Welcome to the fourth of our weekly areas of focus on climate action, providing encouragement and seeking to inspire action within all the 22 Methodist Churches in the Ipswich area.
By the time the COP26 summit begins on 1st November, we will have covered 9 distinct areas of concern.
This Week’s Focus
This week, we shine a spotlight on food sustainability. Put simply, can we guarantee access to sufficient food and safe water to sustain a healthy diet.
What are the Issues Behind Food Sustainability?
When we consider food sustainability, we need to embrace access to a healthy, nutritious diet, and sufficient safe, potable drinking water.
As is often the case, the answer looks very different when viewed globally, than when restricted to our own community, or even on an individual level. Sometimes it is called food security. Read on to discover if they are interchangeable terms.
We know that this is a BIG topic even without climate change. Over 800 million people worldwide do not have access to acceptable levels of nutrition and over 2.5 billion people have no access to safe drinking water.
There are three distinct aspects to consider:
- the growing global population needs more food and safe water just to stand still;
- everyone should have a nourishing diet and an acceptable standard of living, wo we need to close the gap between rich and poor by distributing food and water more equitably;
- sources of food and water are threatened with increased stresses by climate change and we need more adaptability and resilience throughout the food supply and distribution chain.
Achieving “food sustainability” for all requires us to understand and address the issues in each of these three areas.
It is sometimes called food security because one of the main emphases is to make sure that enough food and water is always available to everyone. The term should be used with caution as it reflects the perspective of those seeking to protect the privilege of what they already have. For the 10% without access to adequate food and safe water supplies, food security is a distant aspiration.
Trends in Food Production
Innovation in farming over the last 50 years has increased arable crop yields threefold with almost year on-year improvements from a combination of fertilizers, pesticides, and optimisation of genetic matching of crop strain to local conditions.
Careful matching of genetic strains to local conditions can significantly enhance yields, but faced with economic and political influence, the over-reliance on a single preferred strain increases the drift towards a monoculture, reducing the overall genetic diversity available for future adaptation. Too much focus on short-term gains can reduce long-term resilience. When faced with more volatile conditions resulting from climate change, protection of wide biodiversity is vital (see week3)
Not all of these innovations are without controversy. Some early examples of pesticides have proved harmful over the long term. Overuse of pesticides and fertilizers invariably causes long-term environmental damage, especially when leaching into water supplies.
In animal and dairy farming, a similar shift towards more intensive methods has been the main enabler to increase food supply. Widespread use of antibiotics, growth hormones and nutrient rich feeds have each contributed to increased weight gain or higher dairy yields. Economics has also favoured the adoption of more factory farming, with its high animal density.
These intensive methods are also controversial with concern over animal welfare and the threat to ground waters from the concentration of effluent. Of greatest concern is that the prevalence of antibiotic usage increases the risk of antibiotic resistance – one of the world’s biggest threats to healthcare.
Nearly 15% of the world’s carbon footprint is attributable to animal farming, with the production of methane by ruminants (cattle and similar relatives) being a dominant source. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and is produced in cattle “farts and burps”. A 30% reduction in methane production from cattle could be achieved with less intensive rearing, and especially by reverting to grass-feed, rather than nutrient-rich feed.
Animal farming is not the only form of food production where modern methods are actively contributing to the climate emergency. Rice growing in paddy fields also produces large quantities of methane, giving it a carbon footprint 50% bigger than other grain crops per Calorie. Adopting an alternative method for growing rice could reduce the carbon footprint by over 50%, and use only around one third as much water.
Intensive monoculture in both animal and plant farming increases the threat from pests and diseases (arguably the Covid virus is the product of over-intensive breeding), and also demands more artificial replenishment of the soil than a traditional crop rotation.
Trends in fishing methods mirror those in arable, meat and dairy, with economic pressures driving intensive factory fishing. Brexit has demonstrated the intensity of politics addressing access to coastal fishing waters, but similar disputes are widespread. In island communities dependent on traditional fishing grounds and methods, industrial scale fishing poses a severe threat to the whole community.
Deep-sea fishing and factory ships continue to prove controversial with claims of overfishing, with favoured catches at risk of extinction.
Poor food distribution and demand in rich countries for exotic foods play an important role contributing to both climate change and hunger in poorer countries. Around 2.5bn tonnes of food is wasted every year contributing 10% to the greenhouse gas emissions. Perishable crops suffer most from volatile trading conditions, as it is liable to rot and decomposes either in transit, sometimes blocked in customs by bureaucratic processes or simply never harvested if demand fluctuates. Farmers in poorer countries are often tempted by financial pressures to plant crops to trade with richer nations, leaving local markets short of food for their own community.. Such global trade can often create wild swings between feast and famine as global demand and supply fail to match-up, feeding more economic frenzy, if promised prices are not maintained.
How does Climate Change affect Food Sustainability?
Climate change can severely affect growing seasons. Changes in patterns of flood and drought will change ground conditions for planting, germination, growth and harvesting. When these combine to shorten a growing season, growth can be stunted, or yields reduced. Changes in temperature may bleach or stunt growth, reducing yields, and fluctuations throughout the growing season may affect the completeness of germination. In some cases, changes to the climate may allow multiple cropping.
For subsistence herders, longer periods of drought, higher temperatures and changes to rainy seasons can be catastrophic if animal feed fails and herds are wiped out by famine and drought. Prolonged heat and drought can dry-up rivers and lakes, forcing predator and prey fighting for the same water sources.
One extreme growing season may not only yield poor results in that year, but may also destroy next years’ seed or breeding herd, causing prolonged shortages.
