A carbon footprint is an essential means of understanding the impact of a person’s behaviour on global warming. It is an indicator that accounts for GHGs (greenhouse gases), all of which have a different global warming power (GWP). GHGs in the atmosphere trap solar radiation refracted onto the earth’s surface. They are thus partly responsible for global warming.
Where do global greenhouse gas emissions come from?
The agricultural and food sector is responsible for about a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions.
A word of warning: With carbon footprint data, it is always important to understand what factors have been included. In this graph, for example, agriculture and food production are not congruent.
About one-third of the world's available land is used for livestock production (cropland and pasture). This makes livestock farming by far the most significant land user worldwide. About 30 per cent of global arable land is required for animal feed production.
Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (assigned to the agricultural sector) can be net sinks. Food production both consumes and produces greenhouse gases!
Educated food choices have the potential to reduce carbon emissions of the food supply chain by at least 50%.
The GHG emissions of nutrition add up from emissions along the value chain. Although the steps behind the supply chain for individual foods can vary considerably. Sometimes Landuse change, Farm and Animal Feed are used as single steps. In other data its combined under Agricultural production. Roughly, the value chain consists of these steps:
- Land Use Change
- Farm
- Animal Feed
- Processing
- Transport
- Retail
- Packaging
Agricultural production
Agriculture is a significant emitter of the three main GHGs, carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide, and methane. In fact, the latter two are predominantly from the agricultural sector at 60-70%.
Across all foods, the land use and farm stages of the supply chain account for 80% of GHG emissions. In beef production, for example, there are three key contributing factors to the carbon footprint at these stages: animal feed, land conversion, and methane production from cows.
Nitrous oxide: This GHG is primarily produced by fertilizing agricultural land with inorganic or organic nitrogen fertilizer - mainly when too much nitrogen fertilizer is applied, and the nitrogen is only partially usable by the plants.
Methane: In agriculture, methane is produced in particular during the digestion of ruminants. However, it is also formed when organic fertilizer is used and in rice cultivation on irrigated land.
Carbon dioxide: Compared to the former GHGs, agriculture produces relatively little carbon dioxide. It is mainly produced by agricultural machinery and irrigation systems that require diesel or other energy sources.
Most agricultural commodities undergo processing before consumption. Many are processed, cooled, dried, combined with other products, packaged, precooked, fried, and frozen. In addition, there are more or less long-distance transports between these processes. They all consume energy primarily from coal, natural gas or crude oil. These refinement processes especially generate CO2 emissions attributable to the GHG balance of food production.
transportation
While transportation does contribute to emissions, it plays a minor role in the overall carbon footprint of food. What you eat holds greater importance than where it comes from, as transport typically accounts for less than 10% of emissions for most food products.
Nevertheless: Air transport should be avoided, as airplanes have high CO2 emissions due to their high fuel consumption.
As a consumer, you cannot directly influence every process. But you can always decide in which store, from which brands and, above all, which products you buy.
Danksagung:
Erstellt mit Bildern von Riko Best - " aerial view of a tractor with a trailer fertilizes a freshly plowed agriculural field with manure in germany" • nordroden - "Agricultural plant in the middle of boundless agricultural land. A modern enterprise for the production of various livestock products." • littlewolf1989 - "Fruit and food distribution. Truck loaded with containers full of apples ready to be shipped to the market." • phpetrunina14 - "man get frozen food from fridge in store" • ArieStudio - "Mix of Expired Vegetables in a huge container, Organic bio waste in a rubbish bin. Heap of Compost from vegetables or food for animals."