Introduction and Overview › Glossary for Networking Language · 9 min read
This article emerged from a conversation about how to understand today’s crises in the food system. It wasn’t just about a single crisis, but about many layers at once: agriculture, energy, logistics, politics, consumption, seasonality, import dependency, and the question of which systems should even be preserved.
The answer isn’t simple. There isn’t the food crisis that suddenly begins on a specific day. It’s more of a shift. In some regions, it’s already happening. In others, it has already happened. And in still others, it will become noticeable sooner or later.
When food crises are discussed today, it often sounds as if a system were suddenly collapsing. From TEIKEI’s perspective, this is too simplistic.
It’s more that the crisis is already present on many levels, but not equally visible everywhere. It draws closer and closer—not as an event from one day to the next, but as a process. As a shift. As the slow revelation of dependencies that were previously hidden.
In some areas, this crisis is already a reality. In some countries, soils, water, energy supply, or supply chains are already so strained that food security no longer functions as a matter of course. In other regions, everything still appears stable because there is enough money, infrastructure, and political power to externalize the problems.
But that doesn’t mean the system is healthy.
An important level is the political level.
At the European level, politics can create framework conditions that move systems toward regeneration. But it can also create framework conditions that further drive existing degeneration.
If political decisions continue to push agriculture toward exploitation, soil loss, fossil dependency, and global standardization, the boundary of the problem shifts ever closer to already critical systems.
At some point, this boundary reaches regions that previously still appeared stable.
Then what previously only happened in other places becomes visible.
One of the most direct crises lies in the dependency on fossil energy.
If a food system relies on trucks constantly driving, ships being loaded, cold chains functioning, and products being transported over long distances, then this system is not truly stable.
It may be that very good food is grown somewhere. It may even be that this food comes from very good, regenerative agriculture. But if the supply chain is entirely dependent on fossil energy, a new problem immediately arises.
If there is war, energy becomes scarce, or transport routes no longer function, even the best food can no longer be brought to where it is needed.
Then the problem isn’t agriculture alone, but the structure in which it is embedded.
That’s why the first answer is always: local first.
For basic food security, food must be produced as close as possible to where people live—not out of ideology, but out of practical reason.
Basic food security should be right in front of our noses. It shouldn’t depend on a truck reliably driving from Spain, Morocco, or Egypt to Germany.
When it comes to staple foods, local supply isn’t a romantic idea. It’s a question of resilience.
Potatoes from Egypt shouldn’t feed Germany. Even if those potatoes were grown regeneratively, relying on them for basic food security would be the wrong scenario. It doesn’t make sense for a country or region to base its essential food supply on distant, energy-dependent supply chains.
But that doesn’t mean products from other regions should be rejected.
Europe has many climate zones. This diversity is incredibly beautiful. Olive oil doesn’t grow in Germany. Citrus fruits don’t grow in the Black Forest. Other regions can produce things that don’t grow here.
So the question isn’t: local or Europe-regional.
The question is: What belongs to basic food security, and what is a conscious, valuable addition?
If people source olive oil, citrus fruits, or other special products from another region, it shouldn’t be based on anonymous import dependency. It should be a conscious connection. A connection with a specific value, with producers, with soils, with responsibility, and with a possibility that is also good for future generations.
That’s a different scenario than blind import dependency.
The conversation included an example from a local market in Belgium.
Beautiful products were on display. At first glance, one might have thought they were from the region. But then it turned out they didn’t come from Belgium at all. In the past, such products might have come from Spain. Now they’re imported from North Africa.
This shift reveals something fundamental.
An entire industry can change in just a few years. What yesterday came from a closer region may tomorrow come from a more distant one—not because it’s ecologically more sensible, but because the system keeps searching for cheaper, more available, or scalable structures.
This creates dependency.
And at some point, people no longer even know what actually grows in their own region, when it grows, and which seasons are associated with which foods.
In the past, it was taken for granted that different foods were eaten in winter than in summer.
There were certain plants in winter and others in summer. Recipes were adapted to this. The food was different, but it was good. It had a rhythm.
Today, it’s expected that everything should always be available.
