Inspiring Climate Action Since 2009
Tribe, usually, when we buy food, our decisions are mostly based on convenience, taste, and price. Now, what if I tell you that your food buying decisions can actually have an effect on the complicated cycle of the food industry, climate change, and social equality? However, to have that positive impact, we first need to understand what is sustainable food?
You have surely heard of organic food and vegan food, but what really is sustainable food? Sustainable food ultimately boils down to a set of food and lifestyle choices, which will have fewer adverse impacts on the environment as well as societies around the world. Due to its inherently low environmental impact, Sustainable Food can fulfill our dietary nutritional requirements, not just in current times but also for our future generations.
Provided below are some of the most important environmental and social aspects of food, understanding which, can help us make the most sustainable food choices.
Read here our complete guide about how to choose sustainable food and making your eating habits more sustainable.
Let’s start this discussion with a brief history of Agriculture and Food Production. Up until 8,000 BC, food was found by nomadic humans by primitive ways of hunting and gathering. Then people began to grow food, domesticate animals, live in settlements. As the population started increasing sharply, humans invented techniques of agriculture by learning the art of tillage, plant selection, harvesting, and processing. As populations increased further, people extended agriculture to more land, new areas, and better techniques of food growing and processing. Fast forward to the 19th century, by 1825 the world population had reached one billion people. The crop yields were sufficient to provide exports. Agricultural science gained prominence by mechanized farm equipment, expansion of farm size. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise of Industrial Agriculture, which include modern farming methods that depend on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, large amounts of irrigation water, major transportation systems, factory-style practices for raising livestock, and machine technology.
In the 21st Century, our food system is mainly dominated by vast monoculture fields where pesticides, synthetic chemical fertilizers, and GMO (Genetically Modified) crops are overused. There are concentrated animal factories and the heavy use of artificial growth hormones on industrial dairy farms. Our food industry has become heavily water & energy-intensive, in all stages of food production, processing, storage, distribution, and transportation.
By now, it appears that food has become a commodity for making profits, rather than simply a basic human right.
A few of the problems with the greatest impacts are enlisted below:
Injustice to local farmers:
Due to the economies of scale, and the subsidies provided for the factory production of food, large agricultural corporations can offer unnaturally low prices on food products, which more natural, organic farms are unable to keep up with. This results in the growth of industrial farming and the closing down of local and organic farms. Several multinational agricultural corporations have also misused judicial systems to destroy competition from smaller local farmers.
Environmentally, more and more lands are getting cleared by deforestation around the world for high-profit cattle farming or growing crops (for palm oil, etc). The recent fires in the Amazon rainforest or extinction of orangutans in the rainforests of Indonesia are the results of such a change in land use. Natural resources have been abused in many ways including over-grazed grasslands or vast farms dedicated to growing animal feeds like alfalfa, which we humans can’t even consume.
Where very few countries produce very high quantities of food, this creates a need for industrial food processing and food preservation to add shelf life to the food product. These food additives in processed foods can harm human health ranging from small side effects to cancer-causing effects and many more. Some of the extremely commonly used additives and preservatives include:
– Hydrogenated oils (contain trans-fats which can increase LDL (bad) cholesterol while decreasing HDL (good) cholesterol, causing heart disease)
– High Fructose Corn Syrup and Artificial Sweeteners (causing inflammation, which is associated with an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer),
– Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Benzoate (contain free radicals that can damage your cells and increase chronic disease risk),
– MSG – Monosodium glutamate (linked to health problems such as headaches and allergic reactions, and plays a part in infantile obesity)
As a result of globalization and a large food export business, food packaging has become essential. Nowadays, most food packaging is full of toxins ranging from heavy metal, poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), etc that can enter the food and can have adverse health effects. Even the seemingly innocuous paper packaging is lined with coating and plastic liners, while the tins and aluminum cans are lined with BPAs or other toxic substances.
After the Industrialization of food systems around the world, our environment, and human health, as well as human nourishment needs took backstage and profits took centerstage.
Industrially produced food is closely linked to food-related or chronic diseases instead of nourishing the human race; which is creating another problem of food insecurity. If we are under the impression that developed countries have 100% food security then that’s not true. First, let’s look at the basic definition of food security, which means access to nourishing food. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report says the socio-economic inequalities and marginalization are shaping food security and nutrition outcomes. Even in developed countries, economically disadvantaged people can’t afford to have fresh healthy food and mainly depend on cheaper industrially produced unhealthy and junk food. So if we look at the western diet with a high intake of meat, fat, and sugar, it affects adversely on individual health. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and cancer are wide-spread diet-related diseases. Economic slowdowns and downturns worsen global food crises.
