Green Economy in agriculture and food systems

The problem of scale of production in general but especially in the food system is a key issue already since World War II and was addressed clearly in the book written by E.F. Schumacher “Small is Beautiful” in 1973, ranked among the 100 most influential books by the “Times”, thus enhancing concerns of environmental movements in Europe trigger by the 1972 Club of Rome report “Limits to Growth”. He argued that the modern economy is unsustainable and he was worried about pollution caused by the unsustainable use of non-renewable resources. He was already not convinced that efficiency is the solution, but sufficiency (“enoughness”) that means a balance between the human needs, limitations of non-renewable resources and an appropriate use of technology. He was one of the first economists questioning that gross national product (GNP) is the right parameter to measure human well-being. His idea was “…to obtain the maximum amount of well-being with the minimum amount of consumption” and he already included the Developing Countries in his economic model (“smallness within bigness”) because he favored a specific form of decentralization.

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