Transforming global food systems to address climate change is a monumental and complex challenge, often referred to as “the eating-the-earth problem,” which accounts for approximately one-third of all climate-warming emissions. Unlike the fossil fuel problem, for which the general path to a solution (electrify and use clean electricity) is clearer, fixing food systems is much less clear and is still an “analytical story”.
The core challenge involves closing three “gaps” by 2050:
- The food gap: Farmers need to produce about 50 percent more foodto feed a global population expected to reach nearly 10 billion, with almost 1 billion people already hungry.
- The emissions gap: Agricultural emissions, including those from farms, pastures, and deforestation, need to shrink by about 75 percent(from 15 gigatons to 4 gigatons) to meet the Paris Agreement goals.
- The land gap: Agriculture’s footprint must stop expanding, requiring farmers to produce significantly more food without clearing additional forests. Current trends suggest an expansion equivalent to at least a dozen more Californias or nearly two Indias.
Achieving these goals requires a multi-faceted approach, involving significant changes in both food consumption and production patterns.
Here are the most impactful and feasible strategies identified:
- Sustainable Intensification (Producing More Food with Less Land)
This is considered an “indispensable supply-side solution”. The idea is that if farmers can make more food per acre, they won’t need to clear as much new land.
- Increasing Livestock Productivity:
◦Improving breeding, feeding, and veterinary care can significantly increase meat and milk production per animal and per acre, particularly in regions with less efficient systems. For example, the U.S. makes 18% of the world’s beef with 6% of the cattle due to efficiency, and advanced beef systems are 20 times more efficient than those in the Global South.
◦Tripling yields on degraded tropical cattle pastures, like those in Brazil, could free up hundreds of millions of acres.
◦Innovative feed additives, like red seaweed, can reduce cattle methane emissions by up to 80%. Another chemical additive, Bovaer, can reduce methane by a third.
◦Genetic engineering, such as CRISPR, can create more efficient livestock (e.g., sex-selected steers, hornless cattle, virus-immune pigs).
- Boosting Crop Yields:
◦A new, truly “green” Green Revolution is needed, building on past successes that tripled global harvests.
◦Precision agriculture using drones, robots, GPS, and data analytics can improve efficiency.
◦Gene editing (CRISPR) offers the potential for “mega-yielding designer crops” that are drought-tolerant, pest-resistant, or have higher yields.
◦Hacking photosynthesis through programs like RIPE could increase global crop yields by as much as 50% by making plants more efficient at converting sunlight into energy.
◦Introducing new crops like pongamia that can grow on “shitty land” unsuitable for other crops, with high yields and oil/protein potential, could reduce pressure on existing farmland and spur reforestation.
◦Chemical treatments for crop residues (like cornstalks) can make them palatable for livestock, potentially replacing one-third of all feed crops and freeing up hundreds of millions of acres.
◦Improving aquaculture and indoor fish farming can provide protein with less land and higher efficiency than land animals.
- Reducing Demand for Land-Intensive Food
Lowering demand for land-intensive products can ease pressure on nature.
- Shifting Diets (Less Meat, More Plants):
◦Reducing ruminant meat consumption, especially beef and lamb, is highly impactful, as they account for disproportionately high land use and emissions (beef alone uses nearly half the world’s agricultural land for just 3% of its calories).
◦A global shift from beef towards chicken and pork has already inadvertently spared millions of acres of land.
◦Alternative proteins (meat and dairy substitutes) offer a promising path, as they can taste, smell, and cook like animal products without the environmental damage. While challenges exist (taste, cost, scaling, public perception), they have the potential to “liberate some farmland from the livestock-industrial complex”.
- Reducing Food Waste: One-fourth of all food doesn’t reach consumers, wasting significant farmland and inputs. The UN goal is to cut food waste in half by 2030. Strategies range from low-tech evaporative coolers to high-tech biotech peels that prevent spoilage.
