#The Carbon Footprint of Food Production

[livelocalorganic]

The Impact of Your Food Choices on The Environment

More and more people are becoming aware of the impact their actions have on the environment. One area where our choices can make a significant difference is in our food consumption. The food we eat not only affects our health but also has a profound impact on the environment. As environmentally conscious individuals who value sustainable and organic farming practices, we have the power to make a…

[msmasims]

As our world continues to fight environmental challenges, the need to reduce our carbon footprint has become increasingly urgent.

[attheideality]

The Carbon Culprits: Unveiling Foods with the Highest Carbon Footprint

[totesmag]

Green Eating: How to Make Sustainable Food Choices

Explanation of the connection between food and the environment Food production and consumption have a significant impact on the environment. The way we grow, process, and distribute food affects land use, water resources, and greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, the environment also has a significant impact on food production, from weather patterns affecting crop yields to environmental…

[drinkinlovecom]

Sip Greener

How the Sustainability Movement is Revolutionizing the Beverage Industry The Growing Sustainability Movement The Growing Sustainability Movement is gaining momentum with more and more individuals, companies and organizations recognizing the need for more sustainable practices in day-to-day life. Sustainability is a key component for the health of our planet and is becoming increasingly…

[headspace-hotel]

I went down the internet rabbit hole trying to figure out wtf vegan cheese is made of and I found articles like this one speaking praises of new food tech startups creating vegan alternatives to cheese that Actually work like cheese in cooking so I was like huh that's neat and I looked up more stuff about 'precision fermentation' and. This is not good.

Basically these new biotech companies are pressuring governments to let them build a ton of new factories and pushing for governments to pay for them or to provide tax breaks and subsidies, and the factories are gonna cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require energy sources. Like, these things will have to be expensive and HUGE

I feel like I've just uncovered the tip of the "lab grown meat" iceberg. There are a bajillion of these companies (the one mentioned in the first article a $750 MILLION tech startup) that are trying to create "animal-free" animal products using biotech and want to build large factories to do it on a large scale

I'm trying to use google to find out about the energy requirements of such facilities and everything is really vague and hand-wavey about it like this article that's like "weeeeeell electricity can be produced using renewables" but it does take a lot of electricity, sugars, and human labor. Most of the claims about its sustainability appear to assume that we switch over to renewable electricity sources and/or use processes that don't fully exist yet.

I finally tracked down the source of some of the more radical claims about precision fermentation, and it comes from a think tank RethinkX that released a report claiming that the livestock industry will collapse by 2030, and be replaced by a system they're calling...

Food-as-Software, in which individual molecules engineered by scientists are uploaded to databases – molecular cookbooks that food engineers anywhere in the world can use to design products in the same way that software developers design apps.

I'm finding it hard to be excited about this for some odd reason

Where's the evidence for lower environmental impacts. That's literally what we're here for.

There will be an increase in the amount of electricity used in the new food system as the production facilities that underpin it rely on electricity to operate.

well that doesn't sound good.

This will, however, be offset by reductions in energy use elsewhere along the value chain. For example, since modern meat and dairy products will be produced in a sterile environment where the risk of contamination by pathogens is low, the need for refrigeration in storage and retail will decrease significantly.

Oh, so it will be better for the Earth because...we won't need to refrigerate. ????????

Oh Lord Jesus give me some numerical values.

Modern foods will be about 10 times more efficient than a cow at converting feed into end products because a cow needs energy via feed to maintain and build its body over time. Less feed consumed means less land required to grow it, which means less water is used and less waste is produced. The savings are dramatic – more than 10-25 times less feedstock, 10 times less water, five times less energy and 100 times less land.

There is nothing else in this report that I can find that provides evidence for a lower carbon footprint. Supposedly, an egg white protein produced through a similar process has been found to reduce environmental impacts, but mostly everything seems very speculative.

And crucially none of these estimations are taking into account the enormous cost and resource investment of constructing large factories that use this technology in the first place (existing use is mostly for pharmaceutical purposes)

It seems like there are more tech startups attempting to use this technology to create food than individual scientific papers investigating whether it's a good idea. Seriously, Google Scholar and JSTOR have almost nothing. The tech of the sort that RethinkX is describing barely exists.

Apparently Liberation Labs is planning to build the first large-scale precision fermentation facility in Richmond, Indiana come 2024 because of the presence of "a workforce experienced in manufacturing"

And I just looked up Richmond, Indiana and apparently, as of RIGHT NOW, the town is in the aftermath of a huge fire at a plastics recycling plant and is full of toxic debris containing asbestos and the air is full of toxic VOCs and hydrogen cyanide. ???????????? So that's how having a robust industrial sector is working out for them so far.

