Why a basic income would make our food systems (and societies) more sustainable
Food is expensive. Heck, life is expensive. If they tell us anything, the results of the 2024 US Presidential election tell us that people are feeling an economic crunch that doesn’t show up in large-scale economic indicators like employment and inflation. Food prices and price gouging were a regular talking point for candidates from both parties, and people clearly want to see these prices come down.
However, our food is arguably too cheap. For too long, the prices we pay have not accounted for the costs to the environment, oceans, and atmosphere, of industrial food production practices. We have exported and ignored these environmental harms— the water pollution, the deforestation, the hollowing out of entire ecosystems — to places out of sight and out of mind. The same is true for labour — we have for too long taken advantage of poorly compensated labour and migrant workers to keep our prices low.
How to get out of this double-bind? To achieve a sustainable planet, we need our food’s cost to reflect its true ecological and social costs. But we also need to be able to eat. If food prices rise, how will those of us already struggling make ends meet?
Our new paper offers a way to cut through this apparent gordian knot: a basic income guarantee.
Just published in Agriculture and Human Values, and co-authored with an amazing group of collaborators, we propose basic income as a policy tool that can solve multiple challenges at once. We focus on Canada, but our analysis is relevant we think in the US and elsewhere.
But first: what is a a basic income? At its core, a basic income guarantee ensures that everyone has sufficient income to meet their basic needs and live with dignity, regardless of their work status. It’s a regular cash payment delivered with few conditions on eligibility and use. While the concept of basic income has been around for centuries, it’s garnered increased attention in recent years due to rising inequality, economic instability, and the shortcomings of existing social assistance programs. A growing number of basic income pilots and cash-transfer programs in Canada and globally have demonstrated significant positive impacts on health, education, food security and financial resilience. And as we detail in our paper [1], the evidence also shows that a basic income does not create disincentives to work or contribute to inflation. Instead, by putting money in the hands of people who need it most, a basic income can stimulate local economies and create a stronger foundation for shared prosperity.
Our analysis suggests that a basic income could play an important role in addressing precarity and vulnerability in food systems — both for consumers struggling with food insecurity as well as for food producers and harvesters facing unpredictable incomes. By providing an income floor, a basic income would reduce financial stress and allow more breathing room for experimenting with value-added products, developing local markets, or investing in agroecological farming practices.
Beyond addressing immediate economic needs, a basic income also has the potential to generate positive ripple effects within food systems and rural communities. It could support the viability of local food production, improve working conditions and bargaining power for food system workers, and create more opportunities for Indigenous communities to protect traditional food practices and assert food sovereignty.
Importantly, we don’t see basic income as a silver bullet. To fully transform food systems, a basic income would need to be implemented alongside other supportive policies — such as reforming quota systems in fisheries, ensuring coverage for migrant farm workers, and stemming corporate profiteering in our food. We’ll also need much more research, especially working directly with people on the frontlines, to understand the full impacts and possibilities.
Ultimately, basic income is a policy idea whose time has come. It represents a significant step toward greater economic security and social equity — the foundation we need to build more sustainable and nourishing food systems. While not a panacea on its own, it can open up critical space for re-imagining how we value food and relate to one another.
[1] Please reach out to me if you cannot access the paper!
