Tag: food

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Eat Less Meat Is Message for Rich World in Food’s First Net Zero Plan

  • UN’s FAO is set to publish plan for food’s climate transition
  • Food expected to take more focus at COP28 summit in Dubai

Agnieszka de Sousa, Bloomberg, Nov. 25, 2023

The world’s most-developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat as part of the first comprehensive plan to bring the global agrifood industry into line with the Paris climate agreement.

The global food systems’ road map to 1.5C is expected to be published by the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization during the COP28 summit next month. Nations that over-consume meat will be advised to limit their intake, while developing countries — where under-consumption of meat adds to a prevalent nutrition challenge — will need to improve their livestock farming, according to the FAO.

From farm to fork, food systems account for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and much of that footprint is linked to livestock farming — a major source of methane, deforestation and biodiversity loss. Although non-binding, the FAO’s plan is expected to inform policy and investment decisions and give a push to the food industry’s climate transition which has lagged other sectors in commitments.

The guidance on meat is intended to send a clear message to governments. But politicians in richer nations typically shy away from policies aimed at influencing consumer behavior, especially where it involves cutting consumption of everyday items.

“Livestock is politically sensitive, but we need to deal with sensitive issues to solve the problem,” said Dhanush Dinesh, the founder of Clim-Eat, which works to accelerate climate action in food systems. “If we don’t tackle the livestock problem, we are not going to solve climate change. The key problem is overconsumption.” …

[… Read more at Bloomberg ]

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UN Food & Agriculture Organization Publishes Roadmap to Sustainable Food Systems

The FAO has published the first iteration of its roadmap to align agri-food systems with 1.5°C and end hunger, with a full report expected to follow in the coming days. It comes after the FAIRR Initiative coordinated a statement signed by investors who represent $18 trillion, calling for a roadmap towards a resilient and sustainable food system.

The initial report outlines ten measurable, timebound targets, covering issues such as crops, soil, and forests. According to FAIRR, there is not yet enough information to assess whether the targets are sufficient; the organization has praised the discussion of methane reduction and shifting subsidies, but notes that the roadmap may not go far enough in protecting nature and biodiversity.

“We will look back at COP28 as the turning point for a seismic shift in agri-food policy and investment in the decade ahead,” said Jeremy Coller, chair and founder of FAIRR. “COP28 started with the Emirates Declaration which commits more than 150 countries to include food and agriculture in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), but it is critically important that this COP ends with food and agriculture being accounted for in the Global Stocktake (GST).”

[text source extract: Vegconomist, Dec. 12, 2023]

 

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Let’s make plant-based foods the default on campus

A ‘default veg’ position on campus food is one way that universities can respond to the climate crisis.

Kathleen Kevany, University Affairs, Oct. 13, 2022

What can universities do to respond to the climate crisis? Our most obvious contributions may come from research and teaching across a range of disciplines: from ecology to the environmental humanities, from engineering to economics and beyond, scholars working in labs and classrooms are trying to mitigate the complex, urgent issues we face.

Yet universities are also much more than engines of research and education. They are societies in themselves, as well as cultural and economic drivers for the broader communities in which they are embedded. The contributions that the students, staff, and faculty who are gathered in universities can offer – and the leadership they can provide – come from many directions.

One critical change that is relatively accessible and affordable and more importantly, more equitable, is to adopt a “default veg” practice. This means changing the current practice of emphasizing meat dishes, to placing the spotlight on plant-based foods on our campuses, while still enabling the full range of dietary choices to be met.

Fulfilling our responsibilities to lead change

We know we need more sustainable food habits. The famous EAT-Lancet report demonstrated that largely plant-based, sustainable diets protect human health and our environments. We are enjoined to “eat local,” to cut food waste, and perhaps above all, to reduce our consumption of meat. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offered yet more evidence that animal agriculture is among the top contributors to our environmental crisis. Deforestation, soil degradation, habitat and biodiversity loss, animal emissions and waste all compound to make animal agriculture a driving force in global warming, just behind fossil fuel consumption. Even as we seek to limit our use of environmentally destructive fuels to fight climate change, so too must we rebalance our diets.

We also know that universities can be leaders when it comes to sustainability. I teach at Dalhousie University, where signature research clusters are grounded in  the United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goals. Over 30 years ago, Dalhousie hosted a gathering of university leaders who committed to the Halifax Declaration. Echoing an earlier agreement signed in Talloires, France by university leaders from around the world, the agreement made at Dalhousie in 1991 espoused concrete goals and lofty aspirations to direct teaching, research, outreach, and operations toward an equitable and sustainable future. Both declarations affirmed not just the risks to our planet’s integrity but also the urgent responsibilities of universities to lead change….

