Change is needed to make our food system more sustainable – Opinion

Our food system accounts for 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of freshwater consumption, is the world’s largest water polluter, and is the leading cause of deforestation.

Today, half of the world’s ice- and desert-free land is used for agriculture, of which 75% is used for grazing or growing crops for livestock feed. Meat and dairy provide 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein.

To feed everyone sustainably, we need to reduce the amount of land we use. In poorer countries, crops and pastures are still expanding, often at the expense of forests. From overhunting animals for food and using their habitats for agriculture to destroying ecosystems with pesticides and fertilizers, food production puts the greatest pressure on wildlife in the world.

In 1900, wild mammals made up 17% of terrestrial biomass, humans 23%, and livestock 60%. Today, wild mammals make up 2%, humans 35% and livestock 63%. All cows weigh 10 times more than all wild mammals combined. All chickens weigh twice as much as all wild birds.

Current global food production produces more than twice what people need, but global inequality means hundreds of millions of people don’t have enough to eat. We lose half the food we produce before it reaches our plates because we feed livestock and cars, not people.

About 75% of the world’s soybean production is used to feed chickens, pigs and cows, and of the three billion tons of grain produced annually, 41% is used to feed livestock, and 11% is used in industry, mainly to produce biofuels.

To build a food system that feeds everyone without destroying the planet, we need to rethink our relationship with meat. Smaller animals are more efficient: fish and chickens are the most efficient, followed by pigs, then sheep and then cows. For every 100 calories we feed a cow, there are three calories in meat. For lamb it is 4%, for pigs 10% and for chicken 13%. Meat and dairy products are complete sources of protein, but grains are not. However, peas, beans and soy are very good sources of protein, and if you also eat grains, you can meet your protein needs.

Creating a more sustainable food system will require:

1. Increase crop yields by using adequate amounts of fertilizers, improved seed varieties and irrigation. Improved seed varieties require less fertilizer and pesticides, are more heat tolerant, require less water and have higher yields.

2. People generally need to eat less meat. Whether it’s greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use or water pollution, the hierarchy is almost always the same: beef and lamb are the worst, followed by dairy, pork, chicken, and then plant-based foods like tofu, peas. , beans and cereals. We could have a huge impact on emissions, land use and water use if half of us gave up meat two days a week or switched from beef to chicken or fish.

3. Meat replacement brands such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are widespread. Ninety-eight percent of U.S. consumers who purchased plant-based meat also purchased meat products. Avoiding beef burgers reduces emissions by 96%.

4. Hybrid burgers are a mixture of beef with chicken, soy or other protein, and in blind taste tests, people preferred hybrid burgers to beef or meat substitutes. If only McDonald’s and Burger King made all their hamburgers a 50/50 mixture of beef and soy, it would save three million cows from slaughter every year.

5. Oat, soy, almond and rice milk generates 1/3 less greenhouse gas emissions, uses about 10% of agricultural land, 5% of water and reduces water pollution compared to cow’s milk.

6. Throw away less food. Buy what you need and eat it, choose the “uglier” fruits and vegetables, don’t buy them, get them free if you don’t eat them, and understand that “best before” means they will be the tastiest and fresh before this date, but will still be okay later.

Don’t worry about local food. Foods grown in optimal conditions are best. Transportation accounts for about 5% of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which comes from regional or local road transport. Long-distance shipping accounts for 0.2% of emissions. Eating locally can be harmful to the environment.

For example, growing tomatoes in Swedish greenhouses requires 10 times more energy than importing tomatoes from Spain in season.

Also, don’t worry about plastic packaging. Without plastic packaging, we would waste more food. The carbon footprint of plastic packaging is tiny compared to the food inside.

Avoid and recycle packaging whenever possible, but for many foods, packaging provides safety and freshness that make a big difference.

Janet Parkins is a former pharmacist and member of Climate Action Now! and Frack Free, British Columbia.