SPECIAL REPORT
Mission to reduce wastage By Samantha Tennent
Food is being wasted throughout the entire food chain and finding solutions are challenging but essential to ensure sustainability.
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ood wastage accounts for around 8% of the greenhouse gases (GHG) that are produced in the world. To put it into context, if food wastage was a country, it would equate to the third-largest in terms of GHG production. Alltech president and chief executive Dr Mark Lyons says reducing wastage could have a significant impact on feeding the planet and reducing the environmental impact. And this is one of the themes he highlights in his quest to a ‘Planet of Plenty’. “Sustainability and reducing our environmental impacts is significant and we must counter the negative perceptions of agriculture with science,” Lyons says. “Collaboration is crucial and the heightened perception from consumers provides plenty of opportunities.” Lyons remains optimistic about the future and believes in the significance of sustainability both locally and globally and the opportunities within agri-food. “We’ve noted that one in five millennials would say that they would change their diet to improve the planet’s health, that’s a pretty staggering number,” he says. “And that will be the next fad that comes along, people considering more than the calories they’re consuming. They’ll be questioning what is the impact they’re having on the environment from what they eat.” Lyons noted how food wastage occurs through the entire supply chain, from food production at the farm level, through transportation, through spoilage and in retail and restaurants, and it is happening in homes. “How do we, as an entire food system, reduce that? What are the types of things that we can work together on, very much on a local level to reduce it?” he asks. “I think that could have a huge impact on us feeding that global population.” But one of his biggest concerns lies
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with fossil fuel and how agriculture production relies on it. “We may have consumers who think they’re genuinely doing the right thing by changing their diet, but in reality, we’re actually not solving the climate issue, which is really being driven by fossil fuel usage,” he says. “Our food production system is actually pretty efficient and it’s getting more and more efficient. If we all stopped eating meat, we wouldn’t stop climate change.” He thinks the impact of agriculture on climate change is overemphasised and the industry can change and adapt quickly. What concerns him is how agriculture will be able to move away from fossil fuels in a way that will not disadvantage those who produce energy today. “How do we make sure that innovation does rest in locations, perhaps, that are high energy producers today and create new jobs and create new opportunities?” he asks. He sees sustainability as one of the trends that are changing the fastest. Companies across Europe and the United States are exploring ideas around messaging. There could come a time when carbon counting is on the menu alongside the calories of a meal. “Chipotle here in the US is attempting to showcase the environmental impact of a burrito on their menu, it might not be totally dialed in yet, but they’re seeing that as a clever way to differentiate themselves from their competitors,” he says. In Europe people are already changing what they are doing in relation to travel, where they are willing to travel and what jobs they will take because of the distance they will travel. And he sees the dietary aspect becoming part of decision-making. “Diets have already been shifting, probably, away from beef more to pork or maybe poultry products over a
Alltech president and chief executive Dr Mark Lyons says although the global food chain supply is efficient, there is still a great deal of wastage.
number of years. Aquaculture is growing and maybe that’s going to play a bigger role as well, as people start to think about those things,” he says. “That’s where we have to make sure, and I think our customers need to make sure they’re getting out and telling the story and are accurately able to demonstrate and provide the metrics of what the actual environmental impact is of their food.” As every producer is slightly different, it will not be clear when looking at a steak in a restaurant what the environmental impact of producing that is. But Lyons believes this is where producers will need to share their story better and talk about what makes them different to others. The prediction is these elements will speed up the major trends that are going to impact our producers over the next five years. Another impact on the availability of food is the efficiency gains and reduced inputs we are seeing in agriculture. It is
DAIRY FARMER
October 2021
