Does our economic system serve us? Or are we serving it?
Industrial economics became extraordinarily good at measuring transactions.
But many consequences never appeared in the transaction price.
Pollution.
Poor health.
Soil degradation.
Waste.
Resource depletion.
Lost biodiversity.
Community disruption.
FAO’s development of true-cost accounting for food systems attempts to make some of those previously hidden environmental, health and social costs visible to decision-makers.