Food Is a Major Contributor to Climate Change

Food production, transportation, and food waste are a major source of greenhouse gases. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest contributor to climate change behind China and the United States. Here are some ways you can reduce your impact.

Climate Steps: Food

LEARN

About Climate Change and Food

Some interesting facts about food:

• Obviously, we all need access to it.
• Today, most of the produce we eat is not grown near us, traveling 1500 miles to get to us for conventional produce, whereas food from local food projects/farms travels only 45 miles. Carbon emissions difference?  An Iowa example found that conventional produce shipment released from 5 to 17 times more CO2 from the burning of this fuel than local produce (Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University).
• Via global food trade, regions that can easily raise one kind of food crop trade that crop for other goods, and having that global system in place can help feed countries and regions when their crops fail. [REF]
• Global trade is complicated [and carbon emitting], however, and the more complicated something is, the greater the likelihood that something will go wrong (“Complexity, Problem-Solving, and Sustainable Societies”).
• All nations combined grow more than enough food to feed the world, but “the number of people at risk of facing famine-like conditions without urgent immediate life-saving action has been increasing….It is now estimated that 41 million people could face such conditions in 20321 across 43 countries,” WFP (World Food Programme) Global Operational Response Plan 2021.
• Produce tends to begin losing nutritional value after it’s harvested (via the University of California at Davis) – so the further it travels, the less nutritious it can be.
• Many “underdeveloped” countries (meaning they don’t have strong economies) have been encouraged to export their own food while depending on global food supplies (Meadows, 1987). But food insecurity can also affect people living in the richest countries in the world. Some people simply cannot afford food.
• Droughts and heat waves can cause crop failures, leading to famine – and war. Research at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has shown that one of the reasons for the recent Syrian Civil War was a long drought that led to water shortages, the drought has been tied to climate change.
• “Food deserts”exist, where even if you have monetary aid to buy food, there are no stores near enough that sell fresh food. Only fast food restaurants are available, or canned and heavily processed foods with low levels of nutrition and high levels of unhealthy ingredients.
• Burning biofuel and raising all our cattle add to food burned and wasted .
• Growing our own food or obtaining it from local farms decreases the CO2 emissions and other pollution associated with factory farming and the transportation of food, and the delivery of food can be more reliable.

Some More on the Issues

Food and Agriculture

• We don’t have a lot of farm-able land to begin with. Population growth and changes in our consumption patterns are putting unprecedented pressure on the planet’s natural resources:
  • Over 75% of the Earth’s land area is already degraded, and over 90% could become degraded by 2050, and
  • Globally, a total area half of the size of the European Union (4.18 million km²) is degraded annually, with Africa and Asia being the most affected, according to the World Atlas of Desertification.
  • A lot of the available land for agriculture is used for growing crops intended for something other than human food. Some of it is used for fuel; an article in the March 2016 issue of Nature reported that “An analysis based on per capita calorie requirements and the caloric content of biodiesel crops shows that about 70 million people could be fed by the food calories of the vegetable oils used for biodiesel production in the top 29 consumer countries that account for 97% of the global biodiesel consumption.”
  • Additionally, a significant amount of arable land is used to raise food for livestock, especially cattle. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that “Globally, there is enough cropland to feed 9 billion in 2050 if the 40 percent of all crops produced today for feeding animals were used directly for human consumption, while available grasslands were more efficiently used as the basis for livestock feed.”
• Fertilizers for agribusiness are made from fossil fuels, and their manufacturing and application create significant greenhouse gasses, including nitrous oxide, which is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/fertilizer-and-climate-change.  In fact, the manufacturing and application of fertilizer causes 2.4% of global emissions (Menegat, et al., 2021).
• Climate change’s droughts, floods and fires are likely to destroy much of our cropland in the U.S., according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and others (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11062018/climate-change-research-food-security-agriculture-impacts-corn-vegetables-crop-prices/; https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/30700510/ClimateChangeImpacts2007.pdf.)
• Unreliability can occur for many reasons, such as the COVID global pandemic adding to unreliability in food harvesting, transporting, and servicing (National Library of Medicine.) – see SideBar on our Community Food Page.
• At the same time, we need farmers. Worldwide, fewer and fewer people are interested in farming, and the ones who are left are getting old. At time of writing, the average age of a farmer anywhere on the planet is almost 60.  Some areas differ, with 27% of U.S. farmers new to the career of producing food to support people; they are on average 47 years old, making a go with small farms, based on the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture.

