The report uses the planetary-boundaries framework, which was first introduced in 2009 by Earth systems scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Center. The concept recognizes that in addition to climate change, there are eight other Earth systems that, if destabilized beyond a certain threshold, could trigger irreversible environmental changes.

“We are operating our world economy beyond a safe operating space. There is not enough focus on climate change, and there is certainly not enough focus on the eight other planetary boundaries. The climate crisis is not a standalone crisis,” Duko Hopman, a partner at McKinsey and co-author of the report, tells Food Tank.

The report analyzes six planetary boundaries. McKinsey finds that human activity has already extended beyond the “safe operating space” for four of these boundaries: biodiversity loss, chemical and plastic pollution, nutrient pollution, and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. As a sector, agriculture has the single largest direct impact on planetary boundaries.

McKinsey researchers conclude that food systems actors have an enormous role to play in bringing civilization back within planetary bounds. Targeting the private sector, the 47 actions offer guidance to help corporations address specific planetary boundaries.

For agriculture companies, these include implementing “regenerative agriculture, precision agriculture, agroforestry, new delivery models, biological pest control, drip irrigation, biodegradable packaging, and reducing food waste,” the report says.

Almost half of the impact of these nature-positive actions provide a positive return-on-investment (ROI). And if corporations fully implement just twelve of these levers, the report estimates these actions can amount to “an annual benefit of US$700 billion.”

According to Hopman, agri-food companies are facing real threats to their profits because of factors like declining soil health and nutrient pollution. With soil depletion progressing at its current rate, “there are only a few dozen harvest cycles left, so agribusiness is taking those predictions very seriously,” Hopman reports to Food Tank.

Hopman tells Food Tank that “the emitters right now might not be feeling the effect of carbon emissions on their operations. However, compared to climate, other planetary boundaries are much more of a localized issue. So these companies are feeling these effects faster.”

“It is one thing to argue against cutting down a forest because of climate change, but it’s an additionally interesting point to argue how cutting down a forest would reduce precipitation in the same region which may reduce crop yields in the area,” Hopman continues. “The more you can make those dynamics between environmental destruction and revenue loss transparent, the more you can affect decision making.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Report Finds That Agriculture Is Breaching Several Planetary Boundaries appeared first on Food Tank.

In “Breaking the Cycle of Unsustainable Food Systems, Hunger, and Debt,” IPES-Food reports that the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian invasion of Ukraine contributed to rising food prices in the last two years.

“Although there has been some easing of food prices in recent months, it is unpredictable what the fallout from the interplay with the debt crisis will be,” Jennifer Clapp, Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Ontario and co-author of the report, tells Food Tank. “But we are seeing food price inflation remaining higher than overall inflation, and this is deeply troubling.”

And now authors state that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are threatened by a worsening debt crisis. IPES-Food finds 60 percent of low-income countries and 30 percent of middle-income countries are at high risk of defaulting on their debt. According to the report, Zambia, Sri Lanka, and Suriname defaulted already. Meanwhile, countries including Ghana and Pakistan are at risk of doing so.

The report highlights four critical ways that unsustainable food systems deepen the debt crisis for dozens of LMICs. These nations face import dependencies for food and fertilizers, which forces them to rely on cash crops to repay debts and prevents them from diversifying crops. Additionally, decades of divestment from social services and domestic agricultural production have further exacerbated the challenges. As food prices spike and crash, farmers find themselves unable to compete with large corporations. And the worsening climate crisis is increasing uncertainty, destroying harvests and deepening farmer debt.

Skyrocketing import costs on energy and fertilizer are also straining producers. Nations that already depend on foreign aid will continue to feel the effects of inflation beyond just food products, according to IPES-Food.

The report’s authors lay out three recommendations for policy solutions to address the dual crises of debt and food insecurity. International institutions must meet the moment by scaling up both debt relief and development investments for struggling nations, they argue. They also believe these institutions must implement policies that address decades, if not centuries, of wealth divestment from Global South nations. Policy recommendations include taxing agribusiness for price hikes and debt reparations based on ecological destruction.

The report also suggests reimagining the structure of existing, and forming new, independent financial institutions. Bold reform could expand the autonomy of less developed nations in negotiating debt arrangements.

