Food Systems Responsible for over One-Third of Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Study

Rome: The world's food systems are responsible for more than one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, according to a pioneering new study published in Nature Food.
 
Spanning from land-use change and agricultural production to packaging and waste management, food system emissions were estimated at 18 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2015. 
 
That's 34 percent of the total, a share that is gradually declining - it was 44 percent in 1990 - even as food systems emissions kept increasing in absolute amounts.

"The study, co-authored by Francesco Tubiello, a senior statistician and climate-change specialist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, offers a treasure trove of data and, at least as importantly, presents a new data base - EDGAR-FOOD -  going back to 1990 and enabling granular tracking of ongoing and future trends," said FAO in a press release on Tuesday.
 
Some two-thirds of the emissions from global food systems come from the land-based sector, comprising agriculture, land use and land use changes.
 
That figure is higher for developing countries, but also declining significantly in step with decreasing deforestation and increasing downstream activities such as food processing and refrigeration.
 
In terms of their share of all anthropogenic GHG emissions, food systems of industrialized countries are broadly stable at around 24 percent, while in developing countries it has decreased notably - partly due to very high increases in non-food emissions -  to 39 percent in 2015 from 68 percent in 1990.
 
Top emitters are, in order: China, Indonesia, United States of America, Brazil, European Union and India.
 
Production stages that bring foodstuffs to the farm gate - including inputs such as fertilizers - are now the leading contributor to overall food-system emissions, constituting 39 percent of the total. 
 
Land use and related factors contribute 38 percent, while distribution accounts for 29 percent, a share that is growing and expected to continue to do so.
 
Methane (CH4) accounts for around 35 percent of food system GHG emissions, broadly the same in developed and developing countries, and mostly stems from livestock raising and rice cultivation.

 
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