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FOOD PRODUCTION AND YOU Crop’s Contribution Meat and Maure What a Waste We
48th Edition
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PUSH AND PULL
The two way battle between food production and climate change
When people hear “climate change and food,” their mind usually goes to one of two thoughts. First, maybe the most popular thought of the two, is how climate change effects food production. We’ve all seen stories about harsh weather conditions, major droughts, floods, storms, you name it, with fingers pointing at climate change being the culprit. So climate change affecting food production might as well be a no brainer with farmer’s dependance on consistent weather. The other thought is practically the “opposite” in a sense where food production is the one initiating a reaction in climate change. Mainly through food production’s hefty contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, with a quarter of total global greenhouse emissions coming from food production as seen in 2018 (Ritchie). Okay, agriculture contributes to the climate crisis and the climate crisis not only hurts agriculture but a wide variety of things in life. “So what,” you may be asking. We can’t just stop producing food, we have a growing population to feed! And that is absolutely correct. It’s a crucial factor in solving this problem, the production of food to meet demand and need against the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The
IN THE LOOP
more food produced, the more emissions, but the less food produced, more possible food shortages. But of course, it’s not just as simple as that. There are many actions that farmers, ranchers, etc, and even you can take to lighten your carbon footprint. To really understand how your actions can make a difference, you need to understand how food production makes a difference.
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TOTAL GLOBAL EMISSIONS Per Sector Food Transportation Land use For Livestock Land use For Human Food Crop production for Human Food
1.6%
Food Processing
1% 1.3% 0.8%
Food Packaging
4.2%
Food Retail
2.1%
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5.5%
Crop production for 1.6% Animal Feed
Livestock and Fisheries
CROP’S COST
MEAT OF THE MATTER
8.1%
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Non-Food Emissions 74%
ME YOU YOU ME WE Data for graph retrieved from Ritchie, Hannah. "Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions." Our World In Data, 6 Nov. 2019, ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions.
Food related emissions accounts for
26%
Of global emissions (in 2018)
Food related land use accounts for
24%
Crop production accounts for
27%
Livestock and Fish farms account for
31%
Of food related emissions
Seen in the graph, food production accounts for roughly a quarter of total emissions. Meanwhile, general agriculture (not including processing, packaging, transportation, and retail of food) accounts for 18% of the total food emissions. Not so surprisingly, livestock also accounts for a large portion of agriculture’s emissions, even contributing 18% to global emissions alone (Livestock, land use for them and land use for their food). But there’s so much more that’s not covered in in this conversation, the smaller puzzle pieces in this giant puzzle of food production and climate change. Food emissions is not the animals. Food emissions are not the trucks, ships, cars, whatever that transports the food. Food emissions is us.
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WORKS CITED Page 11
CAM CUBES Page 13
CROP’S COST Beneath the topsoil Your average carrot or head of cabbage probably isn’t the first thing you think of when you think about climate change, is it? Or even when focusing about food production and climate change. But just growing crops does in fact contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Though not as intensive as livestock emissions, considering the amount of vegetables, fruits, and grains we consume daily along with the amount of resources and land needed to grow such a large quantity of crops, then maybe then it isn’t so hard to picture. FERTILIZER is a main contributor to emissions related to crop growth. Most conventional crop production utilizes Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers which is produced from fossil fuels (FoodPrint) and with the increase of demand for such fertilizers, there is also an increase in atmospheric nitrous oxide, “Methane is being covered a greenhouse gas produced from the transformation more and more heavily. It’s of nitrogen in soil with 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (Shankman) and made up time for nitrous oxide to be 7% of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 (Overview covered more too” of Greenhouse Gases). Another popular type of - Ron Dobosy, a researcher who fertilizer also full of nitrogen is manure. Of course, plants need nitrogen to grow, but if there is an excess found not just methane in the Arctics amount of nitrogen, that’s where things get a it permafrost, but also nitrous oxide worrying. You see, when maure doesn’t get enough (Shankman) oxygen, that’s when it starts turning into atmospheric nitrous oxide. So when farmers add more manure than they need, maure tends to get pack in, therefore leaving less air for them to breathe making the perfect environment for them turn into N2O, nitrous oxide. And that’s just part of it, not to mention manures contribution with methane, but we’ll get to that once we look at livestock.
-disasters, and the like, farmers have reason to try and find new land. This is the struggle. The continuing loop of morals, needs, wants, profit, and so on. We are the ones having a fight with ourselves, and climate change is just watching and waiting to strike.