Another solution includes the introduction of safeguards such as critical reviews of lending practices between Global North and South nations within existing institutions like the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

“Any new initiative for climate financing or debt restructuring must not repeat the mistakes of the past, damaging conditionalities and colonial power relations,” Lim Li-Ching, IPES-Food Co-chair and Senior Researcher at Third World Network, tells Food Tank.

“And rather than using public money to guarantee private investments, we should rather find ways of repairing historical injustices and return resources to the Global South, while deterring climate destruction in the first place.”

The report suggests democratizing decision-making in global food systems and financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Diversifying who gets a seat at the table is an important factor in solving this complex problem, the report argues.

“In fulfilling their domestic mandates, big central banks are inadvertently triggering debt distress for countries across the world when they raise interest rates because their actions are raising the costs of servicing debt worldwide,” Clapp tells Food Tank.

IPES-Food argues that independent financial institutions can help moderate the stresses of international crises, rather than perpetuating these dependent relationships between richer and poor countries.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post The Relationship Between Debt and Global Hunger: A Special IPES-Food Report appeared first on Food Tank.

“This book really is the inside look at how billionaires and large global corporations have profited.” Sorvino, who leads coverage of food and agriculture for Forbes, tells Food Tank. Their gain comes at enormous social costs, she explains.

In her career at Forbes, Sorvino has found that the centralization of wealth and power underpins food and agriculture systems, and the meat industry is no exception. Raw Deal shows how consolidation and price-fixing make industry leaders rich, while manipulating consumer choice and harming the environment. Poor soil health, environmental injustice, the spread of antibiotic resistance, and public health issues in communities are among the concerns caused by this system.

According to a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only three firms control 63 percent of pig processing in the U.S. Just two control 46 percent of cow slaughter and 38 percent of chicken processing. This consolidation in the processing stage alone makes food systems more vulnerable to climate change disruptions and disease outbreaks.

In response, Sorvino shows that investors are capitalizing on climate change by promoting alternative proteins as a solution to the failing meat industry. But the alternative protein industry has its limitations. “In a lot of ways, these investors are still just looking to profit off the food system for climate change.” Sorvino tells Food Tank.

Raw Deal instead points to necessary, transformative changes in the meat industry to survive.

“There’s not enough time to start from scratch.” Sorvino tells Food Tank. “At the end of the day, grand reform really is needed, desperately, and we just don’t have time to put off big change any longer.”

Raw Deal argues that the U.S. meat industry’s future depends on changes at every stage of the supply chain. “Eaters need to be supporting the right types of systems that they purchase through. Retailers need to do a better job of addressing the power they have.” Sorvino says. She also hopes the book will deter further consolidation at slaughterhouses, especially concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

“On a more fundamental level, we really need to re-regionalize the food system,” Sorvino argues. She says that, despite trends of buying local within the last decade, local meat sales constitute less than one percent of the entire meat industry. “Local needs to be thought about differently.” Her book calls on consumers to rethink their purchasing choices by considering the business models behind the product. Sorvino hopes for “more distributed, regionalized systems” that can counter the consolidation of the meat industry.

“I do hope there will be many in the meat industry who will hear the message in this book and feel the level of urgency in the writing,” she tells Food Tank. “And hopefully they will be inspired to take up change for workers, for the environment, and for the public health of the community surrounding all of this production.”

Raw Deal insists that transforming the future of the meat industry relies on collective action. “Everyone has to be part of the solution. Everyone has a role to play.” Sorvino tells Food Tank.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Mary Winchester, Unsplash

The post ‘Raw Deal’ Tells All in U.S. Big Meat Exposé appeared first on Food Tank.

The latest episode explores the importance of supporting localized initiatives for agroecology over industrialized agribusiness models. African farmers are calling for more support to practice agroecology.

The episode also aims to debunk the idea that agroecology is backward or unfounded by research. “What we wanted to do was demonstrate that, actually, agroecology is itself a science.” Ashley Fent, AGRA Watch Research Consultant for CAGJ, tells Food Tank. “Agroecology is really about embracing the diversity and complexity of interactions and relationships in the natural world and then trying to build those into agriculture, and that’s fundamentally scientific.”

“Time and again, scientific studies demonstrate that agroecology increases yields and provides healthy and sustainable diets, while decreasing input costs and boosting farm profitability,” the episode highlights.

