Food & Climate
The continued of meat consumption growth and current livestock production models threaten to deprive two-thirds of world’s population of food in 2050, according to new report.
The report from “Tilt Collective” said: “if meat consumption continues to grow and current livestock production models remain unchanged, we can only feed 3.4 billion people while respecting planetary boundaries, less than half of the eight billion people living across the planet today, and a third of the 10-billion-strong population expected by 2050”, according the report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.
“Tilt Collective” empowers a movement of civil society, philanthropy, and the public and private sectors to grow the momentum and capacity for a global shift towards a plant-rich food system, according its “website”.
Hidden costs
The report argues that current ways of producing food are highly inefficient, using up 65% of the world’s freshwater and contributing to almost all (90%) of deforestation.
This is largely thanks to livestock farming which alone accounts for 57% of the food system’s emissions, a figure twice as high as that for plant-based food.
Animal agriculture currently occupies 80% of the world’s land, but only provides 18% of its calories and 38% of its protein supply. It’s also leading to a rise in non-communicable diseases, elevated antimicrobial resistance, and pandemic risks, contributing to the $9.3T of hidden costs caused by “unhealthy dietary patterns”, according to the FAO.
Many meat and dairy producers are looking into ways to lower their methane impact and, subsequently, climate footprint. A lot of money has been poured into this strategy, and it does have some merit, but not nearly as much as the returns you get when you invest in transitioning to plant-forward food system.
Such a shift towards a plant-forward food system offers 2.5 times more emission reductions than improving on-farm livestock and crop production systems – the latter would cut emissions by 11 million tonnes per billion dollars invested.
In fact, the return on investment for enhancing production practices is lower than addressing food waste too, which itself accounts for five times more emissions than the entire aviation sector. Project Drawdown has named food waste reduction as the top climate solution to curb emissions in line for a 2°C future – and this report (focused on a 1.5°C target) shows that this can eliminate 23 million tonnes of emissions per $1B.
Tilt Collective and Systemiq outline the potential of a high-ambition scenario – one where over 80% of the population adopts the Planetary Health Diet proposed by the Eat-Lancet Commission by 2050, food waste is halved, up to 30% of livestock interventions for emissions reductions are implemented, and biochar is established as a sequestration strategy.
Biodiversity loss
The food system is set to use up 4.1 billion hectares of land by 2050 if things stay the same, but turning to a Planetary Health Diet would free up nearly 1.6 billion hectares. This can slow down biodiversity loss by 40%, and unlock the potential to sequester two to four gigatonnes of carbon by 2050.
This would also save 1,100 cubic km of water by 2050, equivalent to current freshwater withdrawals from the US and China. Essentially, water use could be cut by a third, annual savings from water bills could be down between $140-240B for farmers, and water pollution from nutrient runoff will be slashed by 40%. Likewise, fertiliser use will reduce by 40%, and bring savings equivalent to the annual manure production of 350 cows.
In addition, moving to plant-forward dietary habits would bring a host of health benefits. It would increase 150 million years of healthy lives and save $3.4T in economic productivity annually by 2050 from these gains, since malnutrition, obesity, antimicrobial resistance, and pandemic risks will all fall.
The problem, though, is that the shift towards a sustainable food system is severely underfunded. On average, alternative proteins are currently receiving $3.4B in public and private sector investment every year, versus the $46B sent to improving production systems and $5B to food waste management.
Investing in a plant-based food system offers much greater emissions cuts per dollar than renewable energy or electric vehicles, shows a new report.
If governments and investors put the same amount of money into plant-based food as they do electric vehicles (EVs) and green energy, the former will offer the greatest returns on investment in terms of reducing emissions.
Every $1B pumped into companies and strategies focused on transitioning to a plant-based food system would result in the mitigation of 28 million tonnes of CO2e, a return five times higher than renewable energy (five million tonnes) and EVs (seven million tonnes), according to “green queen”.