Food effects climate change

Replacing forests with crops

A report from the WWF and the Food Climate Research Network, How Long Can We Go? has looked at greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. The usual suspects are mobility and energy which play a huge role when it comes to greenhouse gases - but there's a new suspect - the food industry.

The report found that the food we eat accounts for 30 percent of the UK's carbon footprint, according to the report published by WWF-UK and the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN). Previous estimates put the figure closer to 20 percent, but this study is the first to take account of the way land is used overseas in the production of our food.

A major source of climate changing emissions is mostly replacing forests with crops or animal pasture. Each year, worldwide, an area of forest equivalent to half of England is lost.

The WWF are calling for a radical change to our food system to help stop deforestation and reduce emissions from the food chain.

Reducing emissions

The UK has its own legally-binding targets to reduce production emissions by 80 percent by 2050 under the Climate Change Act.

In order for the food industry to make a contribution to this target, WWF-UK and the Food Climate Research Network have suggested that food emissions need to be cut by to percent by 2050.

Achieving this though will require significant changes throughout the UK food system - from production and processing, to cooking the kinds of food we eat finally and what and how much we throw away, the report states.

Cutting food industry emissions

How Low Can We Go? points out that if the food industry is to play its part in keeping average global temperature rise below 2°, its emissions need to be cut at least 70 percent by 2050, the WWF site states.

The report explores a number of options for cutting the emissions:

• De-carbonising the energy used in the food chain - at the moment most fertilisers, processing equipment and transportation is dependent on fossil fuels.

• Making the whole industry more efficient, from field to fork - including improved crop yields and changes to animal feeds to reduce methane emissions.

• Changing our eating habits - particularly the amount of meat and dairy products we consume.

The food industry contributes more substantially to the problem of greenhouse gases than it was previously believed, as the report states - "We also know enough about how the impacts arise to do something about them. The question is: will we?"

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