The episode shows that farmers in Benin experienced 50 to 60 percent higher yields after implementing sustainable land management practices. In Malawi, household food security increased 33 percent when farmers diversified crops and added organic materials to the soil. Dr. Mamadou Goïta, Executive Director of the Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD), credits high levels of production for a growing population not to biotechnology, but to agroecology. “It’s because people have been resisting, and the resilience of relying on the agroecological system, that they have been feeding themselves,” he says.

Despite the science behind agroecology in Africa, Science argues that large philanthropic organizations tend to funnel money into industrialized methods of agriculture. These models harm smallholder farmers, environmental health, biodiversity, and traditional foodways. The episode draws particular attention to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), which funded thousands of projects centered on technology and chemical inputs. Just one project supported by the Foundation is explicitly focused on agroecology.

The episode argues that the BMGF supports a narrow set of scientific approaches. These do not address systemic issues including the climate crisis or hunger, but they do provide room for agribusiness to grow. Elaborating on this point, Fent explains that this narrow understanding of science is part of a larger issue that often elevates technology-based science above all other scientific forms.

The episode Science builds upon the film’s previous installments to scientifically prove how exporting agribusiness models to Africa is a serious mistake. “Really what we wanted to do with the films was to raise critiques of the African Green Revolution and the role of the BMGF in advancing what we believe is a really destructive and counterproductive form of philanthropy, known as philanthro-capitalism.” Fent tells Food Tank. Philanthro-capitalism, she continues, is “undermining the science that people have been doing for a really long time.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Annie Spratt, Unsplash

The post Film Series Says Out with Industrial Agriculture, in with Agroecology in Africa appeared first on Food Tank.

The first EAT-Lancet Commission report was published in 2019. The EAT-Lancet 2.0 report will launch in 2024 and focus on diverse dietary guidelines, local diets, and food justice. In addition, the report will include 12-month long global consultations for the public and other interested global food systems stakeholders to share their thoughts on a transition to sustainable food systems, and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) modeling efforts to evaluate multiple pathways to sustainable food systems.

The second EAT-Lancet Commission brings together 25 scientists from 19 countries and five continents. The Commission includes EAT, a science-based nonprofit in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Harvard University, and One Consultive Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The Commission’s research will “take into consideration the role sustainable, nourishing foods play in culture,” Shakuntala Thilsted, EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission Co-Chair and 2021 World Food Prize Laureate, tells Food Tank. Thilsted adds that the Commission wants to “incorporate and integrate Indigenous and traditional knowledge with up-to-date scientific evidence.”

During the Commission’s press conference at Stockholm+50, Johan Rockström, EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission Co-Chair and Director of PIK, said the EAT-Lancet 2.0 report will include guidance on investing in regenerative, carbon-sequestering farming systems. Walter Willet, Commission Co-Chair and Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, adds that capturing carbon will be a crucial part of the solution to staying “under 1.5 or two degrees centigrade by the end of the century.”

Policy suggestions within the 2019 report appear to be “a silver bullet,” Matthias Kaiser, Professor Emeritus at the Centre for the Study of Sciences and Humanities at the University of Bergen, Norway, tells Food Tank. He believes that the simplified recommendations laid out in the 2019 report are not globally utilizable. Kaiser also says that the 2019 report did not address global food chains’ uncertainties and complexities. He says the forthcoming report should consider “different food identities, food cultures, and traditions.”

Kaiser notes that reducing red meat consumption or production is possible, but the guidance should address specificity in “different regions and cultures.” In coastal cultures, for example, Kaiser says, a “large quantity of proteins” may come from seafood and less from red meat. Whereas areas that are lower income or that are located far from the sea, “don’t have the supply chains” to support a diet rich in seafood.

Stineke Oenema, Executive Secretary of UN Nutrition, tells Food Tank that “it’s important to look at the context” when making dietary recommendations. In lower-income countries, Oenema notes, it may be beneficial for eaters to consume more animal proteins.

During the EAT-Lancet 2.0 press conference, Willet said that the Commission will be taking a “fresh look” at red meat’s impact on healthy diets, among “many other diet and health relationships.”

