Sustainable RDN

CAFOs, communities, and alternatives to industrial agriculture: Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy podcast

Listen to this podcast to find out more about viable agricultural alternatives to confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

https://wfpc.sanford.duke.edu/podcasts/cafos-communities-and-alternatives-industrial-agriculture

“Are there models for livestock production that support both farmers and communities? Today, we’re going to explore the complex nature of relationships between farmers and nearby communities and the impact of industrial agricultural practices, such as CAFOs, [which] stands for concentrated animal feeding operations, on those relationships. Our guests today are policy advocate Sarah Carden with Farm Action and community organizer Monica Brooks from the Maryland State Commission for Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities.”

To watch the trailer of a new documentary, “The Smell of Money,” which documents the price being paid for the world’s pork by raising hogs in CAFOs in North Carolina, go to:

The Smell of Money (Documentary)

https://www.smellofmoneydoc.com/

Farms following soil-friendly practices grow healthier food, study suggests

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/944624

Excerpt:

“A new study, published in January in the journal PeerJ, looks at how regenerative farming practices — soil-building techniques that minimize plowing, use cover crops, and plant diverse crops — affect the nutritional content of the food.

Results of the preliminary experiment, which included 10 farms across the U.S., show that the crops from farms following soil-friendly practices for at least five years had a healthier nutritional profile than the same crops grown on neighboring, conventional farms. Results showed a boost in certain minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals that benefit human health.

“We couldn’t find studies that related directly to how the health of the soil affects what gets into crops,” said lead author David Montgomery, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. “So we did the experiment that we wished was out there.”

Montgomery designed the study during research for his upcoming book, “What Your Food Ate,” due out in June. His spouse, Anne Biklé, is a biologist and co-author of the study and the upcoming book.”

Source: https://peerj.com/articles/12848/

Citation: Montgomery DR, Biklé A, Archuleta R, Brown P, Jordan J. 2022. Soil health and nutrient density: preliminary comparison of regenerative and conventional farming. PeerJ 10:e12848 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12848

Less food, more wildfires in North America with climate change: IPCC report

https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/less-food-more-wildfires-in-north-america-with-climate-change

“Global warming “is causing dangerous and widespread disruptions in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world,” said a UN climate change report on Monday. Hotter weather and shifts in rainfall are likely to reduce food production in North America and are a risk to food security, said a fact sheet on climate change’s impacts on the continent.”

“Climate change will continue to shift North American agricultural and fishery suitability ranges (high confidence), and intensify production losses of key crops (high confidence), livestock (medium confidence), fisheries (high confidence) and aquaculture products (medium confidence),” said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Intensified droughts and earlier runoff from diminished snowpack will increase water scarcity during the summer peak water demand period, especially in regions with extensive irrigated agriculture, leading to economic losses and increased pressures on limited groundwater as a substitute for diminished surface water supplies,” said the IPCC in comments directed at the U.S. West and northern Mexico.

“Coastal, riverine, and urban flooding affecting communities and ecosystems will become a dominant risk to (North American) urban centres, displacing people, compromising economic activity, disrupting transportation and trade infrastructure,” said the report. “Large wildfires will increasingly endanger lives, livelihoods, mental and physical health, property, key infrastructure, and economic activities and contribute to compromised air quality and municipal water contamination with multiple human health implications.”

You can download the summary for policymakers, technical summary, and full report here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/

Interventions that influence animal-product consumption: a meta-review

A meta-review on interventions that aim to influence animal-product consumption was published recently in the journal, Future Foods.

The authors found that informing consumers about the environmental consequences of meat consumption may reduce consumption. Providing information on health impacts, emphasizing positive social norms around plant-based diets, and reducing meat portion sizes also appeared promising, although with more limited evidence. “Reviews examining interventions that decreased consumption predominately focused on meat (10/12 reviews).”

The authors concluded that, “[f]uture reviews should conduct quantitative syntheses where appropriate and examine interventions that influence the consumption of animal products other than meat.” See below URL to access the article in its entirety.

