How Can We Attain a Sustainable Food System?

How Can We Attain a Sustainable Food System?

One thing we have learned in the past few months is that we have a broken global food system that is not sustainable. For the past 50 years, economists, politicians and corporations have vouched for a globally interconnected food supply chain, in which each country is specialized in producing what it is best at and selling it to the world market. This is supposed to maintain a low price so that everyone gets fed. However, problems start to emerge when countries are locked down. Closed borders and trade restrictions make it difficult to mobilize food. So we see farmers wasting excess food instead of sending them to market – an estimated one- third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted globally each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. We see some countries who rely on food imports suffering from food shortage; and after all that, we have food corporations who are looking for more profitable opportunities instead of feeding hungry people. 

The Current State of the Global Food Production

As of now, food production accounts for a quarter (25%) of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. The food system is not just harming the environment, however. Workers are met with minimal wages and stressful working conditions. Food insecurity plagues many farmers who spend their lives growing crops to try to keep up with the world’s demand. According to a 2016 World Bank report, roughly 80% of the world’s most poor citizens live in rural areas.

Ways to Make Food Production & Consumption More Sustainable

1. Shopping Local

Organizations and groups are promoting local markets to reduce emissions along with the social inequity farmers often face. There are countless advantages of shopping local compared to at big chain grocery stores, such as:

• Fresh and nutritious produce
• Less food mileage, which results in reduced carbon emissions
• More stable and reliable food supply, as crops are grown locally
• Promoting the local economy

For years, scientists have come up with new technologies to support the global food system. But the real solution is not whether we can leverage new technologies to grow more food. It’s whether those new technologies can shift the current model to a smarter system that would leave everyone better off.

2. Sustainable Farming Practices

Vertical Farming

Vertical farming is the sustainable method of growing crops in vertically stacked layers, which aim to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques in a controlled environment. In this way, food is produced in a closed-loop system that minimizes water use and recycles inputs.

One of the commercial leaders in indoor farming, Aerofarms, uses aeroponic systems in their indoor vertical farms to predict harvest and achieve superior crop quality. They claim to use 90% less water for leafy greens than conventional farms.

Aquaponics

Aquaponics combines aquaculture, such as fish, with hydroponics, which is the practice of growing plants in water instead of soil. At GSGF we aim to build aquaponic systems in our schools to teach children about sustainable farming. 

3. Community-supported agriculture (CSAs)

CSAs can be a way to make agriculture more sustainable. It is a model where a community pledges support to a farm so  both consumers and producers provide mutual support and share the risks and benefits of local food production. Here, customers pay upfront and farmers grow what they can. But this model has some drawbacks because customers bear the financial risks and have less variety of produce to choose from as some farms cannot grow certain crops. Nevertheless, thanks to many green supporters, current CSAs business models are diverse and innovative. 

4. E-commerce Platform for Farmers

An innovator, Erin Baumgartner, developed a subscription-based e-commerce platform which involves demand forecasting and route-optimization software. The platform creates a constant demand for farmers and expands the number of markets they can sell to. Then they use data analytics to forecast demand from customers. This way, farmers would reduce waste by supplying the exact demand. Finally, the platform uses route software to determine the best way to deliver food to customers. By using these techniques, we can provide data to farmers and help them make better predictions so they can compete with big companies. This platform may be a solution for our food supply problem.  

5. Waste Management 

If we want to be more sustainable in the agriculture and food industry, we must not only understand our supply chain but also our waste removal chain. A project called Trash Track visualizes the waste system by installing small sensors in pieces of trash. These sensors will track their locations and bring back data on how waste is mobilized across the world. We can use this knowledge to build more efficient infrastructure and promote change because the sensors make our waste visible. 

Another way to raise awareness about waste is to focus on the sewage system. A group called Biobot Analytics has developed a project where robots dive into sewers to study opioids and understand cities’ consumption patterns. Essentially, this can tell us about the health of our communities. The data can also help cities understand how people are getting rid of waste, allowing officials to find better ways to allocate resources. 

Conclusion: Coming Together

There is no single answer for how we can make our food system more sustainable. We must carefully examine each part of the system and try the above methods to tackle the fundamental issues embedded in the system. We can try investing in vertical farming and supporting local farmers to create sustainable local food networks. Combining these practices with waste reduction, we can address inequity and environmental damage at the same time.