The country feeds nearly 20% of the global population, but must do so with less than 9% of its arable land and only 6% of its water resources, according to Reuters. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and more frequent droughts and floods are battering Chinese agriculture, jeopardizing decades of food self-sufficiency policy. Wheat, rice and maize – the cornerstones of the country’s food system – are increasingly exposed to climate shocks.

“Climate change poses a severe threat to China’s food security,” former agriculture minister Tang Renjian said in early 2024, noting that extreme weather events have already reduced yields in several major grain-producing provinces. In the same year, the Ministry of Agriculture warned that “unusual changes in temperature and rainfall can slow down the growth of food crops, resulting in a drop in the average yield of grains.”

China’s agricultural sector is uniquely sensitive to climate change. The northern plains, home to a majority of China’s wheat production, are becoming hotter and drier. The southern provinces, which grow much of the country’s rice, are increasingly prone to flooding. According to the China Meteorological Administration, average national temperatures have risen faster than the global average, climbing more than 1.6°C since the 1950s.

The country has managed to preserve about 95% self-sufficiency in wheat for nearly two decades. But climate stress is forcing new strategies to the fore, both in agricultural practices and in international trade.

To address growing risks, the Chinese government has embedded climate adaptation directly into its agricultural-reform agenda. The country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021 to 2025) prioritizes investments in water-saving irrigation, climate-resilient seeds, precision farming technologies and early-warning systems for extreme weather.

In addition to bolstering domestic yields, China is hedging its food security by deepening trade relations along its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) network, especially with countries in the Global South, to secure grain from a broader base of suppliers.

China seeks to limit agricultural imports

Wheat has historical and cultural roots that run deep in China, and the stakes for maintaining supply stability are high. The country consumes more than 130 million tonnes of wheat annually, largely to produce staples like noodles, dumplings and steamed buns. While the bulk of demand is met by domestic harvests, higher-end processed foods increasingly rely on imported wheat with specific quality characteristics – particularly from countries like Canada, France, Australia and the United States.

But as Trump’s universal tariffs strategy demonstrates, trade relations are anything but predictable.

In 2019, Canada was China’s leading supplier of imported wheat. By mid-2020, that changed dramatically. The diplomatic row over the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou led to a sharp drop in Canadian wheat purchases, down from more than 50% of imports in 2019 to just 15% by mid-2020. The influential online Chinese media portal Sohu blamed “wrong decisions” made by Canada for the souring of trade ties.

Australia, once a beneficiary of Canada’s fall from favour, has seen its own wheat exports face heightened inspections in China. While this hasn’t triggered a formal ban, it’s a sign that bilateral tensions can quickly spill into food trade.

These shifting trade patterns highlight a deeper strategic calculus. China wants to limit its dependence on Western suppliers for food staples, just as it has for semiconductors and energy. Expanding partnerships with emerging economies such as Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Brazil are a cornerstone of this plan.

Challenges for China’s agricultural productivity

Meanwhile, internal agricultural productivity is under stress. In a 2022 report, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences estimated that climate-related yield reductions could amount to 5% to 10% by 2030 under current warming trends. One study estimated that China’s key cereal crops could lose around 2.6% yield per degree Celsius of warming, with more vulnerable regions facing up to 12.7% loss per degree across wheat, rice and maize. Another study with different crop modelling – in this case without carbon dioxide fertilization – projected up to 37% yield decline within decades if warming continues unchecked.

For a country where 1.4 billion people depend on food-system stability, even small disruptions can cascade.

China isn’t short on ambition to use technology to solve big problems. It leads the world in the development of hybrid rice varieties and is rapidly digitizing its farm sector with satellite monitoring, AI-driven pest prediction and big-data analytics for yield forecasting. Other innovations come from its “Smart Agriculture” program, which integrates advanced tools such as sensors, drones and blockchain technology into the food supply chain.

Historical memory still shapes China’s focus on food security, especially the famine of 1958 to 1962 that led to the deaths of an estimated 15 to 55 million people – one of the deadliest disasters of the 20th century. While today’s threats are different, the possibility of disruption carries echoes of the past. The Chinese government’s commitment to self-reliance now finds new motivation in the science of climate change.

Gordon Feller is a writer based in San Francisco.

The post Climate change is battering China’s agriculture sector. Here’s how it is responding. appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Duckweed isn’t tasty – unless you’re a duck – but the flavour is at least inoffensive, and it packs a powerful nutritional punch. The plant’s miniature leaves contain uniquely high concentrations of rubisco, a ubiquitous protein that has been recognized by scientists as ideal for human consumption, according to the standards of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Duckweed’s protein density and high yield are part of the secret sauce that has made the California-based start-up Plantible a darling of venture capitalists. In November, the company closed a US$30-million “series B” funding round to expand its manufacturing operations at its 100-acre “vertically integrated biology platform” in West Texas, also known as the Ranchito. The new financing brings Plantible’s total fundraising to US$57 million since its founding in 2018. Investors include the venture arms of both Kellogg and Chipotle.