[bechdeltested]

why do people keep repeating this when it literally isn't true. i'm all for seasonality and reducing food miles but transport generally makes up a pretty small proportion of a food product's carbon footprint

[53v3nfrn5]

Vaxa Technologies uses carbon emissions from the Hellisheiõi power plant near Reykjavik, Iceland, to help grow microalgae for use as food or supplements. Aquaculture that absorbs CO2, could be a significant step toward decreasing the enormous carbon footprint of food production.

[wild-west-wind]

Being vegan is very easy and very cheap for everybody- only reason ppl think it's expensive is because of meat replacements, which aren't necessary. The number one way you can reduce your carbon footprint is by going vegan. Also, animals do have sentience; why is it OK to kill animals for eating pleasure? I understand your knee jerk reaction, but I wrote down every argument against Veganism and found that Veganism won every time. There is no reason not to go vegan in first world countries.

I'm going to choose to believe you mean well in this anon, and are not looking to start a fight.

There are lots of easy way to reduce one's carbon footprint, and I would rather everyone find something relatively easy they can do consistently, and that makes them want to do, or at least try, more. All-or-nothing might be a good fit for you, and I wouldn't want to take that from you, but it's not for everyone. I, for instance, have to drive two hours and a half hours one way to get consistently fresh produce. People live in food deserts, people have food allergies or live in remote areas where the price of fresh grown produce is overwhelming. People are so poor that taking a rifle out and bagging a whitetail can be fundamentally life changing savings (and help depopulate destructively overpopulated animals).

If you like being vegan, do it! It's not a perfect fit for everyone, and that's also okay. People should try to live in a way that reduces their impact on the world, there are lots of ways to do that. Trying to push people significantly out of their comfort zone, or conflating only certain methods as being indicative of environmentalism only encourages people to do nothing. Being supportive of people making good choices is infinitely more productive than being judgemental when they don't.

[female-malice]

Women have long surpassed men in the arena of environmental action; across age groups and countries, females tend to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Compared to men, women litter less, recycle more, and leave a smaller carbon footprint. Some researchers have suggested that personality differences, such as women’s prioritization of altruism, may help to explain this gender gap in green behavior.

Our own research suggests an additional possibility: men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity. It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.

The research, conducted with three other colleagues, consisted of seven experiments involving more than 2,000 American and Chinese participants. We showed that there is a psychological link between eco-friendliness and perceptions of femininity. Due to this “green-feminine stereotype,” both men and women judged eco-friendly products, behaviors, and consumers as more feminine than their non-green counterparts.  In one experiment, participants of both sexes described an individual who brought a reusable canvas bag to the grocery store as more feminine than someone who used a plastic bag—regardless of whether the shopper was a male or female.  In another experiment, participants perceived themselves to be more feminine after recalling a time when they did something good versus bad for the environment.

Men may eschew green products and behaviors to avoid feeling feminine.  In one study, we threatened the masculinity of male participants by showing them a pink gift card with a floral design and asking them to imagine using the card to purchase three products (lamp, backpack, and batteries).  Compared to men shown a standard gift card, threatened men were more likely to choose the non-green rather than green version of each item.  The idea that emasculated men try to reassert their masculinity through non-environmentally-friendly choices suggests that in addition to littering, wasting water, or using too much electricity, one could harm the environment merely by making men feel feminine.

Ironically, although men are often considered to be less sensitive than women, they seem to be particularly sensitive when it comes to perceptions of their gender identity. In fact, a previous study suggests that men find it to be more difficult than women to choose between masculine and feminine versions of everyday food and household items and will usually change their preferences to be more manly when allowed time to think about their decisions. Something as simple as holding a purse, ordering a colorful drink, or talking in a high voice can lead to social harm, so men tend to keep a sharp eye out for any of these potential snares. 

So what can pro-environmental marketers do to buffer against the threat posed to men by the green-feminine stereotype? First, eco-friendly marketing messages and materials can be designed to affirm men’s masculinity and give them the confidence to overcome their fear of being judged as feminine when engaging in green behaviors.  For example, in one experiment, men who received feedback affirming their masculinity were more interested in purchasing an eco-friendly version of a cleaning product. Men who feel secure in their manhood are more comfortable going green.

Second, green products and organizations can be marketed as more “Men”-vironmentally-friendly, with more masculine fonts, colors, words, and images used in the branding. To illustrate, men in one experiment were more likely to donate to a green non-profit with a masculine logo (black and dark blue colors featuring a howling wolf, with the name “Wilderness Rangers” in a bold font) than one with a traditional logo (green and light tan colors featuring a tree, with the name “Friends of Nature” in a frilly font).  And in a field study conducted at a BMW dealership in China, male customers were more interested in a hybrid vehicle after viewing a print ad featuring a masculine term in the model’s description than when viewing the traditional print ad.

