Can we feed the world without wrecking the planet?

Potential for sustainably recalibrating the food system: Increases in calorie supply are possible in the green-coloured areas; decreases due to overly detrimental food production are shown in red. (Fig. from Gerten et al. 2020)

Article Highlights

Almost half of current food production is harmful to our planet – causing biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and water stress. But as world population continues to grow, can that last?
A study led by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now suggests a comprehensive solution package for feeding 10 billion people within our planet’s environmental boundaries. Supplying a sufficient and healthy diet for every person whilst keeping our biosphere largely intact will require no less than a technological and socio-cultural U-turn. It includes adopting radically different ways of farming, reduction of food waste, and dietary changes
“When looking at the status of planet Earth and the influence of current global agriculture practices upon it, there’s a lot of reason to worry, but also reason for hope – if we see decisive actions very soon,” Dieter Gerten says, lead author from PIK and professor at Humboldt University of Berlin. “Currently, almost half of global food production relies on crossing Earth’s environmental boundaries. We appropriate too much land for crops and livestock, fertilize too heavily and irrigate too extensively. To solve this issue in the face of a still growing world population, we collectively need to rethink how to produce food. Excitingly, our research shows that such transformations will make it possible to provide enough food for up to 10 billion people.”
The researchers ask the question how many people could be fed while keeping a strict standard of environmental sustainability worldwide. These environmental capacities are defined in terms of a set of planetary boundaries – scientifically defined targets of maximum allowed human interference with processes that regulate the state of the planet. The present study accounts for four of nine boundaries most relevant for agriculture: Biosphere integrity (keeping biodiversity and ecosystems intact), land-system change, freshwater use, and nitrogen flows. Based on a sophisticated simulation model, the impacts of food on these boundaries are scrutinised at a level of spatial and process detail never accomplished before, and moreover aggregated to the entire planet. This analysis demonstrates where and how many boundaries are being violated by current food production and in which ways this development could be reverted through adopting more sustainable forms of agriculture
The encouraging result is that, in theory, 10 billion people can be fed without compromising the Earth system
Large-scale dietary shifts seem to be inevitable for turning the tide to a sustainable food system
Perhaps the most sensitive and challenging implication of the study relates to land. “Anything involving land tends to be complex and contested in practice because people’s livelihoods and outlook depend on it. Transitioning to more sustainable land use and management is therefore a demanding challenge to policy-making. Key to success is that the regions affected need to see clear benefits for their development. Then there is a real chance that support for new directions will grow fast enough for stabilising the Earth system”, says Wolfgang Lucht, co-chair for Earth System Analysis at PIK and co-author of the study

The Complete Story: Feeding the world without wrecking the planet is possible

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

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