The 2019 report also drew skepticism about private food industry involvement in the 2019 EAT-Lancet report. Scientist Nina Teicholz writes, “[EAT’s] massive level of corporate backing raises serious questions about the interests behind this report.” Specifically, EAT’s Food Reform for Sustainability and Health (FReSH) Initiative includes multi-billion-dollar food industry giants like Pepsico, Danone, Syngenta, and Unilever.

The EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission tells Food Tank, “EAT works with food system actors from all sectors, including business, civil society, governments (local, national, and global). It believes that alignment across actors, reflecting a diversity of perspectives and plausible pathways is critical to support transformation, notably creating a space for dialogue and discussion between divergent voices.”

Kaiser tells Food Tank that power relationships within the food industry may implicitly influence the Commission’s recommendations. “If we see that roughly 70 percent of all the food consumed globally comes from small producers,” Kaiser says, “that is not necessarily [in] the interest of the big corporations that represent the realities in the food system we have.”

The 2019 report was written by experts “from the rich, industrialized countries of the Global North,” Kaiser mentions. Kaiser advocates that the forthcoming report incorporate a more bottom-up approach. This, he says, should include frameworks for “local, regional, and cultural food identities that would improve the sustainability of food consumption” instead of top-down guidelines from wealthy, industrialized nations.

Kaiser also recommends the Commission not solely focus on nutrition science, or areas of health science, but also include social sciences, “like anthropology, sociology, political sciences, that relate to power structures” within the food system. “What they need to do is to have an appeal, rather than a recipe,” Kaiser says, “an appeal to these diversities and suggestions, how a different path to sustainable food can be developed out of the existing traditions, out of the existing socio-economic relationships or power structures.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Alexander Schimmeck, Unsplash

The post EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission Revises Guidance for Healthy, Diverse Diets, and Sustainable Food Systems appeared first on Food Tank.

A biodiversity hotspot that is home to 5 percent of the world’s animals and plants and 216 Indigenous territories, the Cerrado has already lost half its native vegetation to cattle ranches and mechanized soy and corn mega-farms. LDC is just one of many agribusinesses, including Cargill, Bunge, JBS, and Marfrig, whose beef and animal feed operations are threatening to drive this ecosystem towards total destruction by 2030. 

While IFC claims that its loan to LDC will “address higher demand and escalating food prices in an environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive way,” in reality, this investment will drive further environmental destruction and disenfranchisement of local and indigenous communities while enriching one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful industrial agribusinesses. In 2020, LDC generated US$49 billion in revenue and has US$3.5 billion in public and private financing available. With limited public investment in sustainable agriculture, one must ask why taxpayer funds are being used to support this well-resourced mega-corporation that has contributed to Cerrado ecosystem destruction over the past decade.  

Since late May, Friends of the Earth, members of the Stop Financing Factory Farming (SFFF) Campaign and 230+ civil society organizations (CSOs) from around the world have fought to block the investment. In numerous letters to the IFC and its government shareholders, groups documented how this investment is at odds with the bank’s own environmental policies and its commitment to align lending with the Paris Agreement and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Supporting industrial animal feed production does not advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The IFC justified its US$200 million loan by claiming that the funds would help to reduce deforestation through “support [for] a portfolio of eligible soy and corn farmers in Brazil that are committed to zero deforestation and conversion of native vegetation.” But these “eligible farmers” are multi-thousand-acre industrial operations located in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, and Minas Gerais, which are already largely deforested. Even if incentives set up under the loan could prevent future land conversions, deforestation is only one of the many environmental and social impacts that should be addressed by public financing for a company like LDC.

Completely ignored in IFC’s loan analysis are the additional negative impacts of industrial farms’ use of pesticides and fertilizers on climate and air, soil and water resources. Also ignored were harmful social impacts of these operations, including pesticide-related illness and death, including among children, as well as the potential for land-grabbing, local community conflicts and the displacement of smallholder farmers.

Failure to address these serious issues undermines the IFC’s stated commitment to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. A 2019 German government report documents how large-scale soy operations in the Cerrado and elsewhere “are associated with social injustice and…environmental degradation that hinders the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” According to this report, agribusiness operations in the region threaten at least 8 of the 17 SDGs, including: 1: No Poverty, 2: Zero Hunger, 3: Good Health and Well-Being, 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and 13: Climate Action. 