Together, these findings highlight how the green-feminine stereotype inhibits men from taking eco-friendly actions, and suggest that masculine affirmation and masculine branding may be effective in narrowing the gender gap in environmentalism. Make the man feel manly, and he’s more likely to go green.

–

MEN ARE IDIOTS. MEN ARE IDIOTS. MEN ARE IDIOTS.

THE COLOR GREEN IS NOW "TOO FEMININE" FOR MEN APPARENTLY.

FUCK THIS. FUCK YOUR 33 SPORTS CARS. FUCK YOU.

ANDREW TATE SMALL DICK ENERGY @ GET A LIFE DOT COM

WE DON'T NEED TO AFFIRM THE MASCULINITY OF THESE DEFICIENT HYPERSENSITIVE INSECURE BETA MOIDS. WE NEED TO PUBLICLY SHAME THEM. THAT'S THE LANGUAGE THEY SPEAK. THAT'S THE LANGUAGE THEY'LL RESPOND TO.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization coined CSA in 2009 to describe practices aimed at increasing farm resilience and reducing the carbon footprint of a global food system responsible for up to 37 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, however, observers say that CSA has been usurped by the Gates-led corporate alliance, with programs like Water Efficient Maize for Africa serving as green-painted Trojan horses for industry. “CSA is an agribusiness-led vision of surveillance [and] data-driven farmerless farming, [which explains why] its biggest promoters include Bayer, McDonnell, and Walmart,” said Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biodiversity. “From a climate perspective, it entrenches the global inequalities of a corporate food regime. There’s no system shift at all.” Octavaio Sánchez, the grizzled director of Honduras’s National Association for the Promotion of Organic Agriculture, contends that policies that promote true resilience must focus on regenerating soils through the use of organic fertilizers, crop rotation, and the preservation of native seeds able to adapt to changing conditions. These are the cornerstones of a global agro-ecology movement that has emerged from the seed and food sovereignty coalitions of the past three decades. The peasant-led agro-ecology movement—with La Via Campesina and AFSA in front—rejects the familiar refrain from agribusiness promoters that it is condemning farmers to permanent poverty and stagnation. The movement’s position is supported by both a growing literature of case studies and the development of scientific agro-ecological practices. When Gates Foundation officers were preparing to launch AGRA in 2006, researchers at the University of Essex published a study showing that agro-ecological practices increased yields by an average of nearly 80 percent across 12.6 million farms in 57 poor countries. The authors concluded that “all crops showed water use efficiency gains,” which led to “improvements in food productivity.” The UN’s High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition recommended in 2019 that governments support agro-ecological projects and redirect “subsidies and incentives that at present benefit unsustainable practices,” a judgment based on similar studies undertaken around the world.

[oediex]

Today is Earth Overshoot Day.

"Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year."

This means that from today on, we are living in an ecological deficit, or on "credit". We are using natural resources the earth cannot replenish, as well as accumulating waste the earth cannot deal with, "primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". We are using 1.7 earths every year.

The date of Earth Overshoot Days is slowly climbing forward more and more:

While what we should be doing is pushing that date back the other way. If we want to reach the IPCC goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030, which is required if we are to limit global warming to 1,5°C, we need to push Earth Overshoot Day back by 19 days for the next 7 years.

World Overshoot Day is calculated by Global Footprint Network (where the above graph is from), an international non-profit research organisation that provides data, insights, and tools for decision-makers to understand the ecological limitations of our world so that they can make informed decisions for a better future.

One of the best things you can do as an individual is going vegan, because meat and dairy products tend to emit more greenhouse gasses than plant-based foods. It is truly one of the most effective ways for you as an individual to have an impact on the environment.

A friendly reminder here at the end that veganism is a doing what is “possible and practicable” for you - this includes access to foods, allergies, health issues, mental health issues, etc.

[wachinyeya]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced today an investment of $70 million in seven creative and visionary agricultural projects to transform the U.S. food and agricultural system and sustainably increase agricultural production in ways that also reduce its environmental footprint.

This Fiscal Year 2023 investment is part of the Sustainable Agricultural Systems program area of NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the nation’s leading and largest competitive grants program for agricultural sciences.

The innovative program focuses on a broad range of needed research, education and Extension solutions – from addressing agricultural workforce challenges and promoting land stewardship to addressing climate change impacts in agriculture and filling critical needs in food and nutrition.

