Farmers worldwide are experiencing this firsthand. Climate change causes rising temperatures, heavy rainfall, severe storms, and extended periods of drought.
Many crops fail due to these extreme weather conditions. This has consequences not only for the farmers themselves, but also for the food they produce, and thus for global food security.
Yet the food sector itself is partly responsible. What’s going on? We will try to explain on the basis of these 3 points:
Monoculture harms biodiversity
Our current, mainstream form of agriculture, in which farmers only grow one crop on one piece of land, depletes the soil and negatively affects biodiversity. Like the large palm oil plantations in Indonesia or the vast fields of grain in the United States. Monoculture causes soil exhaustion, while healthy soil is vital for CO2 absorption. Harmful chemicals exacerbate this problem.
A monoculture also scares off bees and other essential pollinators. Without the help of these hardworking critters, our future food supply is in serious jeopardy.
Food sector emits a lot of greenhouse gases
The food sector is responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gases worldwide. This concerns all links in the process: the way we produce, process, package and transport food, up to and including consumption.
We know that meat production emits significant amounts of CO2 and growing rice produces a lot of methane. But transporting food by boats or planes is also extremely polluting. And finally, waste: not only does waste processing release a lot of greenhouse gases, but plastic litter also causes great damage to the environment.
Forests disappear in favour of agriculture
About 80% of all forests that are being cut down worldwide, have to make way for agricultural land. In the Amazon, for example, trees are disappearing at an alarming rate to make room for soy plantations. The wry irony is: forests are indispensable in the fight against climate change because they absorb CO2.
These are just a few examples of the problematic relationship between the food sector and the climate crisis. Cordaid is trying to turn the tide through various projects. For example, in Bangladesh, we support Rohingya refugees to help them reuse waste and we support 22.000 shea butter farmers and plant new trees in Burkina Faso.
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