In communities reliant on traditional farming methods, changes to the growing conditions might be disastrous if there is insufficient knowledge in the community to adapt techniques and with changes in the environment.
Warmer seas and oceans can cause fish to migrate to different areas where conditions are more favourable, which could bring them into conflict with other species. Knowledge of traditional fishing grounds will cease to be of value, reducing catch-sizes.
What are the Human Facts behind Food Sustainability?
- arable crop yields have increase threefold in the last 50 years and continue to rise with increasingly intensive methods
- meat and dairy foods have a higher carbon footprint for a given nutrition value, than plant-based foods ;
- rice farming in traditional paddy fields has a 50% bigger footprint than other grains
- commercial pressures and government policies are currently a significant inertial barrier to change
- more than 800m people are undernourished and are hungry each day ;
- more than 2.5b people do not have access to safe potable water;
- every year around 2.5bn tonnes of food are wasted, contributing around 10% of greenhouse gas emissions – most of this is usable;
- global levels of hunger have been falling for decades, but has started rising again;
- conflict is one of the biggest factors causing countries to suffer severe hunger
- migrant populations (82m forcibly displaced, of whom 26m are refugees) and their host communities are especially vulnerable to poor nutrition;
- there are as many people in wealthy nations impaired by their obesity as there are affected by malnourishment in poorer countries.
- excluding blood pressure which has multiple contributary factors, nine of the top15 mortality risk factors are diet related
- we need 1.2% more food each year just to feed the growing population: 1bn people are added to the world every 12 years but it took over 120 years for the world’s population to rise from 1b to 2b people (in 1927).
The Big Policy Issues
The major trend in food production has been towards adoption of more intensive methods, with strong economic drivers, backed up by government policies and tax incentives. Collectively, these have favoured industry consolidation, and strengthened the voice of short-term commercial interests ahead of long-term environmental considerations. To diminish the threat posed by climate change, we urgently need new policies and incentives that will force adoption of climate sensitive approaches to food supply, and removal of current policies which currently reward continuation of damaging practices.
It isn’t enough to address the threats to UK’s food sustainability challenges, some of which arise directly as a result of short-termism and parochialism in UK politics. Food sustainability must be addressed at the same time as continuing to tackle the huge inequity in access to both food and water.
Global demand for out-of-season and exotic foods drives imbalance in access to food amongst poorer nations and drives up food-miles – the carbon footprint associated with tranposrting food. Ensuring a nourishing diet for rich and poor alike, will only be achieved with more responsible attitudes to global food markets.
What Can We Do?
- lobby for removal of inertial barriers that continue encouraging damaging practices;
- use your food purchase power to support more sustainable farming;
- buy more local produce, to reduce unnecessary transport (food miles);
- reduce the amount of food you throw away – check your fridge regularly and use up your ingredients;
- sign up to the petition calling for action to reduce food waste
- reduce your meat consumption,
- shift the balance of meat consumption from beef and lamb to pork and chicken;
- eat beef less frequently, but buy better quality – eg grass fed;
- support water-aid or equivalent to enable more communities to have access to fresh drinking water;
- write to supermarkets complaining when they about advertise imported vegetables as “seasonal produce”
Learn More
- United Nations global report on Food
- UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report on food security
- Sustainable Food Trust
- Greentumble – a knowledge webiste seeking to inform on sustainable living
- Our World in Data – trends in arable farming
- Action against hunger: – a campaign group sharing facts on world hunger
- World Health Organisation – how Covid has affected world hunger
- World Economic Forum – report on world hunger
- UN Food and Agriculture Organisation – soaring food hunger
- Our World in Data – data on world hunger
- Our World in Data – data on access to drinking water
- UNHCR data on refugees and displaced people
- Read about excess food waste
World Environment Day Exemplar
On 5th June 1974, the first World Environment Day was marked. Every year since then, a host city has brought focus to an environmental topic that was particularly pertinent to them.
In 2013, the city of Ulaanbaater in Mongolia was the host city, choosing the theme “Think, Eat, Save, Reduce your footprint”
Mongolia is a huge country with amongst the lowest population density of any nation, but like most countries, the rural economy is challenging. More people are being attracted to city life. Ulaanbaater is now a vibrant city housing the very rich alongside Buddhist monks and visiting herders. With increasing threat to the security of its food and water supplies, the country is seeking to switch to a greener economy and promoting environmental awareness amongst young people. Read more here.
This Week’s Prayer
Pray for farmers and fishers for successful and sustainable harvesting, for more environmentally conscious food production, and for more equal sharing and distribution of food and water.
Food Sustainability – Key Messages
Food production is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases, and its sustainability is also threatened by climate change. We need to make informed choices about our diet, and reduce our carbon footprint to avoid food shortages.
- dietary choices affect our carbon footprint
- exercise choice in food purchasing to support shift to lower carbon food production methods;
- crop viability affected by changing patterns of precipitation and temperature;
- crop yields reduced by growth in unpredictable extreme weather events
- increased risk of pests and diseases;
- livestock farming has a high carbon footprint and high land usage compared with plant-based diet;
- loss of prime agricultural land due to increased flooding, sea-level rise and wildfires;
- increased sea and ocean temperature will lead to loss of prime fishing areas;
- climate effects will have biggest impact in areas with highest risk of famine and drought
- after several years reduction in numbers malnourished, this number has grown again in the pandemic;
- over 800m people globally are undernourished and global justice demands they gain safe and reliable access to enough food and water to live well