspond to our thinking, lies in Buainain's equating of alternatives to the current model with a return to an Arcadian past. But there are two errors in this criticism. The first is ignoring the changes already happening in 21st-century agronomic science, which the book seeks to portray: this is the case with the significant advancement in research and the use of bio-inputs (a topic in which Brazil, incidentally, is at the forefront), or the production of machinery, techniques, and equipment for diversified agricultural systems, as is already being experimented with in livestock farming. Many of the most significant research efforts today are no longer oriented solely towards producing more and more, but rather towards finding in the interaction between living elements (and not in combating them, as during the Green Revolution) the basis for increased productivity that reconciles the agri-food system with nature and human and animal health. And there is no reason to believe that these scientific achievements will result in a type of production that cannot be mass-produced and meet social demand. In other words, the opposition between the current massive supply (which compromises human health and the ecosystem services on which we all depend) and a niche production, healthy and sustainable, but which would only serve high-income groups, is unsustainable.
And this leads us to the second misconception: the cost of this transition cannot be pointed to as an insurmountable barrier, especially since the cost of inaction in the face of the known problems of the current model is even greater, as is clear in... Global Policy Report – The Economics of Food System Transformation, published in 2024 by a committee of experts convened by Gunhild Stordalen (EAT), Jeremy Oppenheim (Food and Land Use Coalition, FOLU) and Johan Rockström (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)This is precisely what multilateral organizations and scientific groups critical of the monotony of the agri-food system are working on.
In short, the fact that alternatives to the triple monotony of the global agri-food system are not yet fully developed is real and presents a fascinating challenge. The problems our book presents are so serious that the only implausible scenario is maintaining the current organization of the agri-food system, despite all its enormous costs.
Regarding the roadmap that can lead to the detoxification of the contemporary agri-food system towards sustainable and healthy forms of production and consumption, it is certain that this involves not only technological innovations, as we sought to show in the first chapter of the book. It involves changes in the financing, incentives, and forms of regulation of the agri-food system. This is something that will need to be charted by social forces, of which the scientific community is a decisive component. In this sense, we can only thank Professor Buainain for the generous and elegant critique he directs at our work.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
Ricardo Abramovay He is a senior professor at the Institute of Energy and Environment at USP and coordinator of the National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) "To overcome the triple monotony of the agri-food system".
Arilson Favareto He is a full professor holding the Josué de Castro Chair at the Faculty of Public Health of USP, a professor at UFABC, and a Senior Researcher at CEBRAP.
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