The impact of food processes on climate change

The current, globalized food system may provide a variety of food at "low" cost worldwide, but all of its activities have, besides social and health costs,  significant environmental costs. That happens because the set of operations and processes involved in transforming raw materials into foods are based on natural resources, but also deplete natural resources.

Unfortunately, none of the environmental costs that come from the production and transport of food are included in the cost of food for the consumer. It will be up to you, as future generations, to pay for these hidden externalities of our current, ‘efficient’ agricultural production and food processing methods.

As we have already mentioned, none of the environmental costs that come from the production and transport of food are included in the cost of food for the consumer. It will be up to you, as future generations, to pay for these hidden externalities of our current, ‘efficient’ agricultural production and food processing methods.

Thus your task in this webquest is to work in international teams so as to improve your knowledge on the topic, and be able to:

1. Describe the relationships between food system actors, activities, natural resources, climate change and other environmental impacts;
2. List ways that will result in a more sustainable food system.

Step one (brainstorming)

Read the following article that is part of the paper entitled "What is the real cost of our food? Implications for the environment, society and public health nutrition", edited by Gabrielle O’Kane* Faculty of Education, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT 2601, Australia. Make a discussion with your peers, and try to identify the keywords that will help you in your research.

 " The industrialised farming practices that have been tailored to achieve maximum productivity for economic gain have led to a myriad of inadvertent environmental costs.

Approximately half of the global usable land is used by pastoral or intensive agriculture, but through land degradation, there is now a steady decline in arable land worldwide. In countries such as the USA and Australia, where programmes to improve soil erosion have been implemented, the impact of soil erosion is still high. Other factors impacting on soil quality are acidity and salinity, both of which impair plant growth.

The modern agricultural system affects water resources. First, it diverts water from other potential uses, such as for domestic, industrial, recreational and environmental purposes.

Second, agriculture reduces water quality, through pollution by high use of fertilizers and pesticides and through increased sediment and salt loads that occur as a result of soil erosion and salinity. Somewhere between 30% and 50% of nitrogen fertilizers and approximately 45% of phosphorus fertilizer is taken up by crops, leaving the remainder somewhere in the environment. Australia’s ecosystem is not very resilient to external pressures and as a result of extensive land clearing for agricultural purposes and overgrazing, biodiversity is in serious decline.

Industrial agriculture also favours using a narrow range of crop species, replacing multistrata vegetation and complex crop patterns(30), which leads to a loss of structural diversity and causes the fragmentation of native habitats and consequently a decline in animal populations, especially invertebrate consumers, predators and pests.

Monocropping also relies heavily on the use of artificial pesticides to avoid disease and pest damage to crops, which further reduces biodiversity, as they kill wild bees and other species that are not necessarily the target organisms.  Many of the genetically uniform high-yielding crop varieties commonly used in modern agriculture are often less resistant to pathogens and pests, making them susceptible to attack by new or adapted parasites, which threatens the sustainability of the current food system. The final way in which modern industrialised agriculture affects the environment is through its contribution to climate change.

According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates, agriculture contributes about 10–12% of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions globally. Energy use from fuel and electricity also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.  Beyond the food production section of the modern food system, the carbon emissions that are generated through transportation of food also present challenges for the current food system. The term ‘food miles’ is a proxy measure for the distance that food travels from paddock to plate, but in fact, the impact of food transport on the environment depends largely on the type of transportation. For instance, carbon emissions generated from food transported by boat are nearly four times lower than the carbon emissions from food transported in large trucks. Purchasing locally can reduce the distance that food travels, but these gains may be offset by the smaller trucks used and lower load factors. Further, the carbon emissions generated by consumers driving to and from food outlets can be greater than those generated from the food production and distribution phases of the system. Hence, from a purely environmental perspective, local food systems may not significantly reduce emissions from transport, unless very-low-carbon transport systems are used."

Step two (reseach)

Make use of the following links so as to prepare your common presentation, based to the google slide template 

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1s9HFHpKdccbsGBsMmUBkcuemROO7i60Ish6rqClm2l8/edit?usp=sharing

Please follow the instructions given there. Do not hesitate to make use of the notes kept from the above article, or/and links you can find by using search engines.

Useful links:

https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/food-systems-southeast-asia/0/steps/83756?fbclid=IwAR3Q6lF8E1P06oW3TUUcvpTs_Ydo3UTp1YebtskN5IewnhK1-1V51y-MG9w

Food and Climate Change - Food Production - Food System Primer - Johns Hopkins University

Climate Change and Food Systems (un.org) (pay attention to 1.2, 2)

Step three (critical thinking/problem solving)

Please cklick on the following link and post your idea on how our food system could become more sustainable 

http://linoit.com/users/Essayland/canvases/A%20sustainable%20food%20system

Instructions on how to use lino.it are already posted there.

This is how your work will be evaluated.

This WebQuest was created by a team of teachers, within the co-funded Erasmus plus KA229  partnership “Eat Smart Save Your Land” (ESSAY LAND), project number: 2020-1-EL01-KA229-078815.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsi­ble for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.