Viewpoint: To Achieve the SDGs in a Warming Climate We Will Have to Change How We Produce Our Food
By Sunny Verghese
Are you reading this with a cup of coffee? A piece of chocolate? Or maybe a protein bar with nuts and puffed rice? And if the answer is yes, then have you considered the whole back story that the coffee or cocoa bean, nut and grain carries with it before reaching your cup or plate?
The reason I’m asking is because I need you to appreciate the journey of how these ingredients made their way into your hands, and that in many cases that journey needs to change. Our planet’s resource boundaries are being breached, exacerbated by poor farming practices in many regions.
We are seeing these stressors even before we get to 2050 and add another 2 billion people.
Although we are seeing the emergence of underground farms and giant high-tech, temperature-controlled greenhouses, the vast bulk of the world’s food production is grown under the sun and therefore exposed not just to warming temperatures but also the disease, pests, floods and drought that those warming temperatures can cause.
Photo courtesy of KX Studio.
Source: Ethical Corporation (link opens in a new window)
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
