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A roundup of stats & scholarship on the food system's impact on planetary health
What is the contribution of the food system to global greenhouse gas emissions?
Various research studies have attempted to quantify the carbon emissions of the food system, and methodologies vary. Below are key findings:
Global emissions from the food system in 2015 were 18 Gt CO2e, representing 34% of total GHGEs, according to a study published in NatureFood.
71% of food system emissions were associated with agriculture, land use, and land-use change activities.
According to a 2022 study in Nature Food: Based on 2017 global food expenditure data, the food system is associated with 15.8 GtCO2e:
7.1 Gt is food production
5.7 Gt is land-use change
3.0 Gt is transport
According to the EAT-Lancet commission, feeding and producing food for the world's population of 7.7 billion people accounts for 12.5 Gt CO2e, or 24% of annual GHGEs
5.6 Gt CO2e comes from livestock production + rotting food waste
6.9 Gt CO2e come from rice production, agriculture practices, fertilizer use, land conversion and deforestation mainly for agriculture
What is the carbon footprint of the food system within the U.S.?
Within the U.S., agriculture is the country's second-largest source of GHGEs, accounting for 9.6% of national emissions.
Red meat consumption accounts for 47% of diet-related U.S. emissions. Consumption of all animal products accounts for 82% of diet-related emissions.
How sustainable is the food system currently?
Global food production is the one of the largest pressures we exert on Planet Earth. If the entire world adopted the food consumption patterns of Group of 20 countries by the year 2050, between one and seven Earths would be required to support this level of resource usage, according to the EAT-Lancet commission.
What are the greenhouse gas emissions from the food system in per-capita terms?
In 2015, per-capita emissions from the food system amounted to 2.4 tCO2e, down from 3.0 tCO2e in 1990, according to the NatureFood study.
What is the contribution of animal agriculture to global emissions?
According to the FAO, total emissions from global livestock account for 7.1 Gt CO2e, representing 14.5% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions.
Feed production represents 41% of emissions of livestock globally, according to Fairr.
What about the physical footprint of the food system? What are some interesting stats on that?
41% of the contiguous U.S. revolves around livestock, accounting for pastures and cropland used to produce feed, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Bloomberg (see figure below).
Bibliography
Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D. et al. Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nat Food (2021). doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9.
EDGAR-FOOD. A global emission inventory of GHGs from the food systems. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edgar_food#intro
Sun, Z., Scherer, L., Tukker, A. et al. Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend. Nat Food 3, 29–37 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00431-5
"In-depth Q&A: What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?" Carbon Brief. https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-what-does-the-global-shift-in-diets-mean-for-climate-change