DEFORESTATION is happening a lot more now for agricultural reasons. It’s been roughly estimated that 75% of global deforestation is for agricultural reasons (FoodPrint). Of course, plants, especially trees, are known to convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, so the less trees, the more carbon is in the air and therefore not only warming the planet but reducing air quality. Then there are the ways how they are deforested. Some burn down the trees, releasing even more emissions into the air. Trees and forests are a crucial part of the environment, being homes to millions of species and such. When one is removed, a whole ecosystem goes with it. This is one of the most difficult challenges with reducing emissions from agriculture. We have to find ways to produce enough food for growing demand with growing populations but we also have to stop or at least slow down expanding crop land. We can not continue stripping the world of our natural fighters in this war against climate change. The obvious answer would be to just continue growing our crops in the same places, and that’s right, that’s what almost everyone is doing. But as some crop land changes, such as infertile soil, new pests, change in weather conditions, natural
Putting it into perspective, it’s estimated that by 2030, the area rice is grown on is to increase by 4.5%. Rice is known to be a fairly hefty methane emitting crop as it utilizes a lot of manure, but you’d kind of expect that methane emissions would also be estimated to increase 4.5% as well, proportional to rice area. Contrary to expectations, (but also not exactly a surprise considering all the “surprises” here,) it is estimated that methane emissions from rice will increase by 10%-15% (Smith). This is what the combination of methane/manure and land loss can do.
MEAT OF THE MATTER Meat, livestock, animals. The things that come to mind when we hear climate change and food production. It’s understandable as to why that is with livestock contributing to 14% global emissions (including growing crops and providing land for livestock) (Ritchie). But what about smaller proteins, such as seafood? Seafood can actually have higher climate impact than chicken and even pork. Namely deep sea creatures such as lobster and shrimp which requires more fuel to pull them up. But that’s the thing, most of seafood emissions are due to the burning of fuel by the fishing boats and not the creatures themselves. Seafood even causes deforestation to some extent with the striping of mangroves to make room for fish and shrimp farms (Your Questions About Food and Climate Change). Dairy also has a significant impact. Similar to seafood, some cheeses can have more environmental impact than chicken and pork as it can take 10 pounds of milk to make just a pound of cheese (Your Questions About Food and Climate Change). Therefor, it’s understandable as to why people would give up dairy and milk products for alternatives such as plant based options.
Livestock, practically the epitome of agriculture and climate change. Well known for their emissions of methane, ruminant livestock, such as cows, have a digestive system that produces methane through a process called enteric fermentation (Ritchie). Cattle are also known for their method of emitting the gases, by… well… passing gas along with burping. Feeding into livestock’s emissions, quite literally, is the food they eat along with the energy and emissions that go into just producing that food. It take roughly 3 pounds of wheat to raise/produce a single pound of meat. And with a single pound of beef, roughly 26 pounds of greenhouse is produced with it (FoodPrint) but that number tends to vary place to place as US raised beef tends to have less impact than Brazil raised beef and such (Your Questions About Food and Climate Change). What goes in must come out. Manure, a well known contributor to emissions and a widely used fertilizer. Not only emitting methane but also nitrous oxide. But solids isn’t the only going in, right? Urine patches also create an environment for nitrous oxide to nitrous oxide production with certain environmental factors such as weather with more N2O being produced during wet weather (Chadwick). Though livestock does account for a major portion of food emissions, we can manage the animals and their waste to reduce emissions. We are responsible.
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ME YOU YOU ME WE Though it may feel as if we don’t play that big of a part in this as the farmers will continue to grow and raise crops even if you don’t buy their food, we do have a big role to play. We hold the power, we are the ones who are in need of food, but are we really? Food waste in America is estimated to be 30-40% of the food supply (Food Waste FAQs USDA) with consumers tossing about 20% of what they buy (Your Questions About Food and Climate Change). On a global scale, the estimate is that a third of all food produced goes to waste. That’s about 1.3 billion tons of food (Fight Climate change by preventing food waste). As some foods end up in the landfill and rot, they produce methane, further adding to emissions. It is us who the farmers are working to provide for, it is us who let their food go to waste. It is us who demand and buy food only to have a good portion of it go to waste. But we have power in what we do and don’t do, we can change our habits and learn to not only reduce food waste, but also decrease our individual emissions and environmental impact total. It starts with us first, the farmers second. They are just doing their job, what we demand, and what we “need” of them.