On the one hand, our human race is facing issues like obesity and overweight children because of consuming industrially produced junk food; in the same world, there exist people who are undernourished and going hungry.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019 report by FAO states that a little over 820 million people suffer from hunger. This corresponds to about one in every nine people in the world. In many underdeveloped countries, people who do not have regular access to nourishing food have high food insecurity. The Central African Republic has one of the highest concentrations of hungry people.
Food accounts for about 25% of the greenhouse emissions released into the atmosphere. 70% of the water taken from freshwater lakes and rivers is used for agriculture. The agriculture industry causes 60% of deforestation, clearing land for farming.
Natural resource consumption in agriculture exceeds the replenishment of resources regionally around the world. Agriculture, including fisheries, is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss.
Industrial Agriculture & Soil:
In industrial agriculture practices where pesticides, synthetic fertilizers are used; monoculture planting is preferred. These practices are reducing water and soil quality and contaminating them at the same time. Soil’s low nutrients have two adverse effects, firstly the low nutrient soil produces fewer crops creating challenges in producing enough food, and secondly, it increases the need for further fertilization. Also, the soil layer on the earth absorbs and stores carbon. It is ideal to use organic fertilizers like compost or manure for farming so that it will increase the soil quality and productivity. Composting is a great way of sequestering carbon in the soil. The Marin Carbon Project found that the increase in the soil’s carbon content from a one-time application of compost is comparable to removing 1.5 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
Red Meat:
Read meat adds to climate change in four major ways.
Forests, when left as they are, can act as carbon sinks. However, to produce red meat industrially, forests are destroyed to clear land for cattle farming. So we are reducing the Earth’s carbon sinks. Now if these forests are cleared by fire, like recent Amazon fires, then releasing carbon dioxide from the fires directly adds to greenhouse gases. So we are now turning our carbon sink into carbon-emitting bodies.
Thirdly, the red meat industry, depends on fossil fuels for the whole cycle of production, processing, storing and transportation. So there is the third layer of greenhouse gas addition. Of course let’s not forget the red meat industry is also very water-intensive (adding up water needed for growing the cattle, water needed for growing cattle feed on farms and water needed for red meat processing). Lastly, when waste coming from the red meat industry, this organic waste creates methane gas, which is another GHG and this way its 4th layer of greenhouse gas generation through the red meat industry. You can read more about how greenhouse gases and climate change here.
However the link between the food system and climate change is not just one way, climate change will also alter our future food system.
According to the United Nations, Nearly 1/2 of all fruit & vegetables produced globally are wasted each year. 30 percent of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion) is lost every year. The food loss happens at different stages of the food industry, right at the production on farms and in industries then during storage and distribution and then at the consumer end. Food waste happens before and after cooking. All of this food waste, at the landfill, emits methane (which is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide) and other greenhouse gases and directly and adversely impacts climate change. FAO said in their report that If food wastage were a country, it would be the third-largest Green House Gas emitting country in the world.
Food packaging is another wastage of food industry, packaging waste also contributes to the wastage of valuable natural resources like water, energy, etc as well it adds to greenhouse gases. What is interesting to know here is even though the packaging waste is clogging our oceans and rivers, according to Greenbiz, Up to 25 percent of residential food waste is due to inappropriate packaging.
The world population is expected to grow to almost 10 billion by 2050. However when we will have more mouths to feed, because of climate change our crop yield is likely to decrease. The rising temperatures will also affect adversely on fisheries and meat production. It is predicted that fish species are likely to go extinct regionally.
EU Standing Committee on Agriculture Research (SCAR) concluded in their latest report that, Many of today´s food production systems compromise the capacity of Earth to produce food in the future. Price volatility, access restrictions and the interconnectedness of global commodity markets, as well as the increasing vulnerability of food production systems to climate change and loss of agro-biodiversity, will make food even more inaccessible for the poor in the future.
Researchers and policymakers are working towards bringing positive change in the current food systems by adopting sustainable and climate-smart food production & operation practices. However, as a consumer, we have the power to support positive efforts and increase the demand for sustainable food, whilst decreasing the demand for unsustainable practices in the food industry. You will find all the answers, to how we can use our consumer power for this positive change, in our next article, Sustainability Tribe’s Guide To Sustainable Eating.
Note: Sustainability Tribe celebrated the ‘World Food Day’ by hosting a Sustainable Food Event for the community,which was a first of its kind event in UAE. For sustainable events, talks on the subject contact us.
Amruta Kshemkalyani, an expert sustainability professional turned social entrepreneur, is the founder of the Sustainability Tribe, AK Sustainability
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