Coercive covid-19 lockdown measures, vaccine mandates, the transition to green energy, and poorly thought out Western sanctions against Russia have all played significant roles in disrupting global food markets and supply chains. In May 2022, data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization indicated that, relative to twelve months ago, “international wheat prices have increased 56 percent,” “cereal prices are up nearly 30 percent,” and “vegetable oils are 45 percent higher.”

The World Bank expects many people to be pushed into extreme poverty and to experience food insecurity on account of higher prices for both food and farm inputs, particularly in nations that import most of their needs in these areas. More specifically, it notes that “the war in Ukraine has altered global patterns of trade, production, and consumption of commodities in ways that will keep prices at historically high levels through the end of 2024 exacerbating food insecurity and inflation.”

Meanwhile, Bayer, “an international chemicals, agricultural and healthcare group,” projects that “food insecurity will affect up to 1.9 billion people by November 2022—mainly caused by the war in Ukraine and further accelerated by climate change and COVID-19,” which could possibly lead to a “hurricane of hunger.”

In May, the World Economic Forum (WEF) issued a press release stating that “there is a risk that short-term efforts to combat food shortages could come at the expense of meeting climate and sustainability targets given the interconnection between agriculture and climate change. Global food production contributes more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions, and efforts to ramp up food supply could worsen emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.”

The WEF does not support efforts to find immediate solutions to the current food crisis; rather, it is focusing on making radical changes to food production and human beings’ consumption habits over the coming decades. In 2018, the WEF pointed out that

feeding the world in 2050 will require a 70 percent increase in overall food production because of population growth and changes in consumption driven by an expanding middle class, with demand for red meat and dairy products increasing by up to 80 percent. Every opportunity presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution must be used to realize a global food production system that can address challenges with limited environmental impact.

That shows that transforming the food industry was already among the main items on the WEF’s agenda prior to the emergence of covid-19 and the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. This became further apparent in June 2020, only three months after the pandemic was declared and well before there were any indications of an impending food crisis: the WEF webpage already stated that “COVID-19 reveals a strong and urgent need for representatives of all sectors of the economy to come together and engage in a dialogue to plan what a post-pandemic food system will look like.”

The WEF has expressed its commitment to “helping define the agriculture industry agenda” and is calling for a transition to new alternatives to help “feed an expanding populace,” such as “Impossible Foods, Just and Beyond Meat,” all of which are “plant-based products” that attempt to imitate “the sensory profile of meat.” It is also promoting the greater utilization of “cultured meat” produced in laboratories.

More precisely, the WEF envisages “the use of biotechnologies to engineer tissues from cell culture for end-product application, such as meat, or the use of cells/microorganisms as a ‘factory’ to produce fats and/or proteins that make up an end food product, such as eggs and milk.” Additionally, it supports the use of “a technique that enables scientists to hack into genomes, make precise incisions, and insert desired traits into plants.”

The WEF is also promoting edible insects, including ants, bees, beetles, caterpillars, crickets, dragonflies, grasshoppers, earthworms, leafhoppers, termites, and locusts, as an alternative food source that would consume “fewer resources than traditional livestock” and emit “less harmful gas than more mainstream farm animals.” In 2018, the WEF stated that “from the farmer’s point of view, raising insects is going to be radically different from raising sheep, pigs, or cattle,” as there will be “no more coping with mud, muck and filth.” Meanwhile, the “consumption of insects can offset climate change” by reducing people’s “carbon footprint in food consumption.”

To encourage people to accept insects in their daily diets, the WEF has been promoting some of their nutritional benefits and other features. For example, it claims that eating “grasshoppers” will provide “nearly as much protein, more calcium and iron, and less fat than the equivalent amount of ground beef.” Furthermore, the WEF highlights “insects such as the Tenebrio Molitor” because its “high protein content makes it a highly digestible ingredient that can be used in senior nutrition.” Advocates of edible insects also claim that putting cockroaches on “fruits and vegetables” creates a very good “taste,” while blackflies, which are “rich in fatty acids to the same extent as in some fish oils,” can replace “blood sausage.”

The World Bank largely concurs with the WEF when it comes to the mass production and consumption of edible insects, arguing that insect farming, “for both human food and animal feed, ha[s] the potential to increase access to nutritious food, while creating millions of jobs, improving the climate and the environment, and strengthening national economies.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also touts edible insects’ benefits, stating:

Edible insects contain high quality protein, vitamins and amino acids for humans. Insects have a high food conversion rate, e.g., crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and twice less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Besides, they emit less greenhouse gases and ammonia than conventional livestock. Insects can be grown on organic waste. Therefore, insects are a potential source for conventional production (mini-livestock) of protein, either for direct human consumption, or indirectly in recomposed foods (with extracted protein from insects); and as a protein source into feedstock mixtures. 