A coherent strategy to make LDC’s soy and corn operations more “sustainable” would have required a shift in agricultural practices that reduce fossil fuel, pesticide and synthetic fertilizer use, as CSOs explained. A more “inclusive” and food security-centered strategy would ensure at least some support for smallholder, lower-carbon, regenerative crop systems and increased land access for traditional communities.  

Diverting resources to feed animals instead of humans also threatens to aggravate the current global hunger crisis. As the crisis intensifies, the world’s 800 million+ hungry people would be better served by public development banks using taxpayer funds to support the production of diversified, truly sustainable and nutritious food rather than feed for factory farms that churn out cheap meat and dairy products for consumption in higher-income countries. 

Paris Agreement misalignment: LDC is a major laggard on climate

The IFC’s support for a company that has failed to set sufficient GHG reduction targets is at odds with the bank’s commitment to aligning its investments with the Paris Agreement. 

Unlike some of its peers, LDC has yet to set Paris-aligned reduction targets for its GHG emissions. The company has committed to only meager 1 percent reductions in its Scope 1 and 2 emissions (those generated by the operations or activities the company controls). Even more important, LDC has yet to calculate its Scope 3 emissions (those generated by operations or activities a company does not control, including  soy production), which likely make up more than 90 percent of the company total. At a minimum, the IFC and other public development banks should require any company benefiting from its preferential financing to set Paris-aligned GHG reduction targets. 

Now that the LDC loan has been approved, IFC must be held accountable for its impacts

Together with global allies and partners on the ground in Brazil, the Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign will continue to track LDC’s activities and demand accountability from the IFC for the harmful impacts of its lending. In a letter responding to the loan approval, more than 100 organizations have asked that the IFC disclose the names and locations of the industrial operations its funds will support so that groups on the ground can monitor the impacts of its investment. We have also asked that the IFC urge LDC to cut ties with suppliers known to be involved in illegal deforestation, land grabbing and/or other human rights violations. 

The campaign will also continue to urge the IFC and its government shareholders to shift lending away from industrial livestock and monoculture feed production and toward smallholder, lower-carbon regenerative mixed crop systems. Such a shift would square with the World Bank’s own guidance concerning development banks’ role in encouraging capital investments that “incentivize more sustainable practices—properly valuing ecosystem services and mobilizing resources, knowledge and technology for smallholders, indigenous peoples and other producers to support a more equitable way of producing and consuming food.”

About SFFF: The Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign is a coalition of development, environmental and animal protection groups that works in partnership with locally affected communities and organizations to shift development finance away from industrial livestock production.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post International Finance Corporation Should Stop Bankrolling Destructive Agribusiness appeared first on Food Tank.

The UN Secretary-General warns that the climate crisis is a “code red” warning for humanity. Yet multinational development banks (MDBs) that have pledged to align their lending with the Paris Agreement continue to pump tons of public money into industrial animal agriculture—ignoring warnings from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification that we must dramatically transform and scale back greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from these high emitting operations in order to build resiliency and reach Paris climate goals.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, directly funds industrial pig and broiler chicken operations in Vietnam, Ecuador, and Uganda. Other financing is indirect, such as the IFC’s proposed loan of up to US$200 million to Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) to support massive soy and corn monoculture, crops used as feed for industrial livestock. More than three-fourths (77 percent) of global soy production is used to feed farm animals, mainly in the pig and poultry sectors. More than 150 groups across the globe have sent a letter urging IFC’s executive directors to oppose the loan for Louis Dreyfus operations in Brazil’s Cerrado, a threatened biodiversity hot spot, home to 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity and 216 Indigenous territories.

Public banks should invest in food security for humans, not feed for industrial livestock

Public financing of livestock feed crops in mass monocultures is highly problematic, particularly in a global food crisis. It boosts demand for grain and soy which raises prices, making these foods unaffordable for people living in poverty. It also displaces local, diversified food production for people. Minimizing the use of feed for animals could help address the growing scarcity and soaring prices of wheat and corn, essential staple foods. If these cereals were instead used for human consumption, this would feed an extra 3.5 billion people each year, taking a big bite out of world hunger.

The use of human-edible crops as animal feed undermines U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 and 2, which aim for zero hunger and poverty. MDBs should not be funding activities that undermine local small-scale food production and risk increasing food poverty.