Transportation of Crops and Transportation Again of Processed Foods

Coming!

Storage and Refrigeration

A huge factor in global warming are refrigerants, the chemicals used in the electrical cycle to cool.  The goal is to keep them from escaping to the air, outdoors, as they extremely potent GHGs, with up to 9000 times more impact than carbon dioxide emissions, https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/refrigerant-management.

More Coming!

Food Waste

A big part of the problem is food waste, especially in more “developed” countries. According to the climate research organization Project Drawdown, a third of the food we grow never makes it to a plate due to spoilage, willful rejection of ugly produce, use for large animals and biofuels, and just plain waste. Much of that wasted food creates methane, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, making up about 8% of global emissions.

According to Project Drawdown:

“Losing food to one waste heap or another is an issue in both high- and low-income countries. In places where income is low, wastage is generally unintentional and occurs earlier in the supply chain—food rots on farms or spoils during storage or distribution. In regions of higher income, willful food waste dominates farther along the supply chain. Retailers and consumers reject food based on bumps, bruises, and coloring, or simply order, buy, and serve too much.”

There’s more than one cause of wasted food. For example, the steady encroachment of human development into previously wild areas exposes us to new diseases like Covid.  The result? At the beginning of the pandemic, everyone stopped going to restaurants and other places associated with food service and began buying more food to take home. According to the National Library of Medicine, this led to food being discarded:

…food products destined for the food service industry are different in terms of size, packaging, and labeling requirements from those destined for food retail outlets….This, coupled with the drop in demand, resulted in substantial quantities of food waste as the pandemic took hold because growers of perishable products in the middle of winter harvest dumped, abandoned, or plowed crops into the ground, causing disruptions in the labor market and income loss to farmers.

Another cause of waste is that we grow food as a commodity, for profit, rather than to feed people. Some food crops never reach the market because it makes more financial sense for farmers to leave them in the field. For example, sociologist Andrew Smolski explains that,

“…as price fluctuates over the course of the growing season, farmers pick less crops. At the beginning of the season, the price for fruits and vegetables is higher than at the end. So as the season progresses, more and more produce is left in the field. Farmers recognize the effect of price — they are economic optimizers in a capitalist market. They leave more and more produce out of the supply chain in an effort to inflate the food’s price. Farmers are controlling supply to affect the price, regardless of the demand” (“Capital’s Hunger in Abundance.”)

Once it gets to the store, if produce doesn’t look perfect, a lot of people will not buy it. Grocers know this, so they toss anything that doesn’t look good enough or is slightly damaged, but still quite edible.

Climate Steps We Can Take

So what are climate steps we can take, simple or not so simple?  We’ve put below our initial set, but will be growing out this page.

Increasingly people and communities worldwide respond to food insecurity by growing their own, which makes sense for a variety of reasons. First, the freshest produce is that which is just outside your door, which also makes it more nutritious, since produce tends to begin losing nutritional value after it’s harvested. Second, growing our own food or obtaining it from local farms decreases the CO2 emissions and other pollution associated with factory farming and the transportation of food, and the delivery of food can be more reliable. Third, the cycle of planning, planting, harvesting and sharing creates repeatable opportunities for working and sharing with neighbors, creating a more collaborative, closely knit community – as we describe more under the Community – Food section.

Take a look at some of your options and consider which steps might be a good fit for you.

• Locavore movement: More and more people are getting interested in the idea of limiting their food consumption to what can be grown nearby, often just 50 to 100 miles from your home. That cuts down on food miles and waste while increasing nutrition levels. Learn more about locavores here.
• Seed saving: Although seeds, by themselves, are small and may not be too expensive to purchase, there are still a lot of food miles associated with them, and you could probably put your money to Cooperative composting, by Conscious Design, via Unsplash.com.

better use. Learning how to save seeds, save money, and decrease your food miles.

