Where the world’s food goes

Enough food is grown every year to feed everyone on the planet. The reason that hundreds of millions of people continue to go hungry isn’t to do with total production. It’s more to do with distribution, poverty or conflict. This study of global food flows illustrates how much is grown and where it goes. It features in Mike Berners-Lee’s new book and I thought I’d share it.

On the left we see the calories that go into the global food system, as crops grown or pasture. Some is then lost at harvest or in storage, in transport or processing. Cut down on food waste at all these different levels, and there’s more to go round.

We also see how much food goes to animals, in particular the share of crops that could have gone to people instead, in the ‘allocation’ phase. This too is an area where a different allocation could feed a lot more people. Eat less meat and dairy, and we can free up slack in the global food system – as well as lowering emissions and reducing animal suffering. A lot of people would be healthier too, although that isn’t true across the board and in some parts of the world people could do with more.

Speaking of more, there’s that final area of waste on the right, the unneeded calories consumed as excess. That’s an opportunity to improve health and free up global farming space too, just by eating the right amounts.

What I find interesting here is how many points of intervention there are along the way. We need to reduce the environmental impact of farming, for the sake of the climate and biodiversity, and there are many places to make improvements. All of them have co-benefits: reducing waste saves money. Cutting meat and dairy consumption improves animal welfare. Balanced diets are healthier.

None of that is easy of course. Entire books are written about each one of those intervention points. Campaigns are organised around them, with change unfolding over decades sometimes. Nevertheless, a food system that’s better for people and for the planet looks entirely possible.