[… Read more at University Affairs ]

 

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The food emissions ‘solutions’ alarming experts after Cop27

The food industry’s fingerprints were all over the solutions touted at the UN climate summit last month, campaigners and NGOs say

Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, Dec. 7, 2023

In some ways, this year’s UN climate summit held in Egypt was all about food. In the context of crop failures and food insecurity, due to extreme weather and dwindling diversity, as well as rising food prices exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the tight grip of corporate monopolies – Cop27 included the first ever day dedicated to food and climate.

Scientists are clear that the interconnected climate, environmental and food crises require bold transformative action to drastically reduce greenhouse gases and improve resilience. Food systems produce a third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Cattle ranching is the main driver of Amazon rainforest loss, while industrialized food production is the biggest threat to 86% of the world’s species at risk of extinction.

But at Cop27, as in the debate more broadly, corporate interests dominated. Campaigners and NGOs say the food industry’s fingerprints were all over the solutions being touted, including an array of technologies and incentives that they say will do little to cut big food’s huge climate footprint, reduce diet-related diseases or increase food security and climate resilience in the long term.

“From treating cow burps to robotic weeders, none of the false solutions on offer at Cop27 come close to stopping the industrial food production from being an engine of planetary destruction,” said Raj Patel, food justice scholar and author of Stuffed and Starved. “Agribusiness and governments offered a series of patented patches designed not to transform the food system, but to keep it the same.” …

[… Read more at The Guardian]

 

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Gen Zs and Millennials Will Drive Growth of Plant-based Foods in the U.S. Over Next Few Years

Making Healthier Choices, Sustainability, and Animal Welfare Are Top Motivators for These Plant-based Consumers

Kim McLynn, NPD, Oct. 21, 2021

The consumer demand for plant-based beverages and foods for in-home meal prep has continued throughout the pandemic. Both dairy and meat plant-based alternatives are forecast to grow through 2024, driven almost entirely by Millennials and Gen Zs, who choose these products for better health and because of their interest in sustainability and animal welfare, reports The NPD Group.

The deep-rooted values of Gen Zs and Millennials behind their choice of plant-based foods enabled the category to continue to grow throughout the pandemic when many consumers turned to comfort or more familiar foods. The demand for plant-based foods didn’t waver during the pandemic. About one in five adults say they want more plant-based foods in their diets, and that number remained steady throughout 2020, according to NPD’s recently released The Future of Plant-based Snapshot: The Evolution of Plant-based Continues.

Interest in plant-based dairy and meat alternatives by Gen Zs and Millennials extends beyond burgers and almond milk. These plant-based consumers look for various meat, poultry, or seafood analogues, flavor profiles, formats. For this reason, plant-based opportunities exist across frozen, shelf-stable, indulgent, and snack categories.

“As consumers continue to prepare more meals in the home and younger generations cook more, plant-based foods and ingredients will be a part of their repertoire,” says Darren Seifer, NPD food industry analyst and co-author of the study. “In addition to providing a variety of plant-based foods and ingredients, food manufacturers should also focus efforts on Millennials and Gen Zs since they will be driving the category’s growth. Their concerns for sustainability and animal welfare should also be taken into account when messaging to them.”

[… Read at NPD ]

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Introducing UBC’s Climate-Friendly Food Label

Shalini Nanayakkara, University of British Columbia, November 2021

Ever wonder how our food choices impact the climate? Us, too. That’s why UBC has developed our first ever climate-friendly food label that tracks how much greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are produced in campus meals.

The Climate-Friendly Food Label is part of the emerging UBC Climate Action Plan 2030, which will position UBC as a model of how universities can mobilize to address the climate emergency and targets in the Paris Agreement through bold, impactful actions to accelerate and deepen reductions across operations, and expanded action on reducing indirect emissions from commuting, air travel, food, and waste.

[… Read more at University of British Columbia ]

 

 

 

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Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds

Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter

Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Sept. 13, 2021

The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.

The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.

“The emissions are at the higher end of what we expected, it was a little bit of a surprise,” said Atul Jain, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and co-author of the paper, published in Nature Food. “This study shows the entire cycle of the food production system, and policymakers may want to use the results to think about how to control greenhouse gas emissions.”

The raising and culling of animals for food is far worse for the climate than growing and processing fruits and vegetables for people to eat, the research found, confirming previous findings on the outsized impact that meat production, particularly beef, has on the environment.

The use of cows, pigs and other animals for food, as well as livestock feed, is responsible for 57% of all food production emissions, the research found, with 29% coming from the cultivation of plant-based foods. The rest comes from other uses of land, such as for cotton or rubber. Beef alone accounts for a quarter of emissions produced by raising and growing food….

The paper’s calculations of the climate impact of meat is higher than previous estimates – the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization has said about 14% of all emissions come from meat and diary production. The climate crisis is also itself a cause of hunger, with a recent study finding that a third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate.

Scientists have consistently stressed that if dangerous global heating is to be avoided, a major rethink of eating habits and farming practices is required. Meat production has now expanded to the point that there are now approximately three chickens for every human on the planet….

[… Read more at The Guardian ]

 

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