• Compost: Soil is a little pricier than seeds, and because it’s also much heavier, the CO2 emissions associated with transporting it from place to place are higher: the heavier something is, the more energy you need to move it. But we can make our own soil by combining certain kitchen waste with “brown” material like the leaves that fall from our trees every year. Create a compost bin, utilize a compost pickup service, or join a community compost co-op.
• Vermiculture: Worms are good for the earth. It’s not just that they aerate soil, they can also help to break down your compost faster, and they do a better job of reducing methane emissions than composting alone. Picture by Annette Olson of a worm bin being demonstrated at a farmer’s market.Some people have special buckets for earthworm composting in their kitchens. Curious? Learn more here.  By the way, not all earthworms are good for our biosphere. Invasive species can be very destructive:

• Remediating soil: In some places, soil can actually be toxic, but there are measures you can take to remediate it so that you can safely grow food in your garden. First, it may be smart to do a soil test. They’re relatively inexpensive, and it’s good to know what you’re working with. In the U.S., look to the local extension departments of state universities. If, for example, your soil has lead in it, there are guidelines to help you decide if you can fix it or whether it would be better to avoid it by using raised beds (see below). The more soil you can use to grow your own food, the less you have to buy and the lower your associated food miles. Learn more here.
• Vertical gardening: What if you want to garden, but you don’t have much space, or maybe you don’t even have a lawn? Vertical gardening to the rescue: grow UP, so to speak. You’ll find some ideas here.
• Raised beds: If your soil isn’t so great — maybe it’s too sandy or there’s too much clay — or if your soil is magnificent but your back or knees have seen better days, you might want to try raised bed gardening. You can fiddle with construction to improve water retention or drainage as needed, and instead of kneeling and bending over, you can sit on a nearby chair to garden, or even on the edge of your raised bed. There are lots of options.
• Gardening with straw bales: Some gardeners use less soil by replacing much of it with straw bales. You have to condition the straw first so that it begins to decompose, creating a nutrient-rich environment for your growing plants. At the end of the season, you can spread it around and allow it to decompose, leading to healthier soil for next year’s crops. Here’s a site to begin your exploration.
• Small livestock: In many communities, some neighbors aren’t human. An increasing number of towns and cities are changing their laws to allow residents to raise small livestock, like bees, chickens and goats, as a way of increasing food security. And the cool thing is, the livestock helps grow the food! Bees pollinate your budding veggies and make delicious honey. When chickens aren’t laying eggs for you, they can eat the bugs that want to eat your plants. Rice farmers use ducks to eat pests and seeds, and the ducks drop fertilizer. Goat manure gives soil the nutrients your plants need and, if you’re nice to them, milk to drink or to make cheese from. More local nutritious food = lower food miles. Win 1 = food from animals. Win 2 = secondary benefit from each animal listed. Win 3 = local food means lower food miles. Win, win, win! Keep in mind that keeping livestock closer to us comes with its own issues, like noise, smell, and even avian flu (REF). Here’s a guide to get you started. Work to ensure that your neighbors understand livestock care and benefits; it will decrease the likelihood of complaints from neighbors who aren’t participating (yet).
• Aquaponics: This creative approach combines hydroponics — growing plants in water with no soil — with fish who eat some of the plants and then poop fertilizer. In some systems, there’s fertilizer left over for other uses, leading to more healthy soil, leading in turn to a well-fed, healthy home or community. And you get to eat the plants and the fish! It can feed a household or scale up for a community. Explore here.
• Community gardens, yard sharing, community food planning, and more: You’ve got your seeds, you’ve got your soil, it’s time to plant! You can create your own veggie garden, but there are additional benefits to co-creating a community garden with your neighbors, to sharing gardening tools, to helping distribute food. We provide more information under the Climate Steps Community Page.
• Refrigeration Management:  So how do you manage this hugely potent source of greenhouse gases?  If your fridge, freezer, or AC unit is leaking coolants, call a repairman who has the equipment to extract the coolants. And before you throw your fridge or AC unit away, have that same repair person come and siphon off those coolants for recycling.
•  Foraging:
  • Nature: Some food really is free. Although most of us grocery-shoppers have stopped paying attention to the food that Mother Nature regularly grows all around us, there are forageable edibles right outside the door; well, that does depend on where your door is — there are fewer forageable foods in some regions in the world, or in the inner city than there are in the suburbs, but they’re still there. You can eat dandelions, for example. Talk about low food miles! Look here to learn more about gathering free, wild food.
  • Dumpster diving (Freeganism): As noted above (link), the idea of food as a commodity, as opposed to food as something we need, like air and water, leads to waste. If a grocery store can’t make money from food, it usually throws it away, even if a lot of it is still edible. Dumpster divers have shrugged off the perception of looking through garbage for goodies as icky, and they’ve demonstrated that we can save a lot of money and reduce methane by opening that dumpster lid and seeing what’s in there. Here’s a guide.
  • Food-Saving Apps: Does using food-saving apps count as “foraging?” That may depend on your point of view, but using these apps to forage for food online does keep edible food out of landfills. Some apps bring “ugly” — imperfect-looking but fresh — produce to your door, often at a substantial savings. Others show you which local restaurants offer end-of-the-day takeout food at a reduced price, food that would otherwise be thrown away. There’s also at least one app that uses volunteers (hint, hint) to take food from various sources and deliver it to social service agencies. Find out more about these apps here and take a step.

