The environmental footprint of global food production

Benjamin S. Halpern (), Melanie Frazier, Juliette Verstaen, Paul-Eric Rayner, Gage Clawson, Julia L. Blanchard, Richard S. Cottrell, Halley E. Froehlich, Jessica A. Gephart, Nis S. Jacobsen, Caitlin D. Kuempel, Peter B. McIntyre, Marc Metian, Daniel Moran, Kirsty L. Nash, Johannes Többen and David R. Williams
Additional contact information
Benjamin S. Halpern: University of California
Melanie Frazier: University of California
Juliette Verstaen: University of California
Paul-Eric Rayner: University of California
Gage Clawson: University of California
Julia L. Blanchard: University of Tasmania
Richard S. Cottrell: University of California
Halley E. Froehlich: University of California
Jessica A. Gephart: American University
Nis S. Jacobsen: Technical University of Denmark, National Institute of Aquatic Resources
Caitlin D. Kuempel: University of California
Peter B. McIntyre: Cornell University
Marc Metian: International Atomic Energy Agency–Marine Environment Laboratories (IAEA-MEL), Radioecology Laboratory
Daniel Moran: Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Kirsty L. Nash: University of Tasmania
Johannes Többen: Institute for Economic Structures Research (GWS)
David R. Williams: University of Leeds

Nature Sustainability, 2022, vol. 5, issue 12, 1027-1039

Abstract: Abstract Feeding humanity puts enormous environmental pressure on our planet. These pressures are unequally distributed, yet we have piecemeal knowledge of how they accumulate across marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems. Here we present global geospatial analyses detailing greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, habitat disturbance and nutrient pollution generated by 99% of total reported production of aquatic and terrestrial foods in 2017. We further rescale and combine these four pressures to map the estimated cumulative pressure, or ‘footprint’, of food production. On land, we find five countries contribute nearly half of food’s cumulative footprint. Aquatic systems produce only 1.1% of food but 9.9% of the global footprint. Which pressures drive these footprints vary substantially by food and country. Importantly, the cumulative pressure per unit of food production (efficiency) varies spatially for each food type such that rankings of foods by efficiency differ sharply among countries. These disparities provide the foundation for efforts to steer consumption towards lower-impact foods and ultimately the system-wide restructuring essential for sustainably feeding humanity.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-00965-x

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