Food & Carbon
Table of Contents
Carbon Production via Food Production
Carbon Costs & Opportunity Costs of Different Foods
Food production requires a lot of energy, producing carbon emissions. Livestock produce carbon emissions too, and in recent years the industry has been quick to sell the idea that proper grazing management can help sequester carbon. Details however have been scarce, despite this being a pretty important factor to understand if we want to make sure we are on track to keep our planet a comfortable, and safe temperature.
It's also important to remember that livestock in particular produce a variety of greenhouse gases while the majority of crops help sequester such gases.Â
Opportunity cost in this situation refers to the missed opportunity to sequester carbon due to land use. Even worse is that deforestation emits yet more carbon as land use expands, with grazed beef currently causing 5 times more deforestation than any other industry.
Most conversations focus on land-based livestock, but aquaculture produced millions of tones of emissions. Back in 2018 "2.2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions globally from farms run by just two major producers, Mowi and GSF – 1.8 million tonnes of which were attributable to feed."
1/3rd of wild caught fish and a 76% of global soy (the world's second biggest driver of deforestation) which are used to feed fish and other farm animals further create emissions as well as further opportunity cost loss.
Different Factors Impact Carbon Emissions of Food Production & Opportunity Costs of Land Use
What we eat is generally more important than where our food was produced.Â
How our food produced is generally more important than where our food was produced.
Livestock and Climate Change: Impact of Livestock on Climate and Mitigation Strategies is an interesting paper with graphs demonstrating how much more emissions come from the digestive systems of livestock and production of their feed, while manure, transport, and processing produce very little. Highlights include:
"The livestock sector requires a significant amount of natural resources and has an important role in global greenhouse gas emissions. The most important greenhouse gases from animal agriculture are methane and nitrous oxide.
Mitigation strategies aimed at reducing the emission intensity of this sector are needed to meet the increasing demand for livestock products driven by population growth.
To increase the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, the complex interactions among the components of livestock production systems must be taken into account to avoid environmental trade-offs."
Carbon Sequestration via Food Production
What Are the Carbon Opportunity Costs of Our Food?
Our World in Data offers some very useful graphs and explanations of how our food choices impact not only emissions, but land use, and how changes inland use via diet changes have the capacity to reverse climate change by sequestering carbon and other emissions.
How Effective is Holistic Grazing?
You can read "Fact Sheets How Much Carbon Can Soil Store" and look at the graphs, or simply read the following highlights from the page:
"The maximum capacity of soil to store organic carbon is determined by soil type (% clay)."
"Management practices that maximise plant growth and minimise losses of organic carbon from soil will result in greatest organic carbon storage in soil."
"... Total OC is the amount of carbon in the materials related to living organisms or derived from them. In Australian soils, total OC is usually less than 8 % of total soil weight (Spain et al., 1983) and under rainfed farming it is typically 0.7 – 4 %. Increasing the amount of OC stored in soil may be one option for decreasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas."
"Offtake of OC in plant and animal production is also an important loss of OC from soil. Harvested materials such as grain, hay, feed and animal grazing all represent loss of OC (and nutrients) from soil."
"Improving soil structure can increase the amount of OC stored in soil by reducing losses of OC from soil by decomposition and erosion, e.g. retaining stubble, maintaining ground cover and reducing compaction by vehicles and stock."
According to this source "Generally, soils that contain greater than 30% clay are considered unacceptable as topsoil material because soils with high clay content slow water infiltration and air penetration. Clay soils can be difficult for roots to penetrate, and can be very hard for gardeners to cultivate."
Figure 3 from "How Much Carbon Can Soil Store" shows that even though carbon storage in clay increases with percentage, it is on a decreasing curve, meaning that at the higher available soil clay percentages, the percentage of carbon storage only appear to reach a high of around 3.5%.
"Figure 3: The relationship between clay content and the organic carbon content of 220 soils in a 10 hectare area of a paddock under cereal-legume rotation in the central agricultural region of Western Australia."
Food Choices:
Order of Importance
Order of Importance
When considering carbon and other emissions use the following order of impact to help guide your choices organized from greatest impact to least and colour coded to help show the importance of each consideration:
What:Â
Avoid Meat
Avoid Dairy
Avoid or Reduce Chocolate & Coffee
Reduce Oil/Fats
Avoid Eggs
Avoid or Reduce Sugar Cane
How:
Avoid animal products that were reared on pasture since scientists have warned us that this uses more resources and produces more emissions including methane.
Avoid factory-farmed animal products
Avoid or reduce produce from heated greenhouses & indoor farms: these might include out-of-season tomatoes, berries, greens, and herbs. Buying imported tomatoes may produce less emissions than hothouse tomatoes grown locally. This has been rated as less problematic because of other benefits including reduced water use and less need for insecticides.
Where:
Avoid goods made from ingredients that have been shipped back and forth across the planet multiple times. For example chocolate from South America, that was processed in Europe, then sold in North America will create more emissions than chocolate that was processed in the country of origin or sale, or processed in a country somewhere along the way like Mexico.
Avoid goods from distant continents if possible
Avoid Products from far across the continent you are a part of.
Avoid Products from other countries
Avoid Products from other counties or parishes
Try to buy locally grown food by finding your local Farmers' Market, or getting deliveries from your local milkman or CSA.Â
Grow your own food This is a fun way to supplement your food with healthy, fresh produce, but don't fret if you can't. If you have a tiny amount of space, the best, most cost efficient option is to grow foods that would otherwise be out of your budget like herbs on a windowsill or gourmet mushrooms from a box. If you have a lot of space, give fruit trees a try, or maybe even try growing less space-efficient foods like grains.
How Food Waste Impacts Emissions
When we consider the products we buy or raise and their environmental impacts, it is important to also consider the end-of-life aspect. In the case of food items, if we can compost them safely, or use them in other beneficial ways such as mulch or textiles and dyes. We can use this as a guide for which to avoid in the first place, as well as sustainable ways to handle the inevitable waste that will be generated over time.
Meat Food Waste has Greater Negative Environmental Impact than Vegetable Waste "The type of food wasted has a significant impact on the environment, scientists have found. Although less meat is wasted (on average) compared to fruits and vegetables, the researchers found that significantly more energy is used in the production of meat compared to the production of vegetables."
Apps & Blockchains
CarbonCloud "calculates accurate carbon footprint data for food industry companies so they can communicate, report, and improve their sustainability initiatives."
CarbonTag "By increasing consumer trust and carbon transparency, our label decreased emissions by 9.5% and increased revenue by 20.1%."
Resources
International
DeSmog’s Agribusiness Database "find a record of companies and organisations’ current messaging on climate change, lobbying around climate action, and histories of climate science denial."
DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database "browse our extensive research on the individuals and organizations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming."
Europe
UK
DeSmog’s Air Pollution Lobbying Database "find out about organisations opposing or seeking to weaken planned air quality measures in the UK’s most polluted cities, including Clean Air Zones and London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone."
North America
USA
DeSmog’s Koch Network Database "browse our extensive research on the individuals and organizations linked to Charles Koch or other members of the Koch family, Koch Industries, and related entities."
Grants
North America
USA
Eat The Change "ETC Impact™ is a grant program working to promote and expand access to climate-friendly foods. We're donating more than $1.25 million over three years to support a diverse group of changemaking nonprofit organizations."