As the physical impact of climate change moves from the realm of future risk to present damage, the European Environment Agency has warned that without rapid action Europe is facing a climate crisis – a crucial aspect of which is food security.
With the global food system responsible for as much as a third of global emissions, managing the impact of agriculture is critical. Demand plays a critical role yet debate continues to rage around the role of plant based foods, cultivated meat and other alternatives. Yet food system resilience impacts food, water and biodiversity security and will require more than a change in eating habits – it will need a system wide transformation.
The current food system is highly vulnerable to external shocks and these have a direct impact on society. As Richard Zaltzman, chief executive of systems innovation community EIT Food points out, “Food system stability is obviously completely fundamental to our societal stability.” Whether it’s supply shocks driven by COVID, or long-term price increases caused by the war in Ukraine, the last few years have seen serious challenges to food system resilience.
Chris Hegadorn, lead organiser of food crisis simulation project Food Alert and adjunct professor of Global Food Politics at Sciences Po University Paris said: “Every continent, every country, every citizen faces an increasingly complex array of challenges linked to the goals of ensuring food security and the realization of the human right to food. One of the global community’s most vexing challenges – climate change – is making these goals even harder to achieve, and is leading us down a worrying path absent concerted policy actions and investments in tools such as crisis simulation exercises and disaster preparedness planning.”
Europe’s climate crisis threatens food security
According to the European Environment Agency’s recent (EEA) assessment, many climate risks have already reached critical levels across Europe and could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action.
The assessment argues that Europe’s policies and adaptation actions are not keeping pace with the rapidly growing risks. In many cases, incremental adaptation will not be sufficient and, as many measures to improve climate resilience require a long time, urgent action may be needed even on risks that are not yet critical.
While there are risks associated with ecosystems, health, infrastructure and the economy, food associated risk is one of the major concerns. Kristen Sukalac, partner at Prospero and Partners, said: “Food systems are extremely complex due to intertwined biological, climatic, economic, political, and human factors, among others. As a result, disruptions sometimes throw up unexpected effects.”
The EEA says that while risks from heat and drought to crop production are already at a critical level in southern Europe, countries in central Europe are also at risk. Especially with regard to prolonged droughts that affect large areas pose a significant threat on crop production, food security and drinking water supplies. As one solution, even a partial shift from animal-based proteins to sustainably grown plant-based proteins, would reduce water consumption in agriculture and dependency on imported feed. Yet political sensitivities and consumer behavioural patterns make such changes challenging.
It was concern about the food system that led to its inclusion as a topic of debate at last year’s climate conference in Dubai, COP28. Agriculture and food systems are fundamental to the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, play a critical role in the management of nature, biodiversity and carbon storage, affect the health of the world and are expected to play a central role in achieving the emissions reduction aims of the Paris Agreement. The climate conference saw a declaration on the need for sustainable agriculture which was signed by more than 130 countries. What that recognised was that it’s time for current systems to change.
Food system costs and opportunity
Aside from the existential crisis involved in lacking robust food systems, there are direct economic costs that impact the economy. The current food system not only lacks resilience but is subject to massive amounts of waste. A recent UNEP report estimated that up to $1 trillion worth of produce is thrown away every year. The Food Waste Index 2024 warned that global food waste had reached over 1 billion tons and the FAO estimates a further 13% of all produce grown is lost within the supply chain. The goal of the Food Waste Index, by measuring food wasted, in intended to help countries to comprehend the magnitude of the issue.
It helps that there are also huge potential benefits to food system resilience that are to be recognised. A recent report from Oxford and the LSE The Economics of the Food System Transformation, suggest that the transformation of the food system could result in benefits of up to $10 trillion a year.
Research has also been done on the potential cost of reconfiguring food systems to be more resilient – equitable and sustainable and arguably more efficient – and those costs have been estimated to be up to $1.3 (+/-0.1) trillion every year. When looked at from that perspective, then efficient management of waste within the food system could offset the cost of an effective transformation. The real question then becomes, what can be done to build resilience into the system?
Addressing the food resilience challenge
In light of such worsening climate-related concerns around food and agriculture, the crisis simulation Food Alert project recently attempted to provide some answers. It’s originators called for EU-level political action to drive effective short-term crisis preparedness and response coordination, as well as for longer-term crisis prevention. Most importantly it provided a set of steps for policy makers to take, in order to build resilience in the system.
The project consisted of a two-day simulation bringing together over 60 European food systems experts and practitioners to develop practical policy responses to a fictional, but realistic, food system crisis involving multiple climate-induced supply “shocks.” The work included expert input on issues around governance, food regulation, production, trade, and consumption.
Piotr Magnuszewski, scientific director of the Centre for Systems Solutions, responsible for the policy simulation and technical scenario development, said: “We live in a poly-crisis, constantly surprised by new emergencies…With crisis simulation, we can identify food system vulnerabilities to improve coordination, build response mechanisms, and strengthen the overall system resilience at all levels: regional, national, and local.”
Twelve short- and long-term policy ideas emerged from the simulation, from mandating strategic food reserves to increased investment in food innovation. They also included:
· Upscaling food reserves through a new Food Allocation Reserve Management (FARM) programme.
· Relaxing environmental standards for critical food products imported in the EU in times of food shortage.
· Guaranteeing support of vulnerable populations in times of crises.
· Increasing investments in food innovation, particularly in alternative protein development.
· Prioritising the use of crops for food and feed rather than biofuels.
· Supporting regional food supply chains for more resilience and transparency during crises.
· Establishing a joint EU purchasing mechanism; and,
· Strengthening the EC’s recently created European Food System Crisis preparedness and response Mechanism (EFSCM).
While the range of options on offer may very in applicability, affordability or the extent to which they are politically possible, their presentation may help push a conversation that needs to be more widely held.
Hegadorn added: “Ultimately, we want to see improved cooperation between all food system actors that will result in better policies and other response mechanisms to build food resilience in an increasingly unpredictable global context.”
Read the full article here
