"...None of the false solutions on offer at Cop27 come close to stopping the industrial food production from being an engine of planetary destruction,” said Raj Patel, author of 'Stuffed and Starved.' “Agribusiness and governments offered a series of patented patches designed not to transform the food system, but to keep it the same.”
Billions of dollars are going into research on so-called climate-smart tech solutions such as robotics, AI, net zero dairy, cultivated meat and precision farming, including drones, GPS and drip-irrigation technologies. While proponents say these will increase productivity, help farmers adapt to the climate crisis, and cut emissions, critics say that the phrase “climate smart” has become an all-encompassing cover for rebranding harmful farm practices.
A key proponent of climate smart agriculture is the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate initiative (Aim4C), a joint initiative spearheaded by the US and the UAE, which has promised $4bn in agricultural innovation to reduce emissions. It is supported by 40 countries and some of the world’s largest food companies including PepsiCo, the meat giant JBS and CropLife, an association of agrochemical companies.
Aim4C has no clear plans to significantly slow or reduce activities such as industrial meat production and fertilizer use, which climate scientists say are fundamental to curbing global heating.
“AIM’s agritech solutions are not a strategy for 21st-century ecological change that benefits all of humanity and the web of life. Rather, this is more business as usual” said a spokesperson for the International Coalition on Climate and Agriculture.
Methane is a short-lived but powerful heat-trapping gas that accounts for about a third of the rise in global temperature since the pre-industrial era. Livestock – through cattle burps, manure and the cultivation of feed crops – is responsible for nearly a third of global anthropogenic methane emissions, which is why scientists are clear that reducing meat and dairy consumption in the global north is essential to curbing global heating to 1.5C.
But the focus at Cop27 was not on changing human diets but rather cows’ diets – to make their burps less gassy. There was much excitement from JBS, Nestlé, the world’s largest food and drinks company, and the meat and dairy trade groups about the boom in methane-reducing feed additives made from ingredients such as seaweed, ozone, enzyme inhibitors, green tea and garlic. The benefits of these emerging products remain unclear, and those currently on the market are only affordable to industrial cattle farmers and food companies that are invested in growing meat and dairy consumption, not reducing it.
“At best, these technologies provide a cover for the large meat and dairy corporations to continue overproducing on polluting factory farms,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food and Water Watch.
The global food system is a heavy user of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, produced in an energy-intensive process reliant on fossil fuels. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are responsible for 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2022 study, which found that reducing their use “offers large mitigation potential” in addition to other health, environmental and economic benefits.
Curtailing synthetic fertilizers was not on the agenda at Cop27, rather the focus of industry reps and European and US officials was on fertilizer access and “efficiency” – helping farmers use increasingly costly nitrogen inputs in smarter ways. The US, EU, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands announced $109m of public funds (plus $26m in private investment) to expand fertilizer access and efficiency to combat food insecurity.
According to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri: “Chemical fertilizers do not ensure food security. Their pervasive use sometimes increases crop production in the short term, but it creates a longer-term dependency on corporations and trade … the ultimate goal must be to wean them off this dependency as soon as possible.”
Lili Fuhr, deputy director for climate and energy at the Centre for Environmental Integrity, explained, “Synthetic fertilizers are just fossil fuels in another form. Fertilizer companies know they will soon be under scrutiny and are trying to divert attention from production to more efficient use by the farmers.”
The fertilizer industry is booming: nine of the largest companies are expected to make $57bn profits in 2022 – up more than fourfold from 2020.
The industrial food sector pitches itself as the only way to feed a growing population. Yet small farmers (with less than two hectares) produce over a third of the world’s food – despite having access to only 12% of agricultural land. Much of the world’s population is either undernourished or overweight, suggesting that we are not producing or eating well.
Almost 90% of the $540bn in global food subsidies, which play a big role in deciding what food is produced and what we eat, have been deemed “harmful” to the planet – by damaging health, the climate and nature as well as excluding smallholder farmers.
Lower-impact forms of farming often receive little to no subsidy assistance. Proponents like La Via Campesina argue that agroecology – a form of farming steeped in Indigenous and ancestral knowledge that works with nature and local conditions to produce food sustainably, protecting biodiversity and soil quality – offers a viable greener, healthier and fairer alternative to big ag. But neither subsidies nor agroecology was on the agenda at Cop27.
“It was very disturbing to see a large contingent of corporate lobbyists influencing the process while small-scale farmers have been shut out and drowned out,” said Million Belay, an Ipes-Food expert and general coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, a large grassroots movement.
The food emissions ‘solutions’ alarming experts after Cop27 | Environment | The Guardian
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