PNNL

Abstract

Despite producing enough food for 10 billion people, our current food system leaves one in ten at risk of hunger while causing severe environmental impacts. Using an ensemble of 10 global economic models, we evaluated three food system transformation measures and economy wide climate mitigation. Individual measures—increasing agricultural productivity, reduction of food loss and waste, dietary shifts, and ambitious climate change mitigation— show limited benefits when implemented alone due to system feedback effects. However, combining these measures produces co-benefits: avoiding 50% of projected agricultural emissions and 20% of land conversion by 2050, while moderating the food price increases associated with climate policies. Our findings demonstrate that bundling of actions that leverage relationships between supply-side, demand-side, and climate mitigation measures can address the complex interactions within the global food system to achieve multiple sustainability goals simultaneously.