Investment in industrial pig and poultry sectors hinders Paris climate goals

Alarmingly, the MDBs’ draft Assessment Framework for Paris Alignment includes non-ruminant livestock among activities classified as universally Paris-aligned. Non-ruminant livestock are mainly pigs and poultry, most of which are raised industrially. The MDBs’ assessment that these livestock are “Paris-aligned” ignores the high direct and indirect GHG emissions stemming from these operations.

Industrial scale production will dramatically increase, not reduce, these emissions including methane. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report documents high methane emissions from large-scale confined pig operations that liquify their manure—increasing by 44 percent between 1990 and 2010. Industrial pig and poultry operations and processing plants also consume considerable water and energy for heating, ventilation, lighting, and transport.

Well over half of all emissions from the pig and poultry sectors comes from feed production, including from pesticide and fertilizer manufacturing, fertilizer application, and land clearing to grow feed. Soy and corn monoculture expansion in the Brazilian Cerrado, the focus of the IFC proposed loan for Louis Dreyfus, has generated a massive release of carbon dioxide from the clearing of vegetation in this biodiversity hot spot. Moreover, monoculture production, which relies heavily on agro-chemicals, causes soil degradation and biodiversity loss and depletes and degrades water resources. A recent study in Nature identified monoculture production in the Cerrado region as a major threat to climate stability, including water scarcity and higher temperatures which can be “limiting factors for soybean development” and “could put at risk both food production and biome stability.”

Public Development Banks should better align their lending with Paris and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Along with the Paris Agreement, public development banks have pledged to align with the U.N. SDGs. But industrial livestock and feed production places several SDGs (3, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 15) out of reach with its deleterious impacts on human health, the environment, and small-scale farmers in the Global South. The IFC’s Louis Dreyfus loan will support agribusiness purchases from “highly mechanized, industrial farms…as large as 6,000 ha (15,000 acres).” As documented in this recent report, land grabs and speculation in the Cerrado region are accelerating land concentration, undermining local food security, and forcing small farmers, Indigenous, and traditional communities to migrate to other areas to seek work.

As the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) points out “the expansion of large-scale industrial agriculture—comes with an unacceptably high environmental cost, threatening the food security of future generations…with studies showing adverse impacts on local incomes and inequality.”  The U.N. Agency highlights how small-scale farms, which are often more “productive” and “environmentally sustainable” are “especially critical for the food security and nutrition of vulnerable groups” because they serve “predominantly domestic and local markets.” Former Director-General of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva has echoed these points, saying that small-scale livestock farmers must be given more resources, not “pushed aside by expanding large capital-intensive operations.”

The harmful animal welfare and public health impacts and related economic costs of the industrial animal agriculture model should also not be ignored. Cramming genetically similar animals in overcrowded, dirty, inhumane, and stressful conditions makes the animals prone to inhibited immune response—and is a dangerously perfect breeding ground for pathogen spread and the emergence of zoonotic diseases, like the Swine Flu (H1N1). Industrial production systems use 73 percent of global antibiotics in order to prevent diseases in these unsanitary conditions, thus spreading antibiotic resistance, another significant health threat that is responsible for 700,000 deaths a year worldwide.

Investing in industrial livestock systems undermines both the Paris Agreement and the U.N. SDGs. It is time for public development banks to redirect their dollars toward regional, lower-carbon, higher welfare, agroecological food systems. These locally adaptable, diversified systems can boost productivity and resilience, while protecting biodiversity, public health, farmer livelihoods, and food security, especially in the face of major supply chain disruptions that are increasingly part of our new normal.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Public Development Banks Must Stop Financing Factory Farming appeared first on Food Tank.

The Organic Center’s two new resources aim to “meet students where they already are” because youth have always been the “main promoters of environmental justice,” Jayson Maurice Porter, PhD Candidate at Northwestern University and author of the report and lesson plan, tells Food Tank. Porter hopes the report and lesson plan will “introduce the history and ecology of things kids already experience to help them and help us tap into the ideas they already have.”

Through several historical case studies of agrochemicals, environmental racism, and environmental justice, the report examines the relationship between these topics on local and regional scales. Porter looks at Mexico, Canada, and the South and West Coasts of the United States to analyze the ways agrochemicals have caused detrimental environmental and health impacts. He goes on to show that these substances have predominantly affected low-income communities and communities of color.

