Economics as if all living beings matter. There is a new generation of economists, practitioners, and theorists that are exploring ways to make our economic systems compatible with the ecologic systems that sustain all life on Earth. All mainstream economic theories, left and right, are based on the presumption of endless growth. Regenerative Economics is concerned with conducting economic activities in a way that reduces irreversible impact to the minimum (activities like mining) and brings other activities within the planetary capacity to regenerate (IE. Farming & building).
There are many theories and practices that embody the spirit of Regenerative Economics IE: Circular Economy, Doughnut Economics, De-growth, Regenerative Farming, Agro-ecology, Cradle to Cradle, Zero Waste, Renewable Energies, Permaculture, Rewilding, Green Chemistry, Sharing Economy, Conservation Areas and Zero Marginal Cost
We dream of an entrepreneurial ecosystem of values-driven organizations. These organizations play a role in the regeneration of degraded land into productive food forests. The primary activity is the actual establishment of productive food forests in land that was abused for decades by careless industrial farming. As the productive food forests start to yield crops both for food sovereignty and for commercial purposes there is a need for processing and distribution of forest products. This represents a secondary activity that is vital for the economic viability of the land regeneration. Examples are processing facilities for food, materials and medicinal products, distribution, product development, market development, IT services, legal services, logistics, bio-construction, health services for villagers, education and many more. The secondary services play the role of supportive services that enhance the viability of the land regeneration and the well being of the people involved. In our farming vision we explain in greater detail the shift from exploitation practices common in industrial farming to farming systems that regenerate the soil, care for the well being of the farmers and leave space in conservation areas for biodiversity to thrive.
The problem with models that try and predict an outcome where global warming is limited to 1.5°C or 2°C is that they assume that unlimited economic growth, or “green growth” can be accomplished. In reports published by Jason Hickel (Hickel, 2019) green growth theory asserts that continued economic expansion is compatible with our planet’s ecology, as we will be able to absolutely decouple GDP growth from resource use and carbon emissions with technological innovation and substitution. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreements are based on these models and science. There is no empirical evidence based on historical trends that this can be achieved however, and is unlikely to be achieved at a rapid enough rate to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C (Hickel, 2019).
At the same time, Hickel finds in his 2020 peer reviewed ScienceDirect article that as of 2015, the USA was responsible for 40% of excess global CO2 emissions. The US is the only country to have left the Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2015) . The Global North was responsible for 92% (Hickel, 2020). By contrast, most countries in the Global South were within their boundary fair shares, including Costa Rica (Hickel, 2020). Hickel also relates this to global income inequality, which he reports has tripled since 1960 ( Hickel, 2017). Hickel cites that in 2015, Europe and North America had 84% of the world’s wealth in per-capita terms, while the rest of the world had only 16% (Hickel, 2017). Hickel cites that global inequality is a political tool to keep power in the hands of the core to control the periphery (Hickel, 2017). Western control over global trade has kept wages artificially low, a phenomenon known as ‘unequal exchange’ (Hickel, 2017). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that because of asymmetries built into the WTO trade system after the Uruguay Round in 1986 (rich countries maintaining market protections while denying them to poor countries), developing countries were losing around $700 billion annually in potential export revenues (Hickel, 2017). According to the World Bank International Debt Statistics Database, developing countries pay more than $200 billion in interest on external debts each year (Hickel, 2017). As long as the structure of the global economy remains organised in the interests of rich countries in these ways, inequality will continue to increase. Likewise, as long as the owners of capital hold more power than the earners of wages do, inequality will tend to increase (Hickel, 2020). Thus, It is imperative that supply chain management organizations seeking to integrate smallholder farmers and reduce carbon emissions structure profit distributions and governance in a horizontal model.
Article 15.4 of the UN Declaration (2018) states that “peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to determine their own food and agriculture systems, recognized by many States and regions as the right to food sovereignty.” La Via Campesina defines food sovereignty as, “The right of people’s to healthy and culturally appropriate food, produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems” (Patel, 2009 as cited in Holt-Giménez & Altieri, 2013). Thus, supply chain management organizations can serve as a bridge through which rural producers can participate in and make decisions on food and agriculture policy and food systems and obtain their right to the preparation and implementation of policies, programs and projects that may affect the production, processing, marketing and distribution of their products (General Assembly, 2018).
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