“As the world’s population continues to grow, our challenge should not be how to grow more food, but to feed more people while wasting less of what we already produce” - World Wildlife Foundation
Food is an important part of life, heck it’s a necessity, and an important part of culture. Grandma’s special recipe from generations back, farmland that you inherited, that special annual get together buffet. Wherever it is, food is something that can bring people together. If food is able to unite us, we should be able to unite to solve this problem of growing emissions from food production. That does not mean for all of us to go vegan, that does not mean all of us have to stop eating meat, it’s simply educating ourselves and making some effort to reduce our own individual emissions and environmental impact. More importantly, to learn to stop taking food and our planet for granted. In the end, climate change and what comes with it is something that we will all have to face together, and it is a problem that will have to be solved together as well, no matter how cliché it sounds. And cut.
“From the clothes we wear, to the food we eat, to how we get around, by thinking through the full effects of daily decisions, individuals and corporations can get a better idea of the best way to reduce our environmental footprint.” - Hank green
WORKS CITED Chadwick, D. R., et al. "The contribution of cattle urine and dung to nitrous oxide emissions: Quantification of country specific emission factors and implications for national inventories." PubMed Central, 1 Sept. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024564/. Excavator and food waste collage. "Trash Talk: The battle of the food waste bulge — why you should throw away less food," by Najeer Yusof and Raj Nadarajan. YouTube, 10 Sept. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=11ycagw4aXE. "Fight climate change by preventing food waste." World Wildlife Foundation, www.worldwildlife.org/stories/fight-climate-change-by-preventing-food-wast e. Accessed 8 June 2021. FoodPrint "How Our Food System Affects Climate Change." FoodPrint, foodprint.org/issues/how-our-food-system-affects-climate-change/. Accessed 6 June 2021. "Food Waste FAQs." US Department of Agriculture, www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs. Accessed 8 June 2021. Gawel, Henryk. "Cows in a fog." Art Limited, 2 Aug. 2020, www.artlimited.net/1047810/art/photography-cows-in-a-fog-digital/en/1180 8453. Javellana, John. Flooded rice paddies stairstep down a mountain slope in Banaue, north of Manila. "Explore the Emerald Rice Terraces of the Philippines." National Geographic, 17 Aug. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/article/philippine-rice-te rraces. King, Chris. Gleaning in the UK - Documentary and Portrait Photography, www.chriskingphotography.com/video-production-and-documentary-photogr aphy/food-waste-warriors/.
Metal pig open closed sign. Barn Owl Primitives, www.barnowlprimitives.com/products/metal-pig-open-closed-sign?utm_sour ce=pinterest&utm_medium=social. Accessed 11 June 2021. "Overview of Greenhouse Gases." Environmental Protection Agency, www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases. Accessed 6 June 2021. Person tossing food waste into compost. "Pete Pearson – Director of WWF US food waste campaign." Food is Wasted, foodiswasted.com/food-waste-podcasts/pete-pearson-director-of-wwf-us-foo d-waste-campaign/. Accessed 10 June 2021.
Ritchie, Hannah. "Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions." Our World In Data, 6 Nov. 2019, ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions. Shankman, Sabrina. "What Is Nitrous Oxide and Why Is It a Climate Threat?" Inside Climate News, 11 Nov. 2019, insideclimatenews.org/news/11092019/nitrous-oxide-climate-pollutant-ex plainer-greenhouse-gas-agriculture-livestock/ Smith, Pete, and Peter J. Gregory. "Climate change and sustainable food production." Cambridge University Press, 12 Nov. 2012, www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article /climate-change-and-sustainable-food-production/DE02043AE462DF7F91D 88FD4349D38E7.
Terris, Jami. Forest on Borneo in Indonesia, cut down for an oil palm plantation. "New global study reveals the ‘staggering’ loss of forests caused by industrial agriculture," by Erik Stokstad. Science Mag, 13 Sept. 2018, www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/scientists-reveal-how-much-world-s-for ests-being-destroyed-industrial-agriculture.
Winchester, Mary. Raw meat in clear plastic pack photo. Unsplash, 18 Jan. 2021, unsplash.com/photos/ax9t3CsGwqc.
"Your Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered." New York Times, 30 Apr. 2019, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climate-change-food-eating -habits.html.
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