Food For Thought: Are Our Dietary Choices Making The Planet Inhabitable?

As the Neolithic Revolution began, approximately 12 millenia ago, agriculture practices were discovered and some groups shifted to farming, resulting in permanent settlements. This was a gigantic evolutionary step and enabled us to grow our own food. Since then, agriculture, a highly water-intensive process, became the mainstay of the human food system, but meat and meat products remained important sources of protein in the human diet.

There are several other food systems as well, depending on scale, geographies, and resource availability. Together, they account for about a third of global greenhouse gases that trap the Sun’s heat, making the Earth warmer.

Meat and dairy, particularly from cows, have an extraordinary impact on the climate. For instance, livestock farming – a major source of methane, deforestation and biodiversity loss – accounts for around 14.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases each year. It is about the same amount as the emissions from all the cars, trucks, aeroplanes and ships combined in the world today.

Imagine the emissions from food production in 2050, when the total population is likely to be 10 billion, compared to today’s 8 billion.

Is that all that there is to be worried? No, here’s the worst part. Most of the food systems popular today are heavily strained by the events unfolding as a result of climate change – rising seas, expanding deserts, worsening biodiversity and a rapidly warming planet. Once foods (animal and agriculture produce) are grown, they are transported, distributed, prepared, consumed, and often wasted. Each step creates greenhouse gases. This makes it clear that the food we eat and how that food is produced affects not just our health but also the environment.

There is a serious debate underway among policymakers and scientists about how we need to change our food habits to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius. To keep warming of the planet within that threshold, GHG emissions must peak before 2025 and decline 43 per cent by the end of this decade, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The matter is being taken up at the COP28 summit being held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. The UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is set to publish the first global food systems’ roadmap to 1.5C. According to a Bloomberg report, the comprehensive food plan is expected to remind the world’s most-developed nations that they have to reduce their meat consumption “to bring the global agrifood industry in line with the Paris climate agreement”.

“The climate and food crises are inseparable,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has said just days ahead of the summit. “Investing in agrifood systems and rural areas creates the concrete solution to address the impacts of the climate crisis. At COP28 FAO will systematically highlight how agrifood systems transformation accelerates climate action to the benefit of people, prosperity and the planet.”

High Climate Impact

The highest greenhouse gas emissions are usually associated with animal-based foods, especially red meat, dairy, and farmed shrimp. But why does meat have a high climate impact? An easy way to answer that is to ask ourselves: Would it not be more efficient for humans to grow crops for direct human consumption than to grow them for animals and then consume those animals as food for dinner?

A broader explanation could be meat production requires extensive grasslands for rearing cattle. These grasslands are typically created by felling trees, releasing CO2 trapped by the forests. Then, cattle like cows and sheep emit methane as they digest grass and plants and their waste leads to production of nitrous oxide. Shrimp farms are often located in coastal areas, which were previously covered in mangrove forests. These forests absorb huge amounts of carbon, which is released into the atmosphere when mangroves are cut down.

Plant-based foods – such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and lentils – generally use less energy, land, and water, and have lower greenhouse gas intensities than animal-based foods.

What Can Be Done To Reduce Food-Related Emissions?

Some simple tweaks to our food habits can lead to big changes in the fight against climate change. We need to reduce our meat intake and move towards food systems that are plant-rich diets. We need to eat less of the foods with the largest emissions footprints – such as beef, lamb and cheese. Instead, we should include more plant protein – such as beans, chickpeas, lentils and grains.

That does not mean we have to go vegan. Animal products are a key component of global food security and they ensure nutrition in poorer countries. Meat products also help provide livelihoods to a large section of the rural population. So, it’s necessary to improve feeds and feeding techniques to cut down methane emissions during cattle digestion. There is also a need for better agricultural practices like improved manure and fertiliser management, and introducing rotational grazing to retain soil health.

What About Wastage Of Food?

According to the World Food Programme, alarmingly about one-third (1.3 billion tons per year, worth $1 trillion) of the total food produced globally is wasted. Producing, transporting, and letting that food rot contributes more than 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, all the food produced and never eaten would be enough to feed 2 billion people.

Other estimates suggest, albeit startlingly, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa each year. By 2030, the UN has set an aim to reduce global food waste by half. This target is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the world body.

Decades of scientific study have led us to conclude that human evolution has been a lengthy process, spread over a period of around six million years, during which we developed cognitive abilities. It is time we use those skills to secure our future by making simple changes to our food habits.