Sustainable Food Production

The Future of our Food

The food industry is estimated to contribute between 18 to 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of these emissions stem from the production of food and are associated with managing livestock. Meat consumption, in particular beef and lamb, drives almost 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions in an average diet. Together with our diary consumption it covers 75% of our diet's carbon footprint.

Moreover, agriculture utilizes half of the world's habitable land, which in turn is the biggest driver of worldwide deforestation. A whopping 77% of our agricultural land is being used to meet the needs of our livestock, either through grazing grounds or for growing crops for our animals. In the world would adopt a plant-based diet, we would be able to reduce global agricultural land use from 4b to 1b hectares - a reduction of 75%.

The inefficiencies behind meat production become crystal clear when you realize that beef produces 18x the CO2 emissions of rice and 100x those of potatoes per kg of produce. Per 1.000 kilocalories of food, beef and lamb use almost 100x the amount of land compared to potatoes.

What these numbers illustrate is that meat production and consumption comes at a huge cost to society, and most of these costs are not factored into the price. With a world population that is expected to grow - from 7.8b people in 2020 to over 11b in 2100 - we will need to produce more food than ever to sustain our society.  

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Opportunities

• Plant-based food innovation: In order to sustainably feed this growing population, we need to shift away from using animal protein (through meat and dairy) as the basis of our diet, and favor/stimulate the adoption of plant-based diets. This will not only significantly reduce our diet's CO2 footprint, but also reduce the biggest driver behind deforestation.

• Vertical farming: climate change is challenging our global food security. It affects what can naturally grow when and where, while the increase in extreme weather events, such as droughts and massive rainfall, further jeopardizes our food production. Vertical farms can be a solution here as food is produced in a controlled environment. While this solution still requires more investment and technology to broaden its application and become more cost-efficient, I believe it is a missing piece in our global food production.

• Combatting food waste: a quarter of our food-related emissions stems from food that is never eaten. As such, food waste is a real issue that needs to be tackled. Broadly speaking, food waste can be split in two categories. Waste as the consumer throws away non-eaten food and waste somewhere in the supply chain process. In developed countries, consumer waste is a more important issue, while in developing countries more food waste occurs at production facilities due to, for instance, inappropriate facilities to store food.

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Selected Investments

• To be announced