For all the wine industry’s faults we do have some remarkable advantages and expertise that we can exploit in this difficult time of change for the South African agricultural industry.
If you would allow me a quick technical background with the necessary jargon to set the scene.
Reductionism is a way of thinking that states a system can be understood by intently understanding all the separate components of that system and when all the components have been understood individually the whole function of the system would become clear. This type of thinking has permeated most of the hard sciences in the last century, including agrisciences, with focus being put on individual challenges such as yield increase or disease resistance. It is clear from early successes in the remarkable increases in the world’s per hectare food production, why this thought process was so prevalent.Specifically if one evaluates the so called ‘green revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, often being sighted as one of the major driving factors in alleviating world hunger.
As we have discovered in the last couple of decades, this singular approach to our agricultural and food systems has caused equal if not more damage than the problems that it has solved. Especially the ecological and social repercussions of these interventions are becoming very clear in the 21st century.
Out of these concerns rose the application of systems thinking in food systems to help address some of the issues faced when dealing with such a complex system as our global food system.
The systems thinking approach aims not only to understand the workings of individual components in the system, but also how these interactive systems function in the real world with dynamic outside pressures acting in on them. It also aims to see if a system exhibits any emergent properties, positive or negative,and how nonadjacent parts of the system interact with each other. Although not a completely novel idea with strong supporting work done a far back as the 1980’s, the systems thinking approach has entered the current zeitgeist, as the limitations and damage of previous approaches have become clear.
Our compartmental approach to food systems have caused unstable food systems that caused uneven production, distribution, and consumption of food in the world. Increased intervention is needed more and more to prop up this uneven system.
With the importance placed on such a systems approach, the wine industry can be a pioneer of great assistance to other agricultural sectors.
Typical of the agricultural industry, a particular farm would have the expertise to produce a crop. The ability to process. transform and add value to is product, its packaging, distribution, marketing, trade and retail also requires very specific expertise that is often not present. In many of the smaller wine businesses, these roles are filled by only a few people. Yet, how many maize farmers have you seen at markets selling tortilla chips made on their farm? Similarly, how common is it for wheat farmers to sell bread that originated from their wheat at a deli?
As agricultural margins are dwindling the wine industry is way ahead of the curb in ways of tapping blood from a stone or more aptly in this case pressing wine from a grape. We know how to turn what is essentially a commodity into a luxury product worth many times the sum of its parts. We should use these skills to empower our fellow agricultural producers, after all we are all part of the same system.
This might become crucial to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the wine industry as it would not only develop related industries to the wine industry, but also garner goodwill and influence not only from other agricultural industries but governmental and regulatory bodies.
We have been doing farm to fork production for many years before it was even a buzz word or for that matter before systems approaches to food production became fashionable. Not only will we be able to add value to other agricultural sectors and products, the experience of dealing with an entire value chain in one place has given insight into how different parts of a system work together and how we can influence these parts to be more sustainable over an entire system.
The future of sustainable food systems and South African agriculture rests on valuing each of the traditional pillars of sustainability, economical, ecological, and social sustainability equally. In this regard a systems approach in which the wine industry is well-equipped compared to other agricultural sub-sectors, could be invaluable. The wine industry has a responsibility to take a leading role in this regard.