- Reducing Bioenergy Production: Using land to grow fuel instead of food is a “dire threat to nature and the climate”. Stopping bioenergy production is a “gigantic problem with an obvious solution”. For example, replacing one-fourth of jet fuel with crops could require tripling global vegetable oil production.
- Protecting and Restoring Natural Ecosystems
Preserving ecosystems that store carbon is vital to avoiding the worst climate outcomes.
- Ending all deforestation by 2030is an official goal of the Paris climate accord.
- Global reforestation campaignsand restoring unproductive farmland to nature are crucial.
- Rewetting drained peatlandsis one of the most cost-effective climate solutions, as peatlands store vast amounts of carbon.
- Reducing Direct Agricultural Emissions (Beyond Land Use)
Even if the agricultural footprint stabilizes, emissions from farming itself need to be reduced.
- Nitrous Oxide from Fertilizers: Precision agriculture and “controlled-release” fertilizers can reduce nitrogen losses. New technologies like Pivot Bio’s microbial fertilizer aim to help crops fix their own nitrogen, potentially reducing synthetic fertilizer use.
- Methane from Rice Fields: Water management techniques like “alternate wetting and drying” can halve methane emissions from flooded rice fields.
- Methane from Manure: Strategies like separating solids from liquids or adding acid to manure tanks can reduce methane emissions from livestock waste. However, widely subsidized anaerobic digesters can sometimes increase emissions if fed surplus grain.
Challenges to Implementation
Several factors hinder the implementation and scaling of these solutions:
- Misguided Policies and Perverse Incentives:
◦“Land is not free”: This fundamental concept is often ignored in climate analyses and accounting rules, leading to policies that treat land as if it has no opportunity cost. This incentivizes land-intensive practices (like biofuels and low-yield agriculture) and disincentivizes efficient ones.
◦Overhyped solutions: Regenerative agriculture is widely promoted as a climate-saving “silver bullet,” but studies suggest its carbon sequestration benefits are often exaggerated or nonexistent, and it can reduce yields, leading to more land use elsewhere. Vertical farming also faces significant energy and scalability issues for staple crops.
◦Political Obstruction: Strong agricultural lobbies, culture-war politics, and anti-climate sentiment can lead to bans on promising technologies like cultivated meat or restrictions on renewable energy projects on farmland.
◦Subsidies for Harmful Practices: Governments continue to subsidize land-intensive industries (e.g., livestock, crop insurance).
- Lack of Funding and Investment: Only a small portion of global climate finance (2.4%) flows into food and farming. Agricultural R&D is underfunded compared to other sectors, hindering the development and scaling of solutions.
- Scaling Challenges: Many promising solutions remain small-scale due to economic barriers, lack of infrastructure, or slow adoption. New crops and technologies face long development and approval processes.
Way Forward
Despite the difficulties, progress is possible, as demonstrated by the shift towards clean energy.
- Prioritize R&D and Deployment: Substantial public and private investment is needed for research and development, and then for deployment of proven solutions. This includes funding for improving livestock efficiency, biofertilizers, biopesticides, and meat/dairy substitutes.
- Fix Accounting Rules: Adopting accounting rules that recognize the “carbon opportunity cost” of land is a “prerequisite” for incentivizing sustainable practices.
- Incentives and Pricing: Implement “carrots and sticks” like emissions taxes on activities (e.g., airline and shipping emissions) that fund forest protection and sustainable agriculture, or redirect existing agricultural subsidies towards climate-friendly practices.
- Accelerate Fossil Fuel Transition: While focusing on food, it’s also crucial to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, as it’s currently the fastest path to lower emissions.
- Individual Action and Awareness: While systemic change is paramount, individual dietary choices (like reducing beef consumption and food waste) contribute and can encourage policy changes.
The challenge is not whether solutions exist, but whether humanity can act decisively, overcoming political inertia and short-term thinking, to implement them at the necessary scale and speed. “Perfect isn’t on the menu, but better is good”.