Paradigm shift in Food

 

All rights reserved by Tomi Nyman

Changing what we eat and how we treat our food can solve climate change and biodiversity crisis.

 The world is struggling to find solutions to mitigate climate change and reduce emissions at a rate which would be sufficiently fast enough to slow down global warming. Global warming is leading to a wide range of adverse climate issues and environmental hazards which such as the fires in Australia soon reach scales which are unbearable and challenging if not impossible to control. Biodiversity crisis is an even bigger challenge that requires further attention.

The global population is expected to grow by 2 billion in the next decades before 2050 and by then, also the number of people enjoying middle-class level income is expected to grow from approx. 3,5 to 5,5 billion out of the by then 9,5 billion people. Today, in 2020, approximately 1/3 of the food leaving the fields, is lost due to poor logistics, planning and gross negligence. Already prior to harvesting, as much as 15-20% is lost due to weather, pests and animals destroying crops and reducing yields on the fields.

Globally about 1,6-1,7 billion hectares of land are used for food crops, main crops being listed below:

Corn >1100 million tons 

Wheat >760 million tons

Rice >750 million tons

Potato >310 million tons

Cassava >230 million tons

Soy >230 million tons

Globally about 3,5 billion hectares of land are used for pasture, main products being listed below (total >300 million tons):

Poulty >110 million tons

Pork 80-120 million tons

Beef 70-85 million tons

Sheep and goat >15 million tons

In addition milk (from cows and buffaloes) production varies between 650-800 million tons globally depending on the source of the data.

These levels of food demand are already enough to feed an even higher population if they are better distributed, no food is wasted and thrown away and additionally eating meat is reduced and eating in excess is limited. Additionally, a transition towards higher consumption of vegetable is expected and this will reduce land needed for animal feed purposes and pasture. Today, 1/3 of the arable land is used for animal feed and 26% for pasture.

The direct economic impact of food waste is approximately $750-1000 billion in 2020. When social and environmental impacts are added, the value increases to $3 billion. These impacts include for example erosion, deforestation, water scarcity, soil degeneration and loss of biodiversity – besides work-force related human rights issues.

The land use related to crop, meat and milk production exceeds 5 billion hectares, that is 50 million square kilometers, which is about 3 times the land area of Russia and 1/3 of the total land area in the world. To compare, the global forest area is currently approximately 4 billion hectares. During the last 5000 years, the land area of forests has decreased even by 2 billion hectares, with a slow-down in the Americas in the 1500-1700 due to the massacres and diseases caused by invasion from European civilizations leading to natural reforestation of farmland.

Now, if we take a holistic look into all these numbers and consider a top-down, solution-driven approach how could we change the current situation in favor of the environment, climate and biodiversity? What if we reduced meat consumption and food was not wasted?We did not need the land for the crops and pasture. Reducing meat consumption by 45% and food waste by 45% could enable bringing back 2,5 billion hectares to forest use by reforestation and afforestation. This is achievable by gradually taking land back from farm land as meat consumption drops and less food is wasted, but also by afforestation of degraded and deserted land.

When planting trees and bushes onto 2,5 billion hectares, a reasonable planting density could be e.g. 2000 trees per hectare. This would add up to 5 trillion trees. When the trees grow, they may absorb as much as as 20 kg of atmospheric CO2 from the air due to photosynthesis, but since this is not a stable number during the life-time of a tree, let’s use 10 kg/a per tree as the average. For 5 trillion trees, this yields the absorption of 50 gigatonnes every year.

Currently, in 2020, the estimated total emissions from the industries, transport, land-use and nature globally are estimated to be roughly 50 Gt.

Thus, by the mutual effect of reducing food wasted and the reforestation of unnecessary farmland and afforestation of degraded and deserted land, even 64% of the global emissions can be mitigated. This, together with the transition from fossil origin to clean energy and circular and renewable materials can enable a massive reduction in the emissions caused by our current way of living. 

Transformational solutions and systemic changes are the only and fast enough options to achieve a climate-neutral life within 2050, bearing in mind the limitations and boundaries brought to us by the growing population and globalization.