Strawberries, tomatoes, citrus fruits, salads, herbs—everything should always be there. This may seem like prosperity, but it’s often an expression of a system that overrides natural boundaries.
A food crisis reminds people that this permanent availability is not a given.
Perhaps this is even an important function of the crisis: It makes visible that certain systems shouldn’t even exist.
From this perspective, the collapse of certain structures isn’t just something to worry about.
If a system relies on making food available year-round, over long distances, with high energy consumption, and under destructive market conditions, then the question is justified: Should this system even be preserved?
When scientists say something is falling apart, the first reaction isn’t necessarily: How do we save exactly this system?
The question can also be:
Why do we want to save a system that isn’t even meaningful in this way?
Some systems should fall apart because they’re built wrong.
Not because old is inherently bad, but because much of it was only useful at a certain point in time. And clinging to degenerating structures prevents new, regenerative structures from emerging.
The consequence isn’t fear, but change.
Individual decisions must be different. More local supply is needed. More seasonal thinking. More awareness that food isn’t just consumption.
Food isn’t just a product.
Behind it are soils, energy, water, people, agriculture, logistics, politics, culture, and habits.
When these layers become visible again, the way people understand food security changes as well.
The conversation also made it clear that the term "sustainable food systems" must be viewed critically.
Often, it isn’t understood as how a truly future-proof food system can be built. Instead, it’s frequently about how to preserve the existing food system.
Then it’s not about a sustainable food system, but about maintaining the current system.
That’s a fundamental difference.
A study or research that primarily learns how to stabilize the existing system should honestly say it’s about "sustaining the food system"—that is, preserving the current food system.
A truly sustainable or regenerative food system would be something different.
It wouldn’t ask how to continue today’s system with less harm. It would ask which structures are actually healthy, which must disappear, and which should be rebuilt.
A food system isn’t regenerative just because it’s called sustainable.
If research, politics, and business continue to preserve the existing system but describe it with green language, little changes.
Then the current bad food system is stabilized—not regenerated.
From our perspective, much must first be dismantled before a real opinion or a real solution approach can emerge.
We must ask: What are we actually preserving? What shouldn’t be preserved? What needs to be rebuilt? And which structures truly lead to soils, farms, communities, and future generations being strengthened?
The personal passion behind TEIKEI isn’t about simply offering a service.
It’s about involving as many people as possible.
Not: We do the work for you.
But: Here’s an idea. Do you want to participate?
That’s a crucial difference.
If people only expect a delivery, the system remains in the old logic. Then it’s about service, price, comfort, and availability.
But if people see themselves as part of a community, the structure changes. Then it’s about relationship, responsibility, pickup, communication, planning, and shared effort.
From this perspective, community isn’t just a nice extra. It’s one of the central answers to the crisis.
TEIKEI doesn’t try to build another trading system.
Of course, there are products. Of course, there’s logistics. Of course, there are prices. But the core isn’t about moving goods from A to B.
The core is about creating a framework that’s healthier for everyone: for people, for producers, for communities, and for the soil.
It’s about building a system in which the earth can be better for future generations, instead of just having a good product today and no soil left to grow anything in five generations.
That would be pointless.
The real crisis of the food system, therefore, isn’t just that food might become scarce.
The deeper crisis is that the existing system destroys diversity, standardizes taste, devalues culture, exhausts soils, puts producers under pressure, and separates people from the origin of their food.
It turns food into consumption.
And that’s exactly where a different movement is needed.
As the beginning of a different direction.
The crisis in the food system isn’t a single event. It’s a shift on many levels.
It manifests in fossil dependencies, global supply chains, false seasonality, import dependency, political misdirection, scientific system preservation, and a consumer culture that has forgotten that food arises from relationships.
TEIKEI responds to this with a simple but profound movement:
local first, Europe-regional with awareness, think seasonally, strengthen communities, make relationships visible, and only build structures that make sense for future generations.
This article emerged from the follow-up to a conversation summary with TEIKEI and Cyclos about alternative currency systems.
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By the TEIKEI editorial team, with AI support (ChatGPT) · Contributors: Cyclos
Created on April 24, 2026 · Last updated on October 14, 2026
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