How Fossil Fuels Became The Lifeblood Of The Food Supply.
A new report from renowned international thinktank IPES-Food, Fuel To Fork, documents how fossil fuels are the lifeblood of the food industry. From how food is grown, processed, and packaged, to how it's refrigerated and delivered, nearly every step is fossil fuel-based. Given ever more frequent climate-change fueled extreme weather events and their impacts on the food supply, the report could not be more timely.
Fossil fuels are deeply embedded in every part of the food chain – accounting for at least 15% of total fossil fuel use globally – and their use in food systems is accelerating.
'The food system isn't just a supply chain. It's a system that makes fossil-fueled farming, plastic packaging, and ultra-processing feel perfectly normal. Fossil fuels are there every step of the way, making normal some of the weirdest things about the way we eat', University of Texas research professor Raj Patel, quoted in Fuel to Fork.
You just bought a bag of salad, a bag of potato chips, a squeeze bottle of mustard and a pack of hot dogs.
The salad, picked by farmworkers commuting to work in gas powered trucks, the salad washed and sorted by fossil-fuel powered machines, bagged in clear poly plastic bags, transported to wholesalers and retailers in diesel powered trucks, shrink-wrapped in plastic poly, then merchandised in refrigerated store coolers powered mostly by fossil fuels.
The potatoes, grown with the use of fossil fuel-derived nitrogenous fertilizers and sprayed with fossil fuel-derived pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, and harvested by diesel powered tractors, washed and sorted by fossil fuel powered machines, transported to processors on diesel-powered trucks, sliced, deep fried, cooled and sorted by fossil-fuel powered processing lines, packaged in foil-lines plastic bags, boxed up and shrink-wrapped in clear poly plastic, transported to wholesalers and retailers on mostly diesel powered trucks.
The hot dogs, made from cows fed diets of genetically modified corn and soy, the crops grown through the use of fossil fuel based nitrogenous fertilizers and heavily sprayed with herbicides and pesticides partially derived from fossil fuels, the fattened cows transported on diesel trucks or coal powered rail cars, to abattoirs powered by fossil fuels, the cow parts wrapped in plastic poly wrap, the cases shrink wrapped in plastic poly wrap and transported to wholesalers and retailers on diesel trucks, where they are unwrapped, cut and displayed in refrigerated coolers or re-wrapped in plastic vacuum-sealed packaging for display in freezers, all powered primarily by fossil fuels.
This is how your whole pantry, every meal and every snack, is made from fossil fuels.
Food systems consume 15% of fossil fuels.
Fuel to Fork articulates a critical analysis of what drives the food system, with a hopeful vision of how it can evolve for the good of humanity and the planet. With catastrophic storms, wildfires and floods becoming more commonplace, such a program could not have come at a better time.
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