“Agriculture is facing a multitude of complex challenges,” said Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, USDA Chief Scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. “We need all hands on deck developing creative, sustainable and strategic ways to feed, clothe and fuel future generations.”

The $10 million awards are for coordinated agricultural projects (CAPs), which are larger-scale and longer-term investments that integrate research, education and Extension efforts. These projects promote collaboration, open communication, information exchange and reduce duplication efforts by coordinating activities among individuals, institutions, states and regions.

“These research investments support exciting projects that integrate innovative systems-based thinking, methods and technologies to establish robust, resilient, and climate-smart food and agricultural systems,” said NIFA Director Dr. Manjit Misra. “These visionary projects will improve the local and regional supply of affordable, safe, nutritious and accessible food and agricultural products, while fostering economic development and rural prosperity in America.”

Explore the seven projects, which include the following:

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Erin Silva is leading a collaboration with the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition, the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Advisory Council, and the Menominee Nation on a transdisciplinary project that aims to scale up traditional Indigenous food production practices — practices that for generations have already been climate-smart and sustainable — by expanding production, processing, storage, and distribution systems, as well as education and Extension programs, that are needed to support integrated crop-livestock systems, cover crops, and rotationally-grazed cattle and pastured chickens.

At the University of Maine, Dr. Hemant Pendse is leading an integrated research, education and Extension effort to advance the bioeconomy by developing biorefinery technologies that will make the millions of tons of available low-grade woody biomass – which currently has a very limited market – more commercially viable in both the sustainable aviation fuel and fish feed sectors.

At Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Dr. Muthu Bagavathiannan is leading a project that seeks to transform cotton production in the southern United States into a more sustainable, climate-smart enterprise by applying improved precision management practices to increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions; enhance pest control, and nutrient and water management; and address labor challenges while creating new market opportunities.

AFRI, which also makes grants in the Foundational and Applied Sciences and Education and Workforce Development program areas, is designed to improve plant and animal production and sustainability, and human and environmental health. Grants are available to eligible colleges, universities, and other research organizations.

[acti-veg]

New York Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit against JBS USA Food Company and JBS USA Food Company Holdings (JBS USA), the American subsidiary of the world’s largest producer of beef products, for misleading the public about its environmental impact.

JBS USA has claimed that it will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, despite documented plans to increase production, and therefore increase its carbon footprint.

Beef production emits the most greenhouse gasses of any major food commodity, and animal agriculture accounts for 14.5 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2021, the JBS Group, JBS USA’s global parent company, reported total global greenhouse gas emissions of over 71 million tons, more than the total emissions of some countries.

Attorney General James seeks to stop JBS USA from continuing these false and misleading marketing practices, pay disgorgement of all ill-gotten profits, and penalties.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Anthropocene Magazine:

People who follow a diet rich in plants cut their mortality risk by almost a third, while simultaneously slashing the climate impact of their food by a similar amount. These results come from the largest study ever to analyze the health and environmental impacts of the widely-publicized EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet. 

Launched in 2019, the EAT-Lancet Commission brought together reams of research to determine what would be the best way for us to eat on a global scale, to limit the environmental impacts of farming and food. The Commission came up with a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grain and plant-sourced proteins, and lower in—but crucially not excluding—animal-sourced products like meat and dairy milk. That became known as the Planetary Health Diet. 

Until now, however, the benefits of this diet have been explored mainly on a small scale. The new study takes it up a notch. “This is by far the longest term, large study in actual people to look at both the human and planetary health benefits of the Planetary Health Diet,” says Walter Willett, the Fredrick John Stare professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, and lead author on the research.

His new paper, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, relied on three pre-existing datasets that drew dietary information from over 200,000 American nurses over a 34-year period between 1986 to 2019. All participants were disease-free when the surveying started, and were required to complete a questionnaire every four years on the makeup of their diets. 

To evaluate this vast trove of data, Willett and colleagues first selected 15 indicator foods that captured the span of dietary impacts, including whole fruits, vegetables, and nuts on the lower-impact end; and red meat, processed meat, and dairy on the higher-impact end. Then, they used these foods to develop an index that allowed them to score the nurses’ dietary surveys by how closely they aligned with the EAT-Lancet suggested Planetary Health Diet. Using a lifecycle-analysis, they estimated the environmental impacts of each reported diet according to those 15 indicator foods.

Because the study also recorded a varied set of health outcomes for the participants—everything ranging from cancer to diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and neurodegenerative problems—this allowed Willett and team to correlate participants’ dietary trends with their health over the 34-year period. 