“Urban planning and city policy considers certain people in certain communities more or less disposable and puts them in harm’s way, giving them an uneven burden of  experiencing and dealing with things like pollutants,” Porter tells Food Tank.

In California, where nearly one-third of the U.S. farmworkers live, several of the state’s regions with large low-income, Latinx populations are not subject to pesticide laws. This enables the agricultural industry to use chemicals including chlorpyrifos that were otherwise banned for commercial use. According to research in Health & Place asthma prevalence is high among the children of Mexican farmworkers living in the highly toxic, yet agriculturally wealthy environment of the San Joaquin Valley.

The report also reveals that in the U.S. South, pesticide use is higher in counties with larger BIPOC communities. It finds that governments spend approximately eight times more money on pesticides in rural counties where people of color comprise 40 percent of the population compared to counties where they comprise less than 6 percent.

Porter tells Food Tank it is “important to really see how the United States has imperial relationships with so many different places, both within the United States and outside the United States.” The report argues that agrochemicals helped expand U.S. power beyond national borders. “Environmental justice needs to move beyond U.S. exceptionalism,” Porter tells Food Tank.

Building off the report’s findings, the lesson plan aims to engage with students in discussions about the origin of pesticides and how they affect poor, Black, and Latinx communities. By encouraging students to use history and geography, the lesson plan facilitates discussions about the ways industrial agriculture and agrochemicals may impact their own communities and surrounding environments.

The lesson plan also invites students to consider whether environmental racism or environmental injustice has inspired any forms of grassroots environmental justice in their own cities or communities. Tracing the history of environmental justice movements, the report profiles key figures including Robert D. Bullard, often considered the father of environmental justice.

Through the report and lesson plan, Porter is careful to note that the onus of environmental justice should not burden “people whose resources are already slim.” Porter tells Food Tank that “it’s also complicated because we don’t know how much we can trust the state or large private institutions. History makes us skeptical of state intervention and top-down models.”

Porter hopes the report and lesson plan will “break down the barriers between scholarship and public facing work.” Young people are already attuned to issues of environmental justice and are engaged in understanding how industrial agriculture replicates patterns of harm across the U.S. food system. This is why Porter tells Food Tank he thinks it’s important “to make sure [academics] do the heavy lifting to try to make complicated stories as accessible as possible.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Tim Mossholder, Unsplash

The post Report Investigates the Past, Present, and Future of Agrochemicals and Environmental Justice appeared first on Food Tank.

This decision comes in response to a 2021 investigation from environmental advocacy group Mighty Earth and news organization Repórter Brasil. The report finds major Brazilian meat producers including JBS S.A., Marfrig, and Minerva indirectly source cattle from illegally deforested areas in the Amazon.

“This is a watershed moment for JBS and the entire cattle sector in Brazil,” Nico Muzi, former Europe Director of Mighty Earth and co-founder of a new venture to transform the food industry, tells Food Tank. “The very fact that European supermarkets across four countries have taken concrete commercial actions against Brazilian beef over deforestation is a turning point for the industry.”

Lidl Netherlands announced their decision to stop selling all beef from South American origin beginning in 2022. Aldi Germany has also announced they would stop selling Brazilian beef altogether as of this year. And Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, said it would stop sourcing beef from Brazil for all of its stores. Chains including Auchan France, Carrefour Belgium, Delhaize Belgium, Princes Group, and Sainsbury’s UK also pledged to remove specific products tied to JBS S.A., including corned beef and beef jerky.

A spokesperson at Lidl Netherlands tells Food Tank the supermarket chain will stop selling beef from Brazil “in order to protect biodiversity and prevent deforestation,” and that this commitment is “a central theme in [their] purchasing policy.”

The research from Mighty Earth and Repórter Brasil outlines multiple cases of alleged “cattle laundering.” According to these sources, Brazil’s major meat producers source cattle raised and fed on farms that are officially sanctioned or embargoed. These farms are linked to illegal deforestation, or tied to destruction in other critical biospheres like the Cerrado woody savannah and the Pantanal tropical wetlands.

