Size of the Problem
Food systems: land use (mainly for agriculture), processing, packaging, shipping, and consumption, account for 25% to 33% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, food systems are becoming more energy intensive, and increasingly so in emerging economies.
Agricultural emissions are a wicked problem; therefore, any solution requires a systems approach to deal with it. About 24% of global emissions are attributed to agriculture. Within agriculture, 50% of the emissions relate to crops (soil management, tilling, fertilizers, crop rotation, draining, etc.), 25% concern live stocks (feeding, associated methane emissions), and 12% to manure management.
The environmental impact of food and agriculture is significant. According to Our Word in Data, half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. 70% of the world’s freshwater is used for agriculture.
Environmental impacts of food and agriculture – Source: OurWorldinData.org
Policies – Market Reform – Incentives
Biden’s government has big plans to address climate change, including a prominent role for agriculture in the government’s push to lessen the sector’s carbon footprint. Biden’s plans include the possibility of paying pay farmers to curb their carbon footprint by implementing sustainable practices and capturing carbon in their soil and a carbon bank based on a cap and trade system. There is an Agricultural Resilience bill pending in the US Congress.
In the case of the EU, direct payments already exist. From 2015 onwards, the Common Agricultural Policy introduced a new instrument, the Green Direct Payment. This ‘green payment’ is granted for implementing three compulsory practices: crop diversification, ecological focus areas, and permanent grassland. Furthermore, the EU rural development policy objectives directly concern the environment and climate change and are:
Restoring, preserving, and enhancing ecosystems dependent on agriculture and forestry;
Promoting resource efficiency and supporting the shift towards a low carbon and climate resilient economy in the agriculture, food, and forestry sectors.
China produces about 20% of the world’s food. China’s government still concentrates on promoting food production efficiency using automatization, digital technology, etc. It is focused on feeding China rather than on exploring new ways of farming sustainably. China still uses three times more pesticides relative to land size than the United States and Europe. China is expected to focus on sustainable farming in the following years increasingly.
Green Agriculture – Ton of solutions
There is a great interest in the private sector for investments in green agriculture. Venture Capital investments in Ag Tech have recently accelerated. Since 2013, investment in AgTech has increased by 900%. According to Crunchbase, 420 AgTech startups raised $5.15B in venture capital in 2020. This represents a 35% increase in venture funding focused on AgTech startups from 2019. In turn, VC fund AgFunder (probably using a much broader definition) estimates between $26-30bn were raised by AgTech startups in 2020 from all types of funding sources. Investments went into drones, packaging, soil management, fertilizers, etc. and a considerable part of these investments wasn’t necessarily climate-focused.
The following are some of the most interesting AgTech that could contribute to the reduction of GHG emissions:
Food waste technologies reduce crop loss or extend the shelf life of products (e.g., Apeel. Agrimetis, Marrone Bio, Certis USA, Redag Crop, Acidophil, Berkeley Biolabs, Naturex, S&W Seed Company, Lam International, Valent BioSciences, Gingko Bioworks, Naprogenix).
Biochar is produced from biomass (including its storage), and zero-carbon fertilizers.
Regenerative agriculture: farming practices that include no-tillage, covered crops, crop rotation, manure management, compost, and planting perennials.
Blue tech (ocean-related): aquaculture (feed, fish health, energy).
Alternative proteins (Beyond Meats, The Scottish Salmon Company, and Memphis Meats)
If you are interested in planting trees as windshields, learn how we do it in the Amazonian region. See our projects
“Agriculture comes out of nature, our standard for a sustainable world should be nature’s own ecosystem.” - Wes Jackson
This post was first published in GastonBilder.com