Their analysis left little doubt that those who eat diets richer in plants are also healthier, as well as having a lower environmental footprint. In fact, in the top 10% of participants, whose plant-heavy diets most closely matched the Planetary Health Diet, the risk of premature death due to disease was 23% lower than those in the bottom 10% of the survey. These plant-keen participants showed a 14% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, a 10% lower risk of death from cancer, a 28% reduced risk of death from neurodegenerative conditions, and strikingly, a 47% lower death risk from respiratory disease.

Meanwhile, the environmental gains of eating more plants were striking too: their diets produced 29% less in the way of greenhouse gas emissions, required 21% less fertilizer, and 51% less cropland area compared to those whose diets scored lowest in the index. The reduced land use could bring significant further climate gains, if it is turned over to wild habitat again, which would lock in more carbon via new vegetation and undisturbed soils. 

[tg-headcanons]

Thinking about ghouls as farmers/farmhands

I imagine that some types of kagune would be excellent for harvesting/ploughing with a nice bonus of no carbon emissions. I imagine ghouls, after criminalisation, would possibly even revolutionise farming/carbon footprint from farming?

(Although of course ideally a farm wouldnt till but even then for harvesting ghouls would be quite efficient.)

GHOULS IN FARMING AND FOOD PRODUCTION IS SO INTERESTING

Ghouls have always been a part of society, and regardless of where they are or how accepted they are, they’ve always had some hand in farming since, especially before industrialization, it was a good field for them. Their strength, senses, and kagune make them fantastic at cultivating, protecting, and harvesting food

In old world cultures where ghouls were always ostracized, they couldn’t be open about why their crops grew so well, so they tended to make up myths and stories about some ritual or another that makes their harvests so bountiful. They had senses of smell and pressure detection that could help them sniff out blights and pests, as well as semi-accurately predict rainfall, letting them handle issues before they got too bad. That, and their strength that lets them handle the physical task of planting and harvesting, helped them produce a lot of plants. But telling humans how they did it is off the table, so it was common for them to have a plowing Ox just for show and to say they said some prayer that helped

A lot of why ghouls thrived in farming is due to their regeneration. It may not be talked about much anymore, but it is DANGEROUS. Not just the modern machinery, but the strain of lifting and carrying. The illnesses carried by plants and animals. The workhorses and oxen that can just fucking kick you to death. The PIGS. It’s all risky work, and back before antibiotics, just one cut and you’re done for. A person who can not only survive almost any cut, but take a donkey kick to the face and get right back up to finish plowing the field is one of the most valuable people any farming village can have

Farming animals is more hit or Miss, because a lot of prey animals panic when they smell ghoul. Some ghouls still kept them and after enough time, or enough animals born around the smell of them, they could get used to it. Historically ghouls have run a lot of butcher shops because it was one of the best places to hide human meat before dna testing became widely available, so some animal husbandry skill was a good thing

Ghouls tended to make good shepherds. In especially rural areas, a lot of humans would collectively decide not to talk about the fact that someone is obviously a monster because they’re simply so fast and strong and don’t let sheep and cattle go missing or get hunted. If you were in Cold Ass Nowhere Ireland in 1635 and you had a shepherd who not only never loses a sheep but also eats the English, you’d pretend you didn’t notice either

In areas and cultures where ghouls were more accepted, they were essential to hunting and farming. North and central american ghouls had traits designed for taking down megafauna to supplement their diets, and their human companions could depend on them to bring countless Buffalo and deer home. Jungle subspecies had traits built for climbing, and were central to the harvest of high growing fruits and beans. A now likely extinct species native to Canada had semi aquatic adaptations and a thick layer of fat who were designed to hunt seals and small whales, and shaped the way any community lucky enough to have some survived. In places where ghouls were welcomed, they were so efficient at harvesting and hunting that land rarely needed to be developed for monocultures at all

When ghouls are decriminalized in more parts of the world, their physical abilities are allowed to shine again. Stories of ghoul farmers through history arise. Plenty of American and Polynesian communities (who had been telling people about ghoul’s contributions to their land and cultures for years and were having that brushed off as myth) can legally reintroduce the old practices of ghoul hunting and harvesting techniques. Smaller farms hire more ghouls once it’s clear that they can do machine level work without the expense of maintaining machines, and it’s one of the biggest ghoul hiring fields at the start of their legalization

Naturally, ghoul farming unions are quick to form. They can do machine level work, but are not going to risk being treated like machines for it. As with any Union there’s some backlash, but when it becomes apparent just how much better ghouls are at crop maintenance and harvesting, demands are met. It’s become a well paying profession, and has been good work for ghouls that struggle with the human grade education they were denied when they were younger, or ghouls who simply prefer to work outside doing something that benefits people