Key words: Animal products, Behavior change, Plant-based diet, Nutrition, Food choice, Planetary health

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666833521000976?via%3Dihub

Citation: Grundy, E. A. C., Slattery, P., Saeri, A. K., Watkins, K., Houlden, T., Farr, N., Askin, H., Lee, J., Mintoft-Jones, A., Cyna, S., Dziegielewski, A., Gelber, R., Rowe, A., Mathur, M. B., Timmons, S., Zhao, K., Wilks, M., Peacock, J. R., Harris, J., … Zorker, M. (2022). Interventions that influence animal-product consumption: A meta-review. Future Foods, 5, [100111]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fufo.2021.100111

A Climate Wake-Up: new report

An important new report titled “A Climate Wake-Up” was published by Forest 500, a project of Global Canopy. The report analyzes commitments to address deforestation as well as human rights commitments in the financial sector, food sector, and within agri-commodity companies. In its 2022 annual report, it is noted that:

Nearly three out of four (72%) of the 350 companies do not have a deforestation commitment for all of the forest-risk commodities in their supply chains.
One-third (117/350) of companies have no deforestation commitments at all – a small decrease on last year.
While 28 companies published a new commitment to address deforestation since last year, just 11 of these have a deforestation commitment for all of the commodities they are exposed to.
Many companies with commitments are failing to provide evidence of how they are implementing them, particularly for soy, beef and leather supply chains.
None of the companies assessed had a comprehensive approach to human rights.

The report further points out that,

“While consumers are clear that they do not want deforestation on their plates, 27 of the 103 food sector companies assessed do not have a deforestation commitment for all of the beef, soy, and palm that they are exposed to in their supply chain.

While companies in the food sector are most likely to have a commitment to end deforestation in palm oil supply chains, they are less likely to have a commitment for soy or beef supply chains.

Some 75% of the soy produced globally is used for animal feed, so is a hidden ingredient in fish, meat and dairy products.

27% of food sector companies in palm supply chains do not have a commitment that covers their palm oil sourcing

58% of food sector companies in soy supply chains do not have a deforestation commitment for their soy supplies

And just 37% of those with a deforestation commitment for soy apply it to hidden soy

64% of food sector companies in beef supply chains do not have a deforestation commitment for their beef supplies.” (p. 20)

Recommendations are presented for Forest 500 companies and financial institutions, governments, and civil society.

Source: Forest 500, A Project of Global Canopy. A Climate Wake-Up: But Business Failing to Hear the Alarm on Deforestation, January 2022.

You can access the full report at: https://forest500.org/sites/default/files/forest500_2022report_final.pdf

New environmental labelling system unveiled

“Belgium academics have unveiled a new environmental labelling system that enables easy recognition of the degree of environmental sustainability of food and beverages at point of sale.”

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/02/08/new-environmental-labelling-system-unveiled#:~:text=The%20system%20allows%20companies%20to,and%20Sustainable%20Processes%20at%20AZTI.

Podcast (TABLE): Phil Howard on corporate consolidation, author of Concentration and Power in the Food System

In their first Feed episode about power, TABLE speaks with Phil Howard, author of Concentration and Power in the Food System, a book that asks “who controls what we eat?” You can access the podcast directly at: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode20

To learn more about Dr. Howard’s book, see: Concentration and Power in the Food System. Who Controls What We Eat? Revised Edition (2021) Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2778054/concentration-and-power-in-the-food-system-who-controls-what-we-eat-revised-edition-pdf?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&campaignid=15913701111&adgroupid=131883360629&gclid=CjwKCAiAgbiQBhAHEiwAuQ6BklCPbHP7V8XxU4Au3LvLbaG1OM63pemR24uKbC-ly359Tpd49VLvFxoCA-IQAvD_BwE

Eat-Lancet diet reduces death risk by 25%, study finds

Researchers reported recently in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that,

