Gunnar Rundgren

The impression that we can eat what we want fits neatly with a neoliberal story that treats capitalism as democratic, where people “vote with their wallets”. But this is an illusion. Rather than putting our faith in green consumerism to rebuild food systems, we should strive to de‑commodify food.

Farmer organisations should stop selling agriculture as just another industry and instead reclaim it as a mission rooted in land stewardship and care for animals and ecosystems. But with many farmers locked into debt and infrastructure that bind them to the current model, meaningful change can’t rest on farmers alone, the responsibility rests with society at large.

Small farms rarely make a decent living in commodity markets. It’s time to stop chasing scale and start building resilient, relationship-based food systems instead.

Modern economies depend on unpriced ecosystem functions and undervalued care and reproductive labor—essential inputs that are difficult to commodify. This tension helps explain environmental degradation, social strain, and the limits of market systems.

It is essential to re-connect food to the land and the process of farming. This will give food an enhanced value not only as a supplier of energy and essential nutrients, but also as a source of meaning and experience of the land, of the living and of the people producing food.

Some thirty years ago, one of the organic pioneers, Carl Haest, said about sustainable agriculture, “friend in the field, foe in the market”. That seems to hold also for regenerative agriculture.