The Great Balancing Act: Can Food Sustainability Be .

G20 Buenos Aires Summit, November/December 2018The Great Balancing Act: can food sustainability be achievedat the G20 in an era of climate change?HOLLY BARDENThe University of SheffieldExecutive summaryAs the population is expected to reach 9.7billion people, and as our diets transitionto a greater intake of meats, protein anddairy, agricultural output will have toincrease by 70 per cent in less than 25years. This challenge is furthercompounded by high levels of climatechange which is ravaging the land, soil andwater that agriculture heavily depends on.Since the countries of the G20 account forabout 60% of agricultural land and almost80% of global trade in food andagriculture, reaching consensus onachieving food sustainability is not onlycrucial but an inescapable responsibility.Consequently, the G20 should focus onmobilising adequate investment in climatesmart agricultural technology andinnovation, encouraging a globaltransition to healthier, more sustainablediets, and working on reducing food lossand waste across food supply chains.Food sustainability: what’s on the menu?Food (in)security has been creeping up onus for decades. As the population isexpected to reach 9.7 billion people by2050 and as our diets transition to agreater intake of meats, protein and dairy,agricultural output will have to increaseby as much as 70 per cent in less than 25years. This presents us with a distincthuman challenge.Yet, almost 1 in 9 people in the worldalready go hungry, and about 12.9 percent of the population in developingcountries are thought to beundernourished. Many of the 2 billionpeople employed in agriculture are livingin poverty. As the global middle-classexpands, the demand for more resourceintensive foods that release toxicgreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into theatmosphere also rises. Meanwhile, obesityis rapidly rising in middle-incomecountries. Raj Patel has described thebroader paradox as people the world overbeing simultaneously ‘stuffed andstarved’.So, the question then becomes: how willthe world feed 9.7 billion people if italready cannot provide sufficient food forthe current population?

G20 Buenos Aires Summit, November/December 2018Linked to this is an obvious environmentalchallenge. Unsustainable agriculturalpractices continue to ravage the naturalenvironment, particularly in developingcountries where a dire lack of investmentand inadequate infrastructure continuesto inhibit the prospect of achievingsustainable agricultural practices. Two keyissues here are land use and biodiversity,and climate change.agricultural productivity and result inheavy post-harvest losses. Extremely hotweather, compounded with the littlewater that is left today for irrigation,spreads pests and diseases. Floods anddispersed rainfall patterns, meanwhile,can destroy crops and pollute waterways.Yet on the other hand, (unsustainable)agricultural practices themselves generateup to 30 per cent of GHG emissions.In the case of the former, agriculturalpractices presently generate up to 30 percent of GHG emissions in the atmosphere.This is driven by both a changing middleclass diet which requires increasing landuse, often precipitating deforestation, butalso as a result of GHG emissions emittedby fertilizers, pesticides, and livestockused as part of agriculture. Subsequently,the amount of arable land available to usis declining sharply, with 12 millionhectares of agricultural land, which couldotherwise produce 20 million tonnes ofgrain, being lost instead to landdegradation every year.This brings us to the G20 Challenge, whichis something of a great balancing act.Since the countries of the G20 account forabout 60 per cent of agricultural land andalmost 80% of global trade in food andagriculture, reaching consensus on foodsustainability is not only crucial butultimately an unwavering responsibility.The G20 under the Argentinian Presidencyin 2018 have recognised the importanceof food sustainability, and have pledged tofocus largely on soil degradation andconcomitantly sustainable soilmanagement processes.The latter (again, somewhat paradoxically)is ‘is both part of the problem and part ofthe solution to climate change’. On theone hand, a volatile climate restricts thealready scarce resources available to us byexacerbating soil degradation, restrictingthe availability of freshwater, andprecipitating extreme weather events.These conditions largely restrictWhile this is vital, countries must addressother aspects of the bio-economy. Theseinclude: water scarcity and thediversification of agriculture, including thedevelopment of and investment in,agricultural technologies andmodernization; changes to everydayroutines such as reducing food wastethroughout the supply chain and

G20 Buenos Aires Summit, November/December 2018transitioning to healthier diets should alsobe explored.On the market side of things, adequatefinancial investment must also bemobilized to enable agriculturalinnovations and climate smart technologyto be materialized. Local people andinstitutions should be at the centre ofagricultural pioneering practices andinvestment.Ultimately, the challenge becomes one ofnavigating the balance between twopotential trade-offs: how do we achieveagricultural sustainability while keeping inline with pledges to reduce carbonemissions and, more broadly, not putpressure on the earth’s scarce anddepleting resources? Further from this,and following on from deliberationbetween countries in Buenos Aires, theG20 should consider the followingrecommendations.Piecemeal Pledges: the G20CommitmentsThe G20 have widely acknowledged thatfood sustainability not only threatensgrowth and progress, but undermineslivelihoods, human security anddevelopment, and environmentalsustainability. In light of the widelyacknowledged impacts of global warmingand subsequent climate change, theCommission on Sustainable Agricultureand Climate Change (CSWAG) createdunder the Argentinian Presidency haspledged to address both mitigation andadaptation techniques based on ‘resilientinfrastructure and job creation’, ‘longterm strategies to reduce GHG emissions,with a focus on the design of criteria andmethodologies’ and the alignment of‘international climate financing flows foran effective implementation of nationallydetermined contributions (NDCs) andlong-term strategies to reduce GHGemissions’.Following on from this, the G20 countriesreleased a joint declaration outliningfurther commitments they have made tohelp reach the goal of a sustainable foodfuture: promoting local solutions anddynamism in sustainable agriculture;recognising the importance of sustainablesoil, water and riverbanks management;tailoring assistance and solutions – takinginto account specific needs of family andsmall-holder farmers; promotingcollaboration among public and privatestakeholders to facilitate adaptation to asustainable environment; and upgradingin Agro-Food Global Value Chains andencourage initiatives to reduce food lossand waste.

