Food is at the heart of every stable and prosperous society. Yet change is urgently needed to make our food system work for this generation and subsequent generations. By focusing our minds, technology and collaborative efforts on challenges such as climate change, malnutrition and poverty, we can rebuild our food system to support healthy people, a healthy planet and healthy livelihoods.
Feeding healthy people
Eggs, fish, meat and milk play a vital role in the human diet — even in a circular economy. More than 90 percent of farm animal feed is indigestible for humans. Livestock provide a valuable service of transforming various agricultural by-products and pastures in areas unsuitable for crops or vegetables into nutritious food containing all nine essential amino acids and key micronutrients, such as iron and zinc, along with vitamins such as B12. At DSM, our Animal Nutrition and Health business group provides the most complete toolbox of solutions for farmers to raise healthy animals to produce healthy food.
In addition, at DSM we are working with cross-sector partners such as the World Food Programme, UNICEF, World Vision and Scaling Up Nutrition to provide key fortified foods and health supplements to help provide key micronutrients to 800 million people by 2030. On the same subject : US announces new commitments to respond to global food security crisis – World.
Reducing waste
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 is a significant challenge, and it will take an all-of-the-above approach to get there. Part of the answer is for farming to become more sustainable. That means tackling the approximately 1 billion tonnes of food that is wasted every year. At DSM we offer innovative solutions, which boost efficiency along the value chain – from production, storage and processing to final purchase and enjoyment by consumers. These solutions include getting the most nutritional value from each grain of feed, ensuring that eggshells are strong enough for transport, improving the consistency of cheese production and extending the shelf life of meat, for example, using vitamins and biotechnology.
Safeguarding a healthy planet
Food loss and waste is not just a missed opportunity to provide someone with a nutritious meal. Unused food also contributes to higher overall greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, farm animals account for one seventh of all human-derived greenhouse gas emissions. On the same subject : Food Security. That figure must shrink while farming must feed a few billion more people in the coming decades; not an easy task but a crucial one. It is important to note that food and agriculture are not only contributors but also among the biggest victims of climate change and biodiversity loss.
There is growing recognition that we must keep global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 in line with the Paris Agreement. Many agri-food companies and retailers, whose majority of Scope 3 emissions occur on farms, are making public commitments to reach net zero by 2050.
A key milestone along the path to net zero is a 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and at DSM we are committed to enabling a double-digit reduction, on farm, in livestock emissions within the same timeframe. Fortunately, as an industry we already have the tools and scientific knowledge needed to achieve a 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases from eggs, meat, fish and milk by 2030. It will take courage and collaboration across the value chain to make this happen. And because it requires changes to the business of food and farming, we must unlock valuable market opportunities that improve sustainability.
Healthy incomes
Farms are businesses, and making changes to a business (e.g., making investments, adapting processes, additional training, etc. On the same subject : Wire WIC for better working families with no food.) all involve costs. The question is how to finance a food sustainability revolution, taking into account the modest income that farmers earn across the world. In developed countries such as in Western Europe, where farmers receive significant subsidies and the average livestock farm generates an income of 50,000 euros (about US$52,000) in 2020, there is an opportunity to link subsidies to improvements in sustainability.
A more farmer-focused system would reward more sustainable food production while ensuring affordability for consumers with the lowest incomes. This means freeing up choice for consumers — a powerful lever in competitive markets — by providing clear and reliable information about food sustainability. It also means taking advantage of new sources of income — for example green bonds or incentives and payments for environmental services — so that farmers have science-based tools and the capital they need to invest in improving the sustainability of farms that supporting people, profits and the planet.
An egg a day
It is important to remember that farm output and nutrition are inextricably linked. At DSM we work closely with partners across the world to help vulnerable people meet their daily nutritional requirements. This can start with something as simple as offering them an egg a day – the principle behind DSM’s Eggonomics initiative, launched in 2016 in Malawi, where 20 local farms now produce more than 25,000 eggs a day.
Eggonomics recently expanded to Brazil and Peru, and the goal is to eliminate malnutrition in more than 50,000 children and support an additional 2 million malnourished people during this decade. These projects rely on local farms, helping to boost the health of the local economy while providing vital nutrition to local populations.
Bright future
Although the challenges of rebuilding our agri-food system may seem significant, it is important to have hope for the future. Dramatic change, although sometimes hard to imagine, is achievable. In 1902, DSM was founded to mine coal reserves in the Netherlands. Over the years we have completely transformed. Our evolution has continued relentlessly since we closed the last mine in the early 1970s. Today, we are a global leader in health, nutrition and bioscience committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That focus may be why we see so many interconnections between healthy people, planet healthy and healthy income.
At DSM we have set ambitious targets in the form of our food system commitments. Rebuilding our food system is not something we will do alone. Together with our customers, partners, governments and other stakeholders, we make it possible.
This article series is sponsored by DSM Animal Nutrition and Health.
