Photo: fao.org“ Eva María Iglesias is Coordinator and Professor of the Master in Integrated Management Systems-HSEQ (Healthy Safety Environmental and Quality), and Coordinator of the Environmental Unit at Bureau Veritas University Center.”
Everyone is aware of the overexploitation that has occurred through intensive, high-tech monoculture agriculture, which gradually leads to the desertification of the planet and the loss of biodiversity , while depleting other resources such as water, producing pollution through the use of highly toxic and persistent chemical pesticides and fertilizers in the environment, contaminating aquifers and surface waters, and generating greenhouse gas emissions that aggravate the phenomenon of global climate change. These are just some of the direct and indirect environmental impacts of agricultural and food processing activities. And obviously, apart from the obvious environmental effects, it has serious social and economic impacts.
According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of linkedin data the United Nations) “in order to achieve sustainable development, it is essential that there are fundamental changes in the way in which food is produced, processed, transported and consumed”, this is the most significant evidence that shows us to what extent the way of producing and consuming food has shown an increasingly unsustainable tendency with the ecosystems and natural resources of the planet.
In 1960, world cereal production was 1 billion tonnes for 3.3 billion people. In 2010, 2.2 billion tonnes were produced for 6.9 billion people, and 870 million people are currently suffering from hunger. And the forecasts are not encouraging: according to scientific studies, 3.4 billion tonnes will be produced in 2050, for 9.2 billion people.
The environmental consequences of these production figures (for cereals only) are a 160% increase in greenhouse gases, a 4°C increase in global warming, an 8% reduction in the productivity of arable land, a 33% reduction in plant biodiversity and a 23% loss of water for agricultural use.
It is therefore clear that the global agricultural sector must learn to save , in the initiative that the FAO has called “ Save and Grow ”, that is, an intensification of agricultural production must be achieved in a sustainable way.
Apart from the most basic and fundamental function of supplying food to the world's population, it also plays a role in the development of rural communities for which it represents a livelihood, and is endangered if it ceases, generally causing migration to cities and abandonment of fertile agricultural land.
Therefore, the triangle of environmental management must be applied , in which the social, economic and environmental points of view must always be taken into account, and in order for it to work, none of them should take precedence over the other. This task is undoubtedly very complicated, but thanks to the progress of our society it is possible with the new hopeful trends.
In order to develop food in a sustainable way, the way in which it is produced, marketed, consumed and converted into waste must be carefully evaluated . There has been an increasing tendency to produce and process products and package them in order to satisfy the current food needs of the population in developed countries and to increase the shelf life of products. This results in a greater production of non-biodegradable waste such as plastics, etc., which represents an additional environmental problem to those mentioned above.