• Plant or Graft Fruit Trees: Planting an orchard is grand if you have the space, but it’s also possible to have one tree supply you or your community with several kinds of fruit. Through grafting, you can add the limbs of a variety of fruit trees to one near you, and start getting more fresh fruit every year. It’s like Frankenstein’s monster, but edible and prettier. And trees are great at pulling carbon out of the air.
• Extend your growing season: On the one hand, as the globe continues to warm, growing zones are shifting: In locations far from the equator, you don’t have to wait as long as you used to for planting, and you don’t have to end the harvest as early. The seasons may become more variable, but you can extend the seasons and make them more reliable by planning and protecting crops. First, some plants grow relatively quickly, like salad greens, and you can plant and harvest a couple of times in one season. Others, like broccoli and brussel sprouts, are fairly hardy and can continue to grow as the temperature begins to dip. Second, you can protect all your herbs and veggies and keep them growing longer by adding mulch under them. Third, many gardeners in areas with cold seasons protect their late-season veggies with cloth, cloches, or cold-frames that are like mini-greenhouses and can be reused year after year. Some build actual mini-greenhouses or even walipinis: they dig a little ways down into the earth and then create glass structures above, taking advantage of both the glass-warmed energy from the sun and the ambient temperature of the earth to keep their veggies comfy. You can do all of this individually, of course, but many hands make light work: it’s easier to build greenhouses and walipinis as a community, and by sharing information about ideas like multiple plantings per season and protecting veggies against the cold, you’ll wind up with a bigger harvest to share.
• Food preservation: If we’re going to take being locavores seriously and either limit or cease our consumption of foods grown out of season far from our homes, we need to relearn how to preserve it. Most people, especially in developed countries, just use refrigerators and freezers, but there are other options:
  • Dehydrating: You can make food last longer by removing the water stored in it, and there are a lot of ways to do it, some of which require no fossil fuels.
  • Canning: Remember canning? Preserving food by canning used to be pretty normal, but in recent decades, fewer and fewer people know how to can. But it’s another great way to continue eating locally sourced food throughout the cold months. You’ll probably need a pressure cooker and some glass preserving jars to get started. Not only will you wind up with delicious food to keep you going, but a row of canned goods in your pantry can be lovely and charming. And it turns out that canning uses less energy than freezing. Look here to learn more.
  • Root cellars: This is probably the easiest, most basic way to make your root veggies last longer, and it doesn’t require any extra fuel: put them somewhere cool and dark, like your basement or cellar. Why does that work? What can you keep there? Click here to find out.
• Slow Money: In some cases, the ideas above can benefit from financial investment. Investment that focuses especially on local food, food security, and food as it relates to the resilience of communities is referred to as slow money. Put yours to good use.

See also our Community – Food page.

Resources

See our Climate Steps articles in the next Section below, and some great videos in the section after that!

Eight tips for eating for the planet’ from WWF-UK (World Wide Fund for Nature– UK) is a super quick read (2 mins) with clear steps to improve diet sustainability and why each one is important. https://www.wwf.org.uk/betterbasket.

‘How diet affects climate change’ by Sandy Cohen (in English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Japanese) focuses on the problems of agriculture and aquaculture.  https://connect.uclahealth.org/2021/09/20/how-diet-affects-climate-change/.

If you like charts, you will LOVE ‘Environmental Impacts of Food Production’ by Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser. Compare carbon or greenhouse gas emissions for different foods and make better choices, plus factors like land and water use. Did you know food transport accounts for 6% of GHG emissions from food? https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food.

Like detailed global perspectives??: ‘Creating a Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050’ from World Resources Institute is a 500-page report with all the details about current food production and what needs to change. Scroll to the bottom of the page for other interesting. https://www.wri.org/research/creating-sustainable-food-future.

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 Contributors to this page:  Mark Stewart, Annette Olson, Tonia Maria Ricciu

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