We define Sustainability so,
that we must leave a World Worth Living In
to our children and grandchildren.
Our food consumption causes 30% of the World´s CO2 emission and 50 to 80% of the damages to nature.
Therefore, we cannot ensure Sustainability and Climate-friendliness without focusing on our consumption of food.
Four principles that we all may be able to agree on, will ensure this:
Child Labor
In our understanding, Child labor simply cannot be a part of a sustainable world. If there is a risk of child labor involvement, none of us should touch such a product.
This is the first criteria in our sustainability assessments.
We wish it would be so for everybody.
Damages to nature
Our food consumption causes major damages to the Nature and to the Climate.
Since the food consumption is ever increasing, every bite of “standard” produced food leads to nature being converted into fields and plantations.
People
The peoples producing our food must be able to have a life with safety, hope and options, education and access to basic health services and education.
Life on their location must be desirable to them. We can influence that through our selection of food products.
Carbon Emission
There is in practice no sign yet that the initiatives of politicians and of sectors will reduce the content of CO2 in the atmosphere.
In order to change this, private and professional consumers, must have the option of choosing food products with less CO2 emission in stead of products causing more CO2 emission.
The Basics of Food & Sustainability
The principles of food sustainability is a bit different to the sustainability principles of other sectors:
We cannot reduce the needs behind the consumption of food, and the food production includes a self-enforcing circle that only few other sectors include.
1. The Continuos and Increasing Demand for Food.
The driver behind the food production’s increasing damages to nature and climate is the World ́s ever-growing population, and with this the ever-increasing need and demand for food.
To satisfy the increasing need for food, new arable land is continuously needed for food production.
In practice, such new arable land can only be taken from Nature, primarily in the tropic, green belt around equator.
2. Slash and Burn
To make space for new arable land – fields and plantations – forests and bushland must be slashed and burned.
This releases the enormous quantities of CO2, hitherto having been stored in the trees and the nature.
During this process, the land ́s ability to obtain water and CO2 are being strongly reduced.
3. A More Extreme Weather
The increased CO2 content in the atmosphere leads to a more extreme climate. Hotter. More wind. Stronger rains.
When the trees are not anymore protecting the ground, then the tropic sun and the strong rains will damage the soil, and the rains will carry the upper, fertile soil into the streams and rivers, and into the seas.
Without trees and bushes, then the soil in the tropic and subtropic areas only stays fertile for 5 to 20 years.
When the farmland is no longer fertile, then new areas of nature must be cut and converted into fields to satisfy the demand for food.
Then this self-accellerating circle will be repeated.
Breaking the Circle
Food produced in fruitful Coexistence with Nature
This circle of More-Food-Needs-More-Arable-Land leading to a more extreme climate, can be broken by directing our consumption towards food that can be produced in coexistence with nature. We call this type of foods “food by nature”.
If we wish to, we can give priority to food raw materials and solutions that do not demand, that first step is to eradicate the forests and the biodiversity and substitute it with technology and intensive farming.
Defocus away from Maximum Quantities and Minimum Prices
The food productions that can work together with nature, already exist, because this is how food production originally began.
However, in most of Europe these productions have been diminished by a focus on extremely low prices, by heavy competition from industrially scaled farming, and by structural changes.
In order to bring us towards a better balance between consumption, production, and nature, these productions must be located, developed and documented, and brought to market.
Examples from Real Life
The Commission of the European Union has pinpointed the five food crops which are most damaging to nature.
These are Coffee, Cocoa, Meat (Cattle), Palm oil, and soybeans. Globally, these crops are among the largest and most traded.
To this we would like to add almonds, as the farming of almonds does not only demand the felling of forests and bushland, but also demands large amounts of water resources. The consumption of almonds may cause a CO2 emission of as much as 80 million tons per year.
Solutions
- In stead of plantation-grown almonds, we should use wild or forest-grown nuts. It will dramatically slow down the deforestation caused by the almond production.
- Instead of plantation-grown cocoa, we should use wild or forest-grown cocoa. This will dramatically reduce the deforestation caused by chocolate production.
- In stead of conventionally farmed coffee, we should use forest-farmed coffee, certified to be as harmless to the forest and the biodiversity as possible.
- Cattle-farming coexisting with a better nature actually is possible.
FAQ
Is it really correct that Farming is producing a large part of the CO2 from our food products?
Yes. For a lot of our dry food products such as nuts, rice, seeds, grains, beans, cocoa, and dark chocolate, the farming is responsible for 40 to 70 percentages of the CO2 emission and the damages to nature.
Modern farming involves intensive use of machinery and fuel, industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers (Organic as well as non-organic), and irrigation, all causing CO2 emissions.
I thought that transportation was the large source for CO2 emissions?
It is correct that transportation by truck and flight produces high amounts of CO2 per km. For transportation by ship, the CO2-emission per ton per km is much lower.
For dry products such as nuts, rice, seeds, grains, beans, cocoa, and dark chocolate, the transportation part of the CO2-emission
is normally 10 to 18 percentages of the total emission from the product
– also when oceans are being crossed.
However, your understanding is fully correct for products with a high contents of water like fresh or frozen vegetables, potatoes, fruit, dairy products, beverages, water, beer and wine. From a sustainability-and climate point of view, such products should never be transported.
Will vertical farming solve the conflict between land use, nature and food production?
There is not yet anything pointing to this.
Vertical Farming has not yet been proven to be businesswise sustainable in more than a few selected cases, and it must be businesswise sustainable to be scalable in practice.
There are no predictions or projections for its scalability in practice, i.e., when businesswise sustainability, technology implementation, necessary structural changes, financing etc. is being considered.
A good guess could be that it may at some time in the future compensate
for a small fraction of the 600 000 km2 of arable land
that are every year lost or damaged due to erosion.
The sources behind the facts in this Sustainability section are mainly
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA),
the International Coffee Organization (ICO), and the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO).
The figures behind the illustration of the CO2 sources for Dark Chocolate, was produced by CONCITO (concito.dk).