Evidence

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/agri-food-chain-directorate/national-food-strategy-call-for-evidence/

THERE’S a wise saying, in military circles, about the danger of always preparing for the last war, instead of the war to come. Another crisis will hit the food system, perhaps quite soon. Next time, it will most likely be climate related.

Our current food system proved fairly robust under the particular pressures of COVID-19, but it is not well prepared for the dangers of climate change: floods, droughts, rising sea temperatures and shifting weather patterns, all of which could lead to catastrophic harvest failures and food shortages.

Worse, the food system is a major contributor to climate change. Part Two of this report will cover in some depth the history and effects of the so-called Green Revolution, which began in the 1960s. p 172

This was the dawn of modern intensive farming: a new kind of agriculture that used selectively-bred crops alongside fertilisers, pesticides and advanced farm machinery to massively increase the amount of food that could be produced from the land.

Figure 6.1

Globally, food has a very large environmental impact.

For now, suffice to say that what began as a response to the threat of starvation, caused by a booming global population, has been disastrous for the environment.

Every stage of the farming process exacerbates the carbon crisis: the forests cleared to plant crops; the energy-intensive manufacture of fertiliser; the release of carbon from degrading soils; the methane produced by rice paddies and livestock; the energy used by manufacturing plants and retail outlets; and the fuel used to power the vehicles in the supply chain.

The global food system is responsible for an estimated 20-30% of total greenhouse gas emissions.173 It occupies half the world’s habitable land, uses

70% of the freshwater we consume, causes three-quarters of all water pollution, and is the single biggest contributor to biodiversity loss (see Figure 6.1).