Climate-change activists are calling for action rather than empty words. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
The COP Summit in Glasgow was the 26th official opportunity for the whole world to get together to turn down global heating, reduce a rise of 1.5C and avoid climate collapse.
As predicted, there was plenty of "blah, blah, blah-ing", but not a lot of doing. And one of the biggest contributors — the food system — wasn't even on the table. Given one-third of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from the food system, this is a problem.
David Attenborough summed it up in his address to world leaders at COP26.
"It's easy to forget that ultimately the emergency of the climate comes down to a single number — the measure of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere."
"We must change our diet. The planet can't support billions of meat-eaters. If we had a mostly plant-based diet we could increase the yield of the land. We have an urgent need for free land … Nature is our biggest ally."
Stakeholders across food industries, among them legislators, consumers and public health advocates, have all called for a collaborative new approach to "fix the broken food system".
Will this work?
Probably not. The system isn't broken. It is operating exactly the way it was designed: feeding a growing population in the most financially cost-effective way.
As Rachel Maloney, the design director of IDEO Design for Food recently said: "The strains placed on the food system by the pandemic have exposed it for what it is; an outdated system riddled with systemic inequalities that pit affordability against nourishment, prizing low-cost production of food at scale over nutrient density at the expense of people's health."
The one we have has been designed and optimised for efficiency and scale. The challenge is to upgrade it without getting lost or overwhelmed.
The businesses I co-founded are by no means perfect, but we are trying to do better. At All Good, we've learned there's no better cure for the despair of worrying about the end of the world than working to prevent it. We've taken responsibility for the social and environmental impact of our business for over a decade, doing our bit by supplying Fairtrade, organic, Zero Carbon bananas and, more recently, oat milk.
Over at our sister company; Karma Drinks, we've brought our canning home to Tauranga (we used to make our canned drinks in Austria) reducing our carbon emissions and enabling us to develop new cardboard packaging that eliminates 1.2 tonnes of plastic a year.
None of this is cheap, but it's also not nearly enough. It's clear we all need to play our part so we're challenging ourselves and others to do just that.
So, what is the "food system" and what's its impact?
Food systems comprise of everything required to feed a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, distribution and disposal of food and food-related items like packaging.
The 7.9 billion people living on earth consume 1.7 times the available ecological resources every year. This means it takes the earth one year and eight months to regenerate what we use in a year. Meanwhile, we produce 50 billion tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide-equivalents). Food contributes one-third of this, which is why it should've been on the menu at COP26 (excuse the pun).
There is good news and new ways that we, as food lovers, producers and consumers can be part of the solution. You may have heard this before but we can still make better choices, encourage better policy, re-imagine and redesign the way we produce, manufacture and consume resources.
One-third of the food produced in the world is wasted. If food waste was a country it would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter.
A balanced approach to supply, demand and redistribution to eliminate surplus food could be the most constructive answer to inequality and the solution to food poverty.
We can start right here at home. Our collaborators at T&G Fresh are founding partners of the New Zealand Food Network (NZFN), a new Government-backed, not-for-profit organisation, providing much-needed support to food hubs across New Zealand.
One-third of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from the food system and animal-based foods are responsible for half of these
At the heart of David Attenborough's exhortations to restore the natural world is land use. Much of the world's arable land lacks biodiversity. Organic regenerative farming eliminates unnatural inputs to soil and achieves long-lasting sustainable outputs while reducing carbon emissions.
From experience, we know that Fairtrade and organic certifications ban the use of harmful chemicals in horticulture, improve soil health and the health of people working on the land.
Bananas are one of the most consumed supermarket foods and a much-loved source of nutrition. We can't switch off these habits and continue to support the growers who are looking to reduce their carbon footprint.
We encourage everyone to check the provenance of their food and eat local and in season wherever possible.
We're working with New Zealand Functional Foods and others to be leaders in low-emission, plant-based manufacture by building the country's first dedicated plant milk plant in Southland, the heart of New Zealand's oat growing region.
We're all in this together. Supporting the farmers and fishermen who harvest our food is crucial as we all transition to less carbon-intensive agriculture, processing and consumption. This is a problem that needs to be solved at every link in the food chain.
Don't beat up on dairy and other primary industries. We're dependent on farmers to keep us fed, clothed and turn the wheels of our economy. They've earned the lion's share of our GDP.
But, like transport, energy and manufacturing, we need to do better and rationally recognise both the economic and environmental cost. Regenerative agriculture is leading the way here. The Ross, Whanau on Hawea Station are proving it's possible to run a high country sheep station at zero carbon. Harmony is working with farmers to eliminate environmental impacts including reducing stock levels in order to remediate nitrate levels in Taupō. There are thousands of other like-minded farmers working hard to protect the land we all depend on.
He Waka Eke Noa, the draft discussion document on climate partnership between the NZ government and agriculture was released last week. It's not enough to reduce our carbon emissions by only a few per cent. We've been agricultural pioneers in so many historic ways and we must be able to do better than this.
Help with better education and information for consumers especially on packaging and tracking individual and company carbon footprints.
New Zealand company Cogo made an app that enables people to understand and instantly see the carbon footprint of their spending.
Independent environmental labelling informs consumers of the relative impacts of products by identifying those less harmful to the environment than other similar products.
Understand the true environmental, social and financial cost of the resources we are dependent on and reflect this in policy and pricing.
Carbon offsetting isn't the answer but it's a pretty useful first step in accounting for carbon. There just isn't enough land on the planet to mitigate carbon emissions by planting trees, so we need to value elimination and sequestration of arbon dioxide and methane over shifting and absolving responsibility as well as rewilding the natural world.
Create positive feedback loops both behavioural and economic so we all feel good about making an impact and can start to see our way through this. The cure for the despair of worrying about global heating is action.
And we need to get on with it because we don't have much time.
• Simon Coley is the founder of All Good and Karma Drinks.
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