Moreover, the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF), which currently has eighty-three members from twenty-three different countries, was established in 2012 to represent “the interests of the insect production sector towards EU policy makers, European stakeholders and citizens.” In particular, it promotes “the use of insects for human consumption and insect-derived products as a top tier source of nutrients for animal feed.”

The IPIFF pointed out that while “more than 2,000 insect species are consumed worldwide,” only seven species are “used in animal feed” and only about “a dozen are allowed in food” in “certain” members of the European Union. Accordingly, this organization is seeking to increase the variety and quantity of insects consumed in Europe and around the world.

Supporters of the mass production and consumption of alternative food products are fully aware that coercing the world population into accepting this dystopian transformation of the food industry will likely destroy the livelihoods of billions of people who are dependent on conventional farming, which will lead to unprecedented poverty, desperation, misery, and starvation, particularly among the lower and middle classes. Furthermore, they also realize that people are not going to voluntarily make such drastic changes to their food and eating habits, which are often tied to their heritage and traditions.

In 2019, the WEF acknowledged that there is a “unique emotional and cultural politics of food, particularly of meat,” which means that successfully transforming the food system will likely necessitate some degree of force, the censorship of dissenters, and the creation of a narrative that will be pushed by the corporate media, unelected experts, and corrupt politicians in order to make alternative food products appear more palatable.

Accordingly, it is calling for “coordinated public-private efforts and intergovernmental engagement” over the next decade to “develop and own” “a global narrative on the protein transition” so as to “overcome the critical cultural and emotional barriers that may stand in the way of a holistic transformation.” Clearly, the WEF does not have faith in individual or collective solutions when it comes to people feeding themselves, their families, and their communities going forward. It signaled this in 2019, when it stated that

a reliance on the market or a hope that individual technologies, unconnected projects, or even financing or policy innovations will cause a global breakthrough—even collectively—are perhaps optimistic. These will likely not be enough to create the scale or speed required to provide universally accessible and affordable, healthy and sustainable protein … by 2030.

If successful, the dystopian transformation of the food industry will interfere with or eliminate many different groups’ and societies’ distinct cultural and traditional practices by imposing abhorrent food alternatives. Throughout history, food, meals, and harvests have been important aspects of cultural heritage in virtually every society, bringing families and communities together. In fact, many meals and ingredients have historical, national, seasonal, and religious significance for different communities.

Traditional practices and activities, including rituals, ceremonies, festivals (e.g., springtime festival, harvest festival, winter carnival, Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras), holidays (e.g., Christmas, Eid, the Passover Seder, Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve, Diwali, Easter), and other special events (e.g., engagements, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, potlucks), which often involve preparing and sharing meals with family, friends, and other members of the community, have also played significant roles in conveying culture, traditions, and distinct identities from one generation to the next.

People that truly care about concepts like diversity, inclusion, and equity, which are often used and abused by woke ideologues and globalist social engineers in order to advance their agendas, should not ignore the fact that food is an important aspect of cultural diversity. In fact, efforts to drastically change the entire food industry can be viewed as direct and violent attacks on the cultural, religious, and national practices of distinct groups across the globe.

Image via Shutterstock. Article cross-posted from Mises.

We are faced with multiple existential threats. When I discussed these threats on a recent episode of The JD Rucker Show, I didn’t specifically mention The Great Reset. This wasn’t an intentional omission. I often assume my readers and listeners are already well-acclimated with the machinations of the globalist elites who want to unleash their Neo-Marxist agenda on the world.

Read this article carefully and thoughtfully. It draws connections between what many believe are unrelated actions. When we realize that the propaganda, censorship, and gaslighting are all aligned and pointing towards the singular goal of achieving The Great Reset, it becomes blatantly clear that the powers arrayed against us are far more influential than most realize.

Governments, corporations, and elites have always been fearful of the power of a free press, because it is capable of exposing their lies, destroying their carefully crafted images, and undermining their authority. In recent years, alternative journalism has been growing and more people are relying on social media platforms as sources of news and information. In response, the corporate state, digital conglomerates, and the mainstream media have been increasingly supportive of the silencing and censoring of alternative media outlets and voices that challenge the official narrative on most issues.

At the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, “Australian eSafety commissioner” Julie Inman Grant stated that “freedom of speech is not the same thing as a free for all,” and that “we are going to need a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that are playing out online—from freedom of speech … to be free from online violence.” Meanwhile, the Canadian government is seeking to restrict independent media and the freedom of expression via the implementation of Bill C-11, which would allow it to regulate all online audiovisual platforms on the internet, including content on Spotify, Tik Tok, YouTube, and podcast clients.

