Food Production Generates Manmade Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Food Production Generates Manmade Greenhouse Gas Emissions

18.9.2021 | 05:51

It is a global problem to produce enough food for the growing population. It made more difficult by climate change, which is warming the Earth and making farming more difficult in many parts of the world. Climate change is directly related to food production. It’s therefore crucial to accurately measure greenhouse gas emissions from the food industry. A new study shows that 35% of global man-made greenhouse gases are generate by the food system.

This share broken down by the fact that 57% of emissions link to the food system. 29% of agricultural emissions are related to the production of plant-based food products for human consumption. The remaining 14% from agricultural products that not use for food or feed like rubber and cotton

Atmospheric Scientists Food

Atmospheric scientists study the impacts of human activities and agriculture on Earth’s climate. It is well-known that animal-based foods produce more greenhouse gases than plants-based foods. This is why switching to a plant-based diet can be a good option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change.

To quantify the impact of such a shift we needed better tools to estimate the emissions from individual plant and animal-based foods. We also needed more information about how emissions are calculate, and to cover all food-related sub-sectors such as land use changes and actions beyond the farm gate.

The current methods are based on limited data and simplified representations for many key factors such as farmland management emissions. They don’t consider different sub-sectors equally or calculate emissions for specific commodities.

We have created a comprehensive framework that integrates modeling and databases to fill these gaps. This framework allows us to calculate the average annual global greenhouse gas emissions from the production and consumption plant- and animal-based human foods. Our current study covers the period 2007-2013. These are some insights that it provides, using data representing an average of the years.

From Food Production, Greenhouse Gases

We looked at four main sub-sectors that are affect by emissions from animal and plant based food production. We calculated that the global food system emits approximately 17.3 billion tonnes (17.318 teragrams), of carbon dioxide annually.

29% of total greenhouse gas emissions from food production comes from land use change. This is when forests are cleare for ranches and farms. It reduces carbon storage in soils and trees. Farmland management activities such as plowing, which reduces soil carbon stores, and treating crops using nitrogen fertilizer, account for 38%. To power their harvesters and tractors, farmers also use a lot fossil fuel.

21% of greenhouse gases are generate by raising livestock. This includes methane released by livestock manure and methane emitted from grazing animals. The remaining 11% is derive from activities beyond farm gates such as mining, transporting pesticides and fertilizers, and energy use in foods processing.

What Foods Produce The Highest Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

This framework allows you to compare the effects of different food products on Earth’s climate. Beef is the most significant animal-base foods contributor to climate change. It is responsible for 25% of total food emission, followed by cow milk (8%) or pork (7%).

The largest contributor of plant-based foods is rice, which produces 12% of total greenhouse gas emissions. It is follow by sugarcane (2%), and wheat (5%) Rice is unique because it can grow in water. Many farmers flood their fields with water to kill weeds. This creates ideal conditions for methane-emitting bacteria.

This helps to explain why South and Southeast Asia have the greatest foods-production-related emissions by region, producing 23% of the global total. This is the only region where plant-based emission are greater than animal-based. South America, with 20% of the world’s largest emitters, has the highest emissions from animal-based foods. This is due to the dominance and importance of ranching.

China, India, and Indonesia are the countries with the highest global foods-relate greenhouse gases emissions. They contribute 7%, 44%, and 22% respectively. China (8%), Brazil (6%) and the United States (5%) are the countries that produce the most animal-based foods products. India (4%) is the second.

How Land Use Is Affect By Food Production

Our framework also shows how raising animal-based food takes six times more land than producing plant-based food. We estimate that human beings use 18 million square miles (4.6billion hectares) of the Earth’s land to produce food. This is 31% of Earth’s total land area. 30% of this is land that is used for crop production, while 70% is land that is used for grazing.

We estimate that 13% is used for plant-based food production by looking at the management of these areas. 77% of the remaining land is used for animal-based food production, including crops that grow animal feed or grazing lands. The 10% remaining is used to grow other products such as rubber, tobacco, and cotton.

The study employs a consistent framework to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from food production, consumption and distribution at all levels. This includes sub-sectors related to food, including those that are local, national, regional, and global. It will help policymakers identify which plant- or animal-based food commodities contribute most to climate change and which sub-sectors emit the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions at different locations.

These results can be used by researchers, individuals, and governments to take action to reduce the emissions of high-emitting foodstuffs in different locations. According to the U.N., it is crucial that food production be more climate-friendly in order to reduce hunger in a warming planet.

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