How Ecological and Physical Issues Impact our Society's Food Industry

The food sector is, without a doubt, one of the biggest in the world. Yet future profitability of food firms is questionable due to a number of fascinating issues at play in this area, such as the growing cost of labor. 

It is commonly acknowledged that the American food system has significant  direct and indirect environmental impacts. Each component of the food system has an impact on the environment, but to what extent does that depend on a number of organic and artificial processes? For instance, increasing mineral fertilizer usage has contributed significantly to the growth in productivity of American agriculture over the past 50 years, but it has also had detrimental effects on the environment, including increased greenhouse gas emissions and deteriorated water quality. The combustion of fossil fuels during the production of food and during food delivery can also produce gas emissions.

Environmental impacts of the continuous growth in agricultural production are particularly evident. Two-thirds of the 2.1 million farms and ranches that operate in the United States sell animals or crops worth less than $25,000, according to the 2012 Agricultural Census. Large farms, on the other hand, account for two-thirds of the country's current agricultural output while making up only 4% of all farms (or around 80,000 of them). Very efficient intensive agricultural production lowers costs per unit of output (potentially lowering costs to consumers) and can change environmental consequences per unit of product. For instance, Capper et al. (2009) demonstrated historical improvements in dairy production, showing that per 1 billion kilos of milk, 2007 cows generated 43% less methane and 56% less nitrous oxide than did 1944 animals. Similar patterns have been noted in the beef industry (Capper, 2011), where the overall amount of meat produced remained constant despite a 40% decrease in the number of animals (USDA, 2014b). On the other hand, if the animal waste is not adequately handled, huge concentrations of livestock (also known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOS) can cause problems with the quality of the local air and water. CAFOs frequently draw public criticism because they can have a negative impact on the health and well-being of the people around them. Moreover, effluent from CAFOs can contaminate downstream agricultural areas or water supplies with pathogens, which can lead to issues with food safety. More and more cattle CAFOs try to address these issues by collecting manure from the animal housing.

A local population may be impacted by excessive nitrogen fertilizer applications, both inorganic and organic, for years after the initial nutrient inputs, resulting in polluted surface or groundwater. The effects may vary widely within a community as well since less advantaged areas may lack the means to guarantee a supply of safe drinking water. 

While the U.S. food system frequently has negative effects on the environment, it may sometimes be beneficial to the environment as well. Particularly when an ecological approach is applied by agricultural producers, advantages such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection, aesthetically beautiful landscapes, and sustainable food and fiber production may all be attained. By using an ecological approach, players must be aware of how management decisions influence the environment through time and space as well as how often regulating the system for numerous ecosystem services may significantly reduce these impacts. 

Works cited:

Clark, M. A., Springmann, M., Hill, J., & Tilman, D. (2019). Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(46), 23357–23362. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116

French, S. A., Story, M., & Jeffery, R. W. (2001). Environmental influences on eating and physical activity. Annual Review of Public Health, 22(1), 309–335. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.22.1.309

Nesheim, M. C., Oria, M., Yih, P. T., Committee on a Framework for Assessing the Health, Environmental, and Social Effects of the Food System, Food and Nutrition Board, Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council. (2015). Environmental effects of the U.s. food system. National Academies Press.

Ritchie, H., Rosado, P., & Roser, M. (2022). Environmental impacts of food production. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food