Our Food Problem Is Also Our Climate Problem

The food problem

It is not often that a global problem has so many dimensions to it. Food waste unfortunately is one. It is very well established that one-third of the food produced globally every year is wasted. But this has implications beyond food security and economic losses. This food waste contributes to nearly 10% of global carbon emissions. That is almost equivalent to carbon emissions from global road transportation.

But to understand the severity of the problem we need to look deeper and wider. We need to understand how and why food goes to waste in the first place.

Our food goes through a pipeline, what we call the food supply chain. Production, storage, transportation, processing, packaging, distribution and consumption. Waste happens every step of the way. This also means that all the natural resources used throughout the supply chain are wasted.

This problem is very much dependent on local conditions of each country. The Food & Agricultural Organization of the United Nations observed a global pattern with this problem. In high-income countries, most of the food wastage occurs at the processing, distribution and consumption stages. While in low-income countries, the highest wastage is in the production and storage stages. This boils down to lack of infrastructure and know-how of processing and storage in the low-income countries, and aesthetic preferences and aggressive retail standards in high-income countries.

The climate problem

If food wastage was a country, it would be the third largest carbon emitter in the world. What we are dealing with is indeed massive. We need to break it down.

Each stage of the food supply chain has a differential contribution to food wastage and carbon emissions.

?Courtesy - FAO

The above chart clearly shows the inverse proportionality of this problem. While food wastage in the consumption stage is only 22% of the total, it contributes to the highest (37%) carbon footprint. To quote FAO’s example - “A single tomato spoiled at the harvesting stage will have a lower carbon footprint than tomato sauce wasted at the retail store, since the harvesting, transportation and processing accumulates additional greenhouse gases along the supply chain”.

The food and climate solution

Now that we have a vantage point on the problem, it seems imperative that our food supply chain needs to be optimised to become more efficient. Only then can carbon emissions arising from wastage in supply chains could be kept in check.

The broader solution here requires a comprehensive effort of policy-making, better infrastructure and change in consumer behaviour. This naturally calls for contribution from all stakeholders of the food system i.e. governments, the food industry and consumers. But the more broad a solution, the longer it will take to implement. Fortunately, this situation widens the scope of greenfield opportunities we get.

A host of effective and faster solutions to tackle the food problem have been rapidly evolving. Recycling solutions like biogas and compost production are being redesigned to be adopted by companies. This helps them autonomously manage their waste. Although resource-intensive, it helps the companies dispose of waste without a carbon footprint. Converting food waste to animal feed is another brilliant solution. In fact, this solution is not just economical but rather profitable for food companies, since they get paid for their waste.