Now We Need Scale
Author: Klaus Mager Issue: 2022-08-03
Now We Need Scale
by Klaus Mager
I was thinking about Donella Meadows within the context of developing the next webinar on Farm Bill issues. Systems change is a 2-way street; there are directives that will travel top down, and there is information that must travel bottom up to inform such directives. A government held captive by special interests will suppress information traveling up because it interferes with the narrative that drives self-serving decisions, creating a vicious cycle of inefficiencies.
To force non-violent change into the system requires intervention at paradigm level, which must then be reinforced along the stages of implementation. Systems adaptation requires uniform information along the entire chain, customized to the context of each part of the system that may be uniquely impacted.
Places to Intervene in a System
(in increasing order of effectiveness)
- Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).
- Regulating negative feedback loops.
- Driving positive feedback loops.
- Material flows and nodes of material intersection.
- Information flows.
- The rules of the system (incentives, punishments, constraints).
- The distribution of power over the rules of the system.
- The goals of the system.
- The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises.
Changing our relationship with food is a profound undertaking, no matter what the reason. Understanding that the way we grow and raise food is polluting and damaging the entire ecosystem, the oceans, watersheds, soil, air, our health, and then processing that in a personal context-specific way to adapt and change behavioral patterns.
Thinking about how different segments of the population experience food in unique, emotional ways, interpret the implications, isolating what exactly would encourage change in specific population segments.
Climate change for some, watershed pollution for others, chemicals in the food supply, biodiversity, pollinator habitats, animal cruelty, cancers, diabetes, obesity, heart disease ........ unique stories focused on segment specific resonance. While the regenerative movement has made great progress to explain the pathologies of the industrial food system, and to offer real alternatives to regenerate soil and water, it has not been able to translate the implications of what that means to the general public. As the corporate driven legislative process solidifies its opposition, a well-informed and engaged public must provide the pull and demand change.
Back to target group marketing, developing communications strategies that can flow around, under, over the existing paradigms. We are gaining traction.
Now we need scale.
Related:
- Klaus Mager (author)
- 2022 (year)
- Topics: Climate and Environment, Tools and Platforms, Bioregionalism and Place-Based Practice