But there are bigger problems on the horizon. As the world’s population exceeds 8 billion and is projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, farmers, governments and scientists face the challenge of increasing food production without exacerbating environmental degradation and the climate crisis, which alone contributes to food insecurity in the global south. Q&A
Over 8 billion
projection As the world’s population passes another milestone, our Beyond 8 billion series examines the impact on some of the countries projected to see the most growth, as well as those facing the opposite problem: falling birthrates and rapidly aging populations. Thanks for your response. The United Nations predicts that food production from plants and animals will need to increase by 70% by 2050, compared to 2009, to meet growing food demand. But food production is already responsible for almost a third of carbon emissions as well as 90% of deforestation worldwide. “We use half of the world’s cropland for agriculture,” says Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University. “This is very bad for the environment. We cannot solve the current problem by switching to more intensive agriculture because that requires more land. Statistics on deforestation “We have to find a way to reduce our contribution [land] while increasing our food production”. But there is no magic bullet to achieve this goal. Instead, an overhaul will be necessary at every step of the food production chain, from the moment the seeds are planted in the ground to the point where the food reaches our dinner tables. For most of human history, agriculture consisted of subsistence farming – people grew crops and animals to feed their households rather than sell them for profit. Photo: Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
Turning to regenerative agriculture
For most of human history, agriculture consisted of subsistence farming – people grew crops and animals to feed their households rather than sell them for profit. This began to change after the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of market capitalism, which also saw the rise of plantation cultivation made possible by the colonization of overseas land and slave labor. Industrial agriculture not only increased the scale at which crops were grown but also changed the techniques farmers used. Instead of rotating the crops grown in a field each year, entire plantations would be devoted to a single crop. This monocultural approach combined with intensive farming methods led to the destruction of local biodiversity and land degradation – within years the fields would cease to produce crops. Today’s agricultural paradigm is that land is cheap and inexperienced Plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries were a “get-rich-quick scheme” rather than a solid long-term investment, says Frank Uekötter, professor of environmental humanities at the University of Birmingham. Plantation owners would extract maximum profits in a short period of time from their land. As soon as a field became useless, they would simply move on to new land. “Until the end of the 19th century, large areas of our planet were still unclaimed by global modernity,” says Uekötter. But today, while we are rapidly running out of topsoil, this colonial mentality remains. “The current agricultural paradigm is that land is cheap and inefficient,” says Crystal Davis of the World Resources Institute. “Most farmers just cut down more trees when they need new land.” “But to achieve our ecological goals, we must stop the conversion of natural ecosystems to agricultural land,” says Davis. “We can achieve this in part by restoring degraded land to its ecological integrity and productivity.” Restoring the land should not mean returning it to its original, pre-agricultural state. “There’s a hybrid solution where we’re putting trees and other natural elements back into the landscape while also integrating production systems,” says Davis. “Systems that are integrated with trees and other plants are often more sustainable and more productive in the long term.” Davis points to the 20 x 20 Initiative, in which 18 South American and Caribbean countries, including Argentina and Brazil, have committed to restoring 50 million hectares of land by 2030. The initiative includes a number of projects aimed at introducing agroforestry of practices on cocoa and coffee farms in Colombia and Nicaragua, where farmers are encouraged to grow crops while introducing more trees to their land. Mexico City’s main wholesale market, Central de Abastos. Freight transport is a major contributor to the carbon footprint of fruit and vegetables. Photo: Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images
Cutting food miles by growing local crops
Transport is a key, if often overlooked, part of the food production chain. Crops are transported from farms to processing plants before the food reaches stores. Food packaging and transport is responsible for 11% of the food industry’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions are not only caused by the gasoline used by trucks, which transport food across countries and continents, but also by the refrigeration systems necessary to keep the product fresh on its journey. Graphic showing the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions from food production Freight transport is a major contributor to the carbon footprint of fruits and vegetables, releasing nearly twice as much greenhouse gas as the process of growing the crops. This means that to reduce the environmental impact of food production, a shift to a plant-based diet in wealthier countries must be combined with more local produce. In the UK, around half of our food comes from elsewhere around the world – this has a large carbon footprint “In the UK, about half the food comes from this country and half comes from other places around the world – that has a big carbon footprint,” says Madeleine Pullman, professor of sustainability and innovation at the University of Sussex. One solution for countries like the UK, says Pullman, is to increase the diversity of food produced domestically by allocating subsidies to farmers to grow a wider range of fruit and vegetables. But in lower-income countries with hot climates, transportation presents a different challenge, as cooling produce in transit is expensive, meaning much food spoils or incubates bacteria before reaching customers. “It’s not always appropriate to transfer a Western-style cooling system to a place in, say, Africa,” says Pullman, pointing to Rwanda, which introduced a national cooling strategy in 2018. Among other solutions, the plan includes subsidies for farmers purchasing more efficient cooling equipment and testing solar-powered cooling installations. “In Europe, we pay a lot of money to have food moved and refrigerated, but when the vast majority live in poverty, they can’t afford it,” says Pullman. Abdulraheem Mukhtar Iderawumi, a researcher at the Oyo State College of Education in Nigeria, says improving agricultural infrastructure such as roads and bridges will make transporting harvested goods more efficient for smallholder farmers. It also suggests increasing farmers’ access to trucks specially designed for transporting food as well as sharing information on best practices. “The transfer should be done early in the morning or late at night,” he says. “This is the time period when humidity is least dangerous.” The production of animal-based products contributes to more than half of the carbon emissions from the food industry. Photo: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Eating less meat
Changing dietary habits is one of the most necessary solutions to the climate crisis, but it is also one of the most controversial and difficult to introduce. More than half of the carbon emissions from the food industry are due to the production of meat and animal products. Beef production emits more than twice as much CO2 per kilogram of food as other types of meat, and 20 to 200 times more than plant-based products such as cane sugar or citrus fruits. Currently, 77% of the world’s agricultural land is used to produce animal products. This includes one-third of all arable land, as grains and crops are grown for the production of animal feed and biofuels, not for human consumption. Subscribe to Global Dispatch Get a different view of the world with a collection of the best news, features and images, curated by our global development team Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “Any global problem you have, food is involved in it,” says Tara Garnett, a researcher at the University of Oxford. “On the one hand there are environmental problems related to food, on the other hand there are health problems such as malnutrition, obesity and diabetes.” The approach to promoting insect diets is to disguise them in such a way that you don’t recognize a live insect Garnett served on the EAT-Lancet Commission, which in 2019 published its report on the Planetary Health Diet. “The idea was to figure out if there’s a way to feed everyone nutritiously on this planet, in ways that…
