Threats of Food Production

 How the Food we Eat Impacts the Planet 

The following is the first of a series of articles written by Ellen Cowley. We are very happy to have Ellen joining us for a short while, working on articles to raise awareness about climate action.  Our group has always focused on the many ways that we can care for the planet and we are really pleased to have Ellen’s contribution.  We’ll let Ellen introduce herself below and we hope that you enjoy the articles!

Hi, my name is Ellen and I am in transition year (TY) in St. Mary’s College Naas. In TY we do the Gaisce programme, where you receive an award for doing 13 weeks of physical recreation, 13 weeks of community service and 13 weeks of a personal skill and at the end an extra 13 weeks of your preferred element. For my community service element of Gaisce I’m delighted to be working with Kilcullen Climate Action Group. I will be writing articles about several different topics and how they impact our climate, our planet and our biodiversity. I hope you enjoy reading my articles and take something away from them to think about.

  

Introduction

The mass production of food today is becoming a growing issue of the planet. The demand for a wider variety of food and the continued production of fruit and vegetables even when they are not in season, has led to short cuts being taken in the food industry. Here I discuss some issues where food impacts the planet.

Deforestation

Around 80% of global deforestation is as a result of agriculture and we lose around 5 million hectares of forestry every year, 95% of which is tropical forestry. Most of the cleared land goes to animal rearing for meat because it requires a lot more space than growing crops. Globally, we eat around 350 million tons of meat a year. In September this year the worlds biggest deforestation project got under way for sugar cane in Indonesia with the support of the president. Deforestation in Indonesia. Not only is deforestation happening, but it’s being encouraged by world leaders, like Bolsonaro in Brazil (Deforestation in Brazil).

Perhaps, we need international laws in place to protect our global forests.

Organic 

Non-organic food is a problem because it uses fertilisers and pesticides that are harmful to our bodies and kill important insects. Farmers use fertilisers and pesticides to speed up the growth crops and to kill pests. However, they also kill off very important species which are an essential part of our ecosystem. Each species makes up a key part of the food chain and if we don’t have one it throws off the balance of the ecosystem and species can become endangered. The impacts on soil are also enormous.

Packing

We always want to find the quickest and the cheapest way to do everything, even when it has negative impacts on the Earth. That is often the case with packaging. Plastic pollution is a major threat to our oceans. Plastic in our ocean. Unlike some of the other issues in relation to food, we have clear alternatives to plastic, such as cardboard and paper for packaging food.

Food miles 

Food miles is the distance food travels to get from where it has been grown to our plates. The problem arises with exporting and importing. In the past fruit and vegetable were available only when in season. Now you can get them at any time of the year and many exotic fruits from all over the world. While it is amazing that we can get vitamin C all year around and we have a varied diet, this can have terribly negative impacts on the Earth. Transportation in cargo ships and planes uses a lot of fuel and releases high levels of CO2 which contributes to global warming and the destruction of our ozone layer.

Food waste

Food waste in my opinion is the biggest problem associated with food because despite the fact that we go to huge effort to produce the food and harm the environment, 2.5 billion tonnes of food still goes to waste every year globally. That is roughly 40% of food uneaten. Food Waste WWF. ‘The EPA estimates that Ireland generated 750,000 tonnes of food waste in 2022.‘

Conclusion 

In conclusion the production of food - growing, processing, packaging, transportation and disposal is a major concern for our environment and for our future. There needs to be major changes made by governments all round the world in order to save the planet. One third of human produced greenhouse gas emissions come from our production of food. As you can see this is a huge issue for our planet that needs to be discussed more.