The report describes how the cattle are transferred from recently deforested areas to properties with allegedly clean records for final fattening. Companies like JBS S.A. then purchase the cows and process them in slaughterhouses in low-deforestation areas. Although some of these transfers are legitimate, “others are mere bureaucratic illusions,” according to the report, and aim to obscure the origins of the cattle.

Data from Imazon, a Brazilian research institute tracking Amazon deforestation since 2008, shows that new deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is at its highest annual level in a decade. The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) recently released a series of investigations exposing the link between deforestation and the Brazilian beef trade.

“Deforestation driven by cattle expansion and landgrabs of Indigenous lands in the Amazon are two sides of the same coin. Less demand for Amazon-destroying beef in Europe means less pressure on Indigenous lands,” Muzi tells Food Tank.

A 2020 report from Amnesty International also reveals that Brazil’s JBS S.A. contributed to alleged human rights and environmental abuses in the Amazon region. The report argues that the company purchased cattle that illegally grazed on an Indigenous reserve, as well as two other protected rainforest areas.

In 2020, a coalition of Indigenous groups from the Colombian and Brazilian Amazon and several international non-governmental organizations sued Groupe Casino, the owner of Brazilian supermarket Pão de Açúcar. They accused Casino of systemic violations of human rights and environmental laws in Brazilian and Colombian supply chains.

According to evidence compiled and submitted for the lawsuit, Groupe Casino regularly bought beef from three JBS slaughterhouses. The slaughterhouses sourced cattle from 592 suppliers responsible for at least 50,000 hectares of deforestation between 2008 and 2020, an area two times the size of the French city of Marseille.

The Brazilian beef industry has faced criticism from environmental campaigns for its inability to regulate the supply chain from birth to slaughter with transparency. But JBS S.A. claims it is “committed to combating, discouraging and eliminating deforestation of its supply chain in the Amazon.”

In 2021, the company began operating the Transparent Livestock Farming Platform. The tool, which uses blockchain technology, aims to trace the beef cattle production chain in the Amazon and allow JBS suppliers to see whether their supply chain is socially and environmentally compliant. JBS claims all of its beef cattle suppliers will sign up to the program by the end of 2025.

“It’s unfortunate that the bad practices of the world’s biggest beef company, JBS, are tarnishing the reputation of the entire cattle sector in Brazil, closing doors in premium markets like the EU,” Muzi tells Food Tank. “Because of its size and influence, JBS has the power to transform the cattle industry in Brazil and end deforestation driven by cattle production.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Matt Palmer, Unsplash

The post European Supermarket Chains Boycott Brazilian Beef Linked to Amazon Deforestation appeared first on Food Tank.

Raphael Podselver, Head of UN Advocacy for ProVeg, tells Food Tank that there is an urgent need to “drastically” reduce consumption of animal protein to support human and planetary health. 

Industrial livestock production is tied to a number of issues, ranging from deforestation and pollution to antibiotic resistance. Podselver notes that reduction goals will vary by country and region but emphasizes that “it’s really important to acknowledge the emergency to end industrial farming in the coming years.”

Podselver says that it is inspiring to see younger generations recognize the climate implications of meat production. But he argues will be necessary for everyone take steps toward reducing their consumption of animal products. “We have to [get] everyone on board,” he says. 

Podselver believes that most consumers won’t base their purchasing decisions on the environmental impact of the production methods alone. He also acknowledges that it is challenging to shifts eaters’ dietary habits. “Availability and affordability play a big role, along with taste,” Podselver tells Food Tank.

This is why the emerging plant-based meat alternatives are an important part of what Podselver calls the “solution landscape.” These products provide consumers with options that they can conveniently incorporate into their meals, even when time is limited. 

ProVeg is also pushing governments to take action and consider food and agriculture systems in their greenhouse gas emissions targets. Podselver says that food systems did not have a great presence at the recent United Nations Environment Assembly, and he hopes this will change at upcoming global conferences, including this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 27).

Listen to the full conversation with Raphael Podselver on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear more about how industrialized meat production is driving the climate crisis, ProVeg’s efforts to put food and agriculture systems on the agenda at COP 27, and Podselver’s call for “diet change, not climate change.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Etienne Girardet, Unsplash

The post Tackling the Climate Emergency through Diet Change appeared first on Food Tank.