Food production creates an inevitable strain on the environment.
Your daily food choices can greatly affect the overall sustainability of your diet.
Though vegetarian and vegan diets tend to be more environmentally friendly, not everyone wants to give up eating meat altogether.
This article covers some of the major effects of food production on the environment, as well as how To eat both meat and plants more sustainably.
In short, here’s how to be an ethical omnivore.
Environmental impact of food
With the production of food for human consumption comes an environmental cost.
The demand for food, energy, and water continues to rise with the increase in the world’s population, leading to increased stress on our planet.
While the demand for these resources can’t be avoided altogether, it’s important to become educated about them to make more sustainable decisions surrounding food.
Agricultural land use
One of the main modifiable factors when it comes to agriculture is land use.
With half of the world’s habitable land now being used for agriculture, land use plays a big role in the environmental impact of food production(LINK).
More specifically, certain agricultural products, such as livestock, lamb, mutton, and cheese, take up the majority of the world’s agricultural land (LINK).
Livestock account for 77% of global farming land use, when grazing pastures and land used to grow animal feed are taken into consideration (LINK).
As more land is used for industrial agriculture, wild habitats are displaced, disrupting the environment.
On a positive note, agricultural technology has drastically improved throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries (LINK).
This improvement in technology has increased crop yield per unit of land, requiring less agricultural land to produce the same amount of food (4).
One step we can take toward creating a sustainable food system is avoiding the conversion of forest land to agriculture land (5).
You can help by joining a land preservation society in your area.
Greenhouse gases
Another major environmental impact of food production is greenhouse gases, with food production making up about one-quarter of global emissions (2Trusted Source).
The main greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases (6).
Greenhouse gases are one of the major purported factors responsible for climate change
Of the 25% that food production contributes, livestock and fisheries account for 31%, crop production for 27%, land use for 24%, and the supply chain for 18% (LINK).
Considering that different agricultural products contribute varying amounts of greenhouse gases, your food choices can greatly affect your carbon footprint, which is the total amount of greenhouse gases caused by an individual.
Keep reading to find out some ways in which you can reduce your carbon footprint while still enjoying many of the foods you love.
Water use
While water may seem like an infinite resource for most of us, many areas of the world experience water scarcity.
Agriculture is responsible for about 70% of freshwater use worldwide (12).
That said, different agricultural products use varying amounts of water during their production.
The most water-intensive products to produce are cheese, nuts, farmed fish and prawns, followed by dairy cows (LINK).
Thus, more sustainable agricultural practices present a great opportunity to control water use.
Some examples of this include the use of drip irrigation over sprinklers, capturing rainwater to water crops, and growing drought-tolerant crops.
Fertilizer runoff
The last major impact of traditional food production I want to mention is fertilizer runoff, also referred to as eutrophication.
When crops are fertilized, there’s potential for excess nutrients to enter the surrounding environment and waterways, which in turn can disrupt natural ecosystems.
You may think that organic farming could be a solution to this, but that’s not necessarily the case (LINK.
While organic farming methods must be free of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, they’re not totally chemical-free.
Thus, switching to organic products doesn’t entirely solve the issues of runoff.
That said, organic products have been shown to have less pesticide residue than their conventionally farmed counterparts
While you can’t directly change fertilizer practices of farms as a consumer, you can advocate for more environmentally friendly options, such as the use of cover crops and planting trees to manage runoff.
SUMMARYWith the production of food for human consumption comes a variety of environmental impacts. The main modifiable impacts of food production include land use, greenhouse gases, water use, and fertilizer runoff.