Farming, Food and Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: NICOLETTA BATINI
- Published: December 1, 2019
Overview
- Author: NICOLETTA BATINI, senior economist in the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office.
- Central thesis: Greening agricultural systems and managing food demand are critical for meeting the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change.
- Framing: A “Great Food Transformation” analogous in urgency to the “Great Energy Transformation” is required.
Hidden costs of food systems
- Agri-food sector emissions and resource use:
- The agri-food sector now creates a quarter of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions—a share expected to increase to a half of all such emissions by 2050.
- Another 8 percent of emissions results from non-food agriculture and deforestation.
- Livestock account for around 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases each year.
- Without action, by 2030 the livestock sector alone could account for 37 percent of the emissions allowable to keep warming under the 2°C target, and 49 percent if the temperature goal is 1.5°C.
- Land and water:
- The agri-food sector uses about half the world’s ice- and desert-free land and three-quarters of its fresh water.
- Current farming methods have been found to degrade soil more than 100 times faster than new soil is formed.
- Food security and nutrition outcomes:
- With a third of all food produced going to the more than 70 billion animals farmed every year on land alone, more than 820 million people worldwide went hungry in 2018.
- Meanwhile, 650 million people were classed as obese and about 2 billion as overweight.
1.5ºC target for food (supply, land use, diets)
- Supply-side transformations required (three changes):
- Cut global production and consumption of red meat (especially beef) and dairy by about 50 percent, through substitution of proteins supplied by plants; urgent action needed in top producers named for beef (United States, Brazil, European Union) and dairy (United States, India, China).
- Shift away from conventional monoculture toward organic and mixed crop-livestock farming, sustainable soil management, and ecosystem restoration.
- Restoring soils with regenerative practices could lock up as much as 60 tons of carbon in soil and vegetation per acre.
- “A mere 2 percent increase in the carbon content of the planet’s soils could offset 100 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions,” per Rattan Lal’s calculation cited.
- Currently a mere 1.2 percent of global agricultural land is farmed organically; projected to reach only 3.2 percent by 2024 under current policies.
- Better land use: planting forests and reducing deforestation; intact forests sequester twice as much carbon as planted monocultures.
- The proposed Global Deal for Nature targets 30 percent of earth to be formally protected and an additional 20 percent designated as climate stabilization areas, by 2030.
- Oceans and regenerative ocean farming:
- World Bank: ocean farming of seaweed and shellfish in an area equivalent to 5 percent of U.S. territorial waters can produce protein equivalent to 2.3 trillion hamburgers and sequester carbon equal to the output of 20 million cars.
- University of Melbourne’s Tim Flannery: farming less than 10 percent of the oceans could absorb all carbon produced in a year globally and produce enough biofuel to power the world.
- Diet shifts:
- Research published in Nature in 2018: the average world citizen should eat 50 percent less animal products; suggested rule: “no animal products for breakfast or lunch.”
- Dietary changes reduce risks of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.
The role of policy (economic, financial, trade, structural)
- Reorienting subsidies and public spending:
- In 2018, total subsidies to agriculture in OECD member countries reached $233 billion.
- Argument: redirect subsidies from unsustainable meat and dairy production toward sustainable plant-based protein production, alternative proteins, and smart farming technologies.
- Transitional assistance to farmers:
- Provide direct loans, guarantee schemes, crop insurance, measures to improve land and market access to help farmers transition to organic practice.
- In developing economies, replace production subsidies with ecological payments to sustainable farmers; focus on women farmers and indigenous people.
- Conservation and land tenure:
- Use land tenure legislation and financial and labor market incentives to favor landowners who protect ecosystems; make adoption of on-farm conservation practices a condition for receiving farm subsidies.
- Proposal: international fund to compensate countries for forgoing trade in commodities that threaten critical ecosystems; similar funds to create or enforce marine conservation areas.
- Technology, information, and waste reduction:
- Promote climate-smart technologies and practices (biomass energy from wastes, manure management, renewable energy-based farming systems, solar/wind water pumping, drip irrigation, innovative greenhouse technologies, efficient field machinery).
- Need for public-private early warning systems for weather, crop yields, and seasonal climate events and public support for innovation in sustainability-enhancing agricultural technology.
- Policies to cut food waste: better supply chain management, e-commerce platforms for surplus, smaller retail portions, greater use of frozen food, donations programs, educational campaigns, reducing excess consumption.
- Fiscal instruments and market signals:
- Taxes on “unsustainable” and “unhealthy” foods (notably meat, dairy, and ultra-processed food) could discourage overconsumption; offset these taxes with lower taxes on sustainable foods to preserve consumers’ food purchasing power while achieving health and environmental gains.
- Examples from estimates cited: average US retail price of a Big Mac is around $5.60; full social cost would be $12 per sandwich, which could more than halve US demand for burgers. A gallon of milk would run $9 instead of $3.50; a two-pound package of pork ribs would jump from $12 to $32.
- Financial regulation and investment:
- Changes to prudential regulation to account for financial risks of institutions that lend to nonsustainable agri-food firms.
- Invest public funds in assets associated with sustainable land use and expand green and sustainable bond markets.
Extraordinary co-benefits (mitigation, health, economy)
- Climate mitigation potential:
- IPCC’s 2019 report: by 2050, reforms of crop and livestock activities and agroforestry could mitigate up to a third of all greenhouse-gas emissions.
- Dietary changes alone could lead to a reduction in emissions equal to the sum of the current annual carbon emissions of the United States and India.
- Elimination of food waste could cut another 8–10 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.
- Biodiversity and resource benefits:
- Shifting production and consumption toward plant-based foods would halt deforestation and enable conservation of critical ecosystems.
- Human health and economic wins:
- More nutritious, varied, safer, and more affordable food; longer and healthier lives; savings from lower health costs could stabilize global finances.
- Labor productivity gains from fewer work years lost to ill-health, disability, or early death.
- Progress toward eradicating world hunger, income inequality, and social immobility; help avert mass migration due to climate change.
- Closing statement: “Climate health is land and seas’ health is human health is economies’ health.”
Farming, Food and Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019
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