Similarly, the UK is seeking to introduce an Online Safety Bill, the US “paused” the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board following backlash, and the European Union approved its own Digital Services Act, all of which aim to limit the freedom of speech. Attempts by elites and politicians to silence dissenters and critical thinkers is not something new. In fact, history is full of examples of “the persecution of men of science, the burning of scientific books, and the systematic eradication of the intelligentsia of the subjected people.”1

However, these current efforts to curtail freedom of speech and press by supposedly liberal governments are still somewhat ironic, given that even “the most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a ‘devil’s advocate.’ The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honors, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed.”2

The corporate state, digital conglomerates, and the mainstream media want to ensure that they have the exclusive authority to dictate people’s opinions, wants, and choices through their sophisticated propaganda techniques. To do so, they have even resorted to transforming falsehoods into truth. In fact, the word truth has already had its original meaning altered, as those who speak the truth on certain subjects are now regularly accused of spreading hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation.

Presently, truth is no “longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort, and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organised effort require it.”3

However, modifying the definition of truth comes with the potential for great peril, as truth-seeking often contributes to human progress in that it leads to discoveries that ultimately benefit society at large. It should be noted that truth is by no means the only word whose meaning has been changed recently in order for it to serve as an instrument of propaganda; others include freedom, justice, law, right, equality, diversity, woman, pandemic, vaccine, etc. This is highly concerning, because such attempts at the “perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals” of the ruling class are expressed is a consistent feature of totalitarian regimes.4

As a number of liberal-democratic governments increasingly move toward totalitarianism, they want people to forget that there is “the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.”5 According to them, “public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support.”6

In fact, they believe that all views and opinions that might cast doubt or create hesitation need to be restricted in all disciplines and on all platforms. This is because “the disinterested search for truth cannot be allowed” when “the vindication of the official views becomes the sole object” of the ruling class.7 In other words, the control of information is practiced and the uniformity of views is enforced in all fields under totalitarian rule.

The suppression of freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought means that current and future generations will be “deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”8 They are also at risk of becoming ignorant of the fact that the only way in which a person can know “the whole of a subject” is by “hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind.”9

That is to say, current and future generations will be unaware that “the steady habit of correcting and completing” one’s own “opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it.”10

At present, it is likely that the masses do not regard freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought as being particularly important, because “the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another.”11 Nevertheless, no one should have the power and authority to “select those to whom” freedom of thought, enlightenment and expression is to be “reserved.”12

In fact, John Stuart Mill went so far as to claim that “if all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”13 He further added that silencing the expression of an opinion is essentially an act of “robbing the human race,” which applies to both current and future generations.14

Even though the suppressors can deny the truth to people at a particular point in time, “history shows that every age having held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.”15

If current efforts to suppress freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought succeed, then the search for truth will eventually be abandoned and totalitarian authorities will decide what “doctrines ought to be taught and published.”16 There will be no limits to who can be silenced, as the control of opinions will be extended to all people in all fields. Accordingly, contemporary authoritarian policy makers need to be reminded about the crucial importance of freedom of speech, expression, and thought, which the US Supreme Court recognized in the 1957 case Sweezy v. New Hampshire when it ruled that

to impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made…. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die…. Our form of government is built on the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political expression and association. This right was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Exercise of these basic freedoms in America has traditionally been through the media of political associations…. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.

• 1. F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (New York: Routledge 2006), p. 168.
• 2. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 2001), p. 22.
• 3. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 167.
• 4. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 161.
• 5. Mill, On Liberty, p. 21.
• 6. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 164.
• 7. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 165.
• 8. Mill, On Liberty, p. 19.
• 9. Mill, On Liberty, p. 22.
• 10. Mill, On Liberty, p. 22.
• 11. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 168.
• 12. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 168.
• 13. Mill, On Liberty, p. 18.
• 14. Mill, On Liberty, p. 19.
• 15. Mill, On Liberty, p. 20.
• 16. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 165.

About the Author

Birsen Filip holds a PhD in philosophy and master’s degrees in economics and philosophy. She has published numerous articles and chapters on a range of topics, including political philosophy, geo-politics, and the history of economic thought, with a focus on the Austrian School of Economics and the German Historical School of Economics. She is the author of the upcoming book The Early History of Economics in the United States: The Influence of the German Historical School of Economics on Teaching and Theory (Routledge, 2022). She is also the author of The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Article cross-posted from Mises.