Food impacts on species extinction risks can vary by three orders of magnitude

Abstract

Agriculturally driven habitat degradation and destruction is the biggest threat to global biodiversity. Yet the impact of different foods and where they are produced on species extinction risks, and the mitigation potential of different interventions, remain poorly quantified. Here we link the LIFE biodiversity metric—a high-resolution global layer describing the marginal impact of land use on extinctions of ~30,000 vertebrate species—with food consumption and production data and provenance modelling. Using an opportunity cost framing, we estimate that the impact of producing 1 kg of different food commodities on species extinction risks varies widely both across and within foods, in many cases by more than an order of magnitude. Despite marked differences in per capita impacts across countries, there are consistent patterns that could be leveraged for mitigating harm to biodiversity. In particular, animal products and commodities grown in the tropics are generally much more impactful than staple crops and vegetables. What we eat, as well as where and how it is grown, impacts species extinction risks through agricultural land use. Using a new global biodiversity impact data product, this study estimates how many species extinctions may potentially be caused by the production and consumption of different food types on a country-by-country basis.