“[W]e developed an index to quantify adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet and assess its relation to mortality in a large, population-based Swedish cohort. Our main findings showed that those with the highest adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet had a 25% lower risk of mortality, with a clear linear trend. Detailed analyses of food components included in the diet indicated that several food components contributed to this observation, which highlights the importance of an overall healthy diet…”

“In our study, several of the food components included in the index, including higher consumption of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits and lower consumption of eggs, seemed to contribute to the lower mortality associated with high adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet…”

“Regarding seafood, there might be a potential conflict between dietary intake recommendations and sustainability, depending on the type of fish consumed and the production methods used…”

“In conclusion, we developed a new dietary index to investigate adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet, and this study indicates that the EAT-Lancet diet, as assessed with this EAT-Lancet index, is associated with a lower risk of mortality. Our findings show the value of providing a set of recommendations that reflects a dietary pattern, and contribute to the evidence base to be used when developing sustainable dietary guidelines and policies.”

Source: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqab369/6427338

Citation: Anna Stubbendorff, Emily Sonestedt, Stina Ramne, Isabel Drake, Elinor Hallström, Ulrika Ericson, Development of an EAT-Lancet index and its relation to mortality in a Swedish population, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2021; nqab369, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqab369

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Changing your diet could add up to 13 years of your life, study says

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/08/health/longer-life-diet-wellness/index.html

“Changing what you eat could add up to 13 years to your life, according to a newly published study, especially if you start when you are young.

The study created a model of what might happen to a man or woman’s longevity if they replaced a “typical Western diet” focused on red meat and processed foods with an “optimized diet” focused on eating less red and processed meat and more fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts…”

“To model the future impact of a person’s change of diet, researchers from Norway used existing meta-analyses and data from the Global Burden of Disease study, a database that tracks 286 causes of death, 369 diseases and injuries, and 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories around the world.

The largest gains in longevity were found from eating more legumes, which include beans, peas and lentils; whole grains, which are the entire seed of a plant; and nuts such as walnuts, almonds, pecans and pistachios, the study found.

It may sound simple to add more plants and grains to your diet, but statistics show that Americans struggle to do so. A new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found few Americans eat close to their daily recommendations of fruits and vegetables.

The CDC study found that only 12% of adults consume 1½ to 2 cups of fruit each day, which is the amount recommended by the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Only 10% of Americans eat the recommended 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day, including legumes.

About 50% of grain consumption should be whole grains, yet over 95% of Americans fail to meet that goal, according to the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans, instead eating processed grains, which have been milled to remove the grain, bran and many nutrients, including fiber.

Over 50% of Americans fail to eat the 5 grams (about a teaspoon) of recommended nuts and seeds each day, the guidelines said.”

Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003889

Citation: Fadnes LT, Økland J-M, Haaland ØA, Johansson KA (2022) Estimating impact of food choices on life expectancy: A modeling study. PLoS Med 19(2): e1003889. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003889

New paper shows: ‘a win on climate is a win for health’

New paper shows: ‘A win on climate is a win for health’

“From ramping up clean electricity to eliminating food waste. From designing cities for walking and biking to preserving ecosystems. Projects that lead to a low-carbon society and limit climate change will have more and greater benefits for health than previously realized.

Those are findings from a new commentary in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health from collaborators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Global Health Institute (GHI) and Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Project Drawdown and the University of Minnesota.

In “Climate Solutions Double as Health Interventions,” the team analyzes how Project Drawdown’s 80 solutions that build on existing technologies and practices to limit global warming will also improve human health. Looking at nine sectors, from energy to environmental resources, they identified health benefits “through improved air quality, increased physical activity, healthier diets, reduced risk of infectious disease, improved sexual and reproductive health, and universal education.”

Source: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/13339

Citation: Mailloux, N.A.; Henegan, C.P.; Lsoto, D.; Patterson, K.P.; West, P.C.; Foley, J.A.; Patz, J.A. Climate Solutions Double as Health Interventions. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 13339. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413339