Food For Thought

    What did you eat for breakfast? A seemingly simple question. Do you know the carbon footprint of what you ate--the resources that went into producing it? Not so simple now.
    Many of us go through our days without considering the food we eat, and the impact it has on the environment. Seemingly, our food choices have little to no effect on the world around us when compared to other issues. Most would agree, however, that an estimated 25-35% of greenhouse gas emissions coming from our food systems is no small deal.


Food Production

At a glance, food production:
  • accounts for over a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions
  • uses half the world's habitable land
  • uses 70% of global freshwater withdrawals
  • degrades soil quality and pollutes waterways from chemical fertilizers and pesticides
  • pollutes the air, water, and soil from excess animal waste
  • decreases biodiversity
    Food production includes everything from first producing raw ingredients at a farm to the final product on your table. It includes land use change, farming, processing, transportation, retail, and packaging. Land use change refers to how humans are altering the landscape around us, and limiting the amount of land that is allowed to remain natural.
    It should be noted that different stages in the food supply chain release different amounts of greenhouse gases, and that different types of food also release different amounts of greenhouse gases. View the chart below for a breakdown.


    Observe that for most foods, more than 80% of emissions occur from land use change (i.e. deforestation for agriculture) and farm-stage emissions (i.e. methane emissions from cows). This means that supporting sustainable farming practises that work with nature such as intercropping (planting many crops in one area) can have a significant impact. Also observe that most animal foods have a much higher carbon footprint than plant foods, with beef from herds raised for beef at the top of the list. The carbon footprint of our food is in our own control, based on the type of food we eat and the practises used to produce it.

When Food Goes Uneaten
    When food is thrown away, the energy and resources that went into producing it are also wasted. Not only that--throwing food away is downright harmful. When food is sent to landfills, it releases methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, due to the anaerobic rotting conditions. In fact, food loss and waste is responsible for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
    In Canada, over 46% of all food is wasted annually. 47% of it is produced at a household level. The average Canadian household produces 79 kilograms of food waste annually. Over 60% of it is easily avoidable. That means consumers play a crucial role in lowering food waste.

What This Means
    Food production and waste have obvious consequences for the environment, but you may still be wondering what the big deal is. Burning fossil fuels and food systems are the two biggest contributors to climate change. The Paris Agreement's global goal is for the planet's temperature to have risen no more than 1.5°C by 2100. Here's the scary news: even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, "emissions from food production alone would take us well beyond the carbon budget for 1.5°C." This would leave little room to avoid 2°C of warming, a temperature predicted to cause severe tipping points "such as the collapse of polar ice sheets and the mass death of coral reefs."
    We simply can't afford to ignore greenhouse emissions from our food systems. Our planet provides us with everything we need. If we damage it, we are also damaging the resources we depend on. We must act now for a brighter tomorrow, and understand that it is not too late to make a difference.

How To Help
  1. Eat more plants and less meat and dairy
  2. Support sustainable farming practises when possible.
  3. Create meal plans and check what you have before shopping to avoid buying surplus food.
  4. Store foods at safe temperatures, eat older foods first, and make use of leftovers.
  5. Compost food scraps (compost can be used for farming and releases less methane than food in landfills, however, it does not replace wasting less food to begin with).

Click here to learn more ways you can help fight climate change.

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