Food and Agriculture

Abstract

This chapter considers food and agriculture as the most important economic sector to deeply decarbonize after energy. It explains how the simple act of eating a meal relies on an increasingly complex and global food system, which involves manufacturing and distributing inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds; producing agriculture; processing, distributing, and marketing products; and disposing of waste. It also considers food systems as more than market transactions as they involve a larger web of institutions, regulations, and relationships. The chapter highlights the association of greenhouse gas with all the components of the global food system, including growing, storing, and transporting the food. It looks at a study indicating how agricultural production yielded the vast majority of the food-related emissions, followed by fertilizer manufacturing, and then refrigeration.