G20 Buenos Aires Summit, November/December 2018Policy RecommendationsNevertheless, whilst such commitmentsare welcomed, it becomes apparent thatthe same, piecemeal pledges withoutmuch substance are churned out of theG20 almost every year. Though consensuson climate change was reported to havebeen reached at the summit, it seemsfood sustainability in itself was brieflydiscussed, yet, the two are largelyinterrelated and are equally important.The solutions offered thus far are toobroad, and ultimately the G20’s focusmust be narrowed, to seek out andaddress the most unsustainableagricultural practices first.The following policy solutions should thusbe considered by the G20.1. Reducing food wasteCountries of the G20 must make solidcommitments to reducing food waste insupply chains. Not only do countrieswaste hundreds of billions of pounds onfood waste, but it leaves a heavy carbonfootprint. While food loss primarily occursin the production-end of agriculture indeveloping countries, in most of theGlobal North, including the majority of theG20 countries, waste occurs at theconsumer end of the food chain.Each country of the G20 must focusprimarily on reducing their waste rightthrough from production, supply andretail at home, setting best practice forthe rest of the G20 (and hopefully theworld) to follow. Laws and institutionsshould be also be created to strengthendemand management processes – e.g.reduction of loss and waste in supplychains and changing food preferences.Best Practice: France’s War on Waste.France is considered world-leading inagricultural and food sustainability. Afterglobal hunger levels rose in 2016, itadopted legislation which, amongst otherthings, bans supermarkets from throwingaway unsold food, ultimately aiming tocut food waste in half by 2025. It is nowranked definitively as the country whichthrows away less food than any othercountry in the world. France issubsequently the G20’s valedictorianwhen it comes to resounding best practicein reducing food waste.2. Mobilising investment to innovate inmodern agricultural practiceAs the G20 is primarily a world economicforum, they are more than equipped tomobilise investment in agriculture.Currently, commercial bank lending toagriculture is as low as 10% in SubSaharan Africa, for example. Since farmersmust find new ways to cope with theeffects of climatic shocks and soildegradation, production costs will most

G20 Buenos Aires Summit, November/December 2018likely increase. Hence, agriculturalfarmers, particularly smallholders, mustnot only be incentivized to invest inclimate-friendly technology which willincrease productivity, but must beassisted in the means to do so. Donors,development practitioners, governmentsand the private sector must beencouraged to lead the way in investing inagricultural markets and technology. Thistype of investment should be localisedand tailored to the specific needs of smallholder farmers.3. Changing diets and agriculturaldiversificationScientists have predicted a huge increasein meat consumption per capita in thecoming years. While the governancemechanisms of the G20 promotecollective decision-making andresponsibility on the global stage, theprospect of changing the human diet haslargely been kept off the G20 agenda,traditionally being considered a privatedomain issue. Yet, this is highlyproblematic, for the scope of the problemis quite remarkable, as the followingstatistics attest.Despite meat and dairy providing just 18per cent of calories and 37 per cent ofprotein, it uses the vast majority – 83 percent – of farmland and produces 60 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gasemissions. In fact, eating less meat anddairy is the single biggest way forindividuals to reduce their environmentalimpact on the planet. We must eat 75 percent less red meat, 90 per cent less pork,and half as many eggs on average toprevent agricultural-driven climatechange. From 2006 to 2050, milk andmeat production from pasture wouldneed to increase 40 per cent more than itdid from 1962 to 2006. Diversifying ouragricultural production – includingswitching to less resource-intensive foodintake – would reduce carbon emissions inthe atmosphere.The G20 may have to take more drasticsteps to enable such a transition to takeplace. Localised, tailored solutions ratherthan one-size-fits-all blanket policiesshould be adopted in this sense. A tax onred meat should be considered to help‘reverse the rapid growth in meat eating’.Attempts should be made to diversifyagriculture globally, including switching toless resource-intensive foods, includingplant-based diets and cereals. This couldalso be achieved in line with investing incrops that are climate-smart, such asdrought-resistance. Investment should beencouraged on the understanding thatsuch crops, which lower carbon emissions,have high long-term returns.