This isn’t the first time that duckweed has garnered attention as a potential superfood. Wolffia and Spirodela are two other varieties that have been acclaimed and whose powdered form can be purchased at online stores and health food shops. But apart from in Southeast Asia, where Wolffia (or Mankai) is a traditional ingredient, neither has escaped the tight niche of vegan dietary supplements.

Plantible’s approach is different and may set it on a path for wider adoption. Rather than market to consumers, the company sells directly to food manufacturers like ICL Food Specialties, attracted by the low environmental impact and stable, high-volume supply – Lemna doubles its mass every two to three days and can be grown indoors with 95% recycled water – as well as its non-allergenic properties, nutritive value and ease of digestion.

Plantible put its first commercial product on the market in 2023, an egg replacement for baked goods. Called Ruby Whisk, it claims to whip up better than the real thing, binds unsaturated fats like a dream and emulsifies perfectly. The company has since added Rubi Prime, an ingredient for imitation meat and seafood whose virtues include something called “thermo-irreversible binding.”

A rollercoaster for plant-based protein companies

Anyone who’s been watching the plant-based-proteins space will be rightly wary of hype for new entrants. The market was set for explosive growth in 2019 as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods found pickup in fast-food chains and meat companies started investing big in plant-based product lines. By 2020, Bloomberg Intelligence forecasted that the market would enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 18.6% to 2030. But the boom never materialized, at least in part because of an aggressive smear campaign by food industry lobbyists. After rising quickly, sales plateaued and then declined sharply. Beyond Meat’s shares now trade for less than $5, from a peak of nearly $200.

But plant-based proteins aren’t just a fad. Consumers are more health-conscious than ever, and the appetite for vegetarian and vegan options is growing. “We’re still very optimistic about the long-term opportunity and growth potential for the industry,” said Jen Bartashus, a senior research analyst at Bloomberg, on a podcast in 2023.

Recent analysis by other market intelligence firms has been tempered but upbeat, projecting between 7.5% and 8.1% compound annual growth rate over the next few years and citing “heightened awareness and adoption of plant-based diets among consumers, emphasizing the importance of protein-rich plant sources.”

Plantible already has tens of millions of dollars in contracts, according to MSN, and other duckweed start-ups are rushing to catch up. GreenOnyx in Israel has raised US$47 million, and Flo Wolffia in Thailand, DryGrow in the United Kingdom and microTerra in Mexico are all vying for a piece of the action.

Whatever Plantible’s place in the transition, the way we source plant proteins is changing. According to a paper on duckweed for the food and feed industry published in the journal Foods in May, “it is common knowledge that soy and maize will not be the definitive source of plant proteins as mycoproteins, algae proteins, seaweed proteins and bacterial proteins will tend to become the sources of proteins that will feed the world.”

But trends aside, diets don’t change easily. The pace of the protein revolution will depend on how well companies learn from each other’s mistakes. By targeting producers rather than consumers, Plantible seems to have found a fresh burst of momentum.

Mark Mann is a journalist in Montreal and the associate editor at Corporate Knights. 

The post This California start-up raised $30 million to make plant protein from pond weeds appeared first on Corporate Knights.

How the initiatives were born

In the Netherlands, which has led the protein split initiatives, the idea was born after roundtables between food-system advocacy groups and retailers were held to discuss what the country calls a “protein transition” – a food system shift aimed at reducing dependency on meat and other proteins sourced from livestock.

Examples of animal proteins used to calculate the splits include fish, dairy, meat and eggs. Plant proteins include beans, pulses, nuts and seeds, as well as meat and dairy alternatives.

Though discussions around eating less meat are often fraught and contentious, this particular idea came about collaboratively. “It was fully voluntary [and later] the government . . . included it in their own protein monitor and commissioned the publication of the first national protein split,” says Pablo Moleman of ProVeg, a Dutch non-governmental organization that advocates for a more plant-based food system. From there, the idea spread to other European NGOs and international retail outlets, he says.

Initial results of protein split initiatives are promising

The split initiatives appear to be working, at least for one major Dutch retailer, where meat sales have fallen. The supermarket, Jumbo, is the second-largest in the Netherlands and made headlines in March by ending discounts on fresh animal meat as part of efforts to flip its current protein split sales from 60% animal/40% plant to 60% plant/40% animal by 2030.

Other major supermarkets that have publicly committed to reaching 60% plant protein sales in the Netherlands by 2030 include Aldi, Dirk, Ekoplaza and Lidl, according to a government-commissioned protein split assessment published in March this year.

The emergence of the protein split initiative in the Netherlands is not surprising. Years of intensive farming, which made the country one of the world’s leading dairy and pork exporters, have also turned the country into a nitrogen pollution hot spot.

There are also rising concerns about public health, especially heart disease, as well as concern over diseases that spread from animals to humans. Active civil-society groups have been a factor, too, raising public awareness of intensive livestock production’s negative impact on the climate, air and water, says Florian Wall of Madre Brava, an NGO that advocates for sustainable food systems.

Earlier this year, a survey of Dutch consumers found that consumers’ highest motivation for eating less meat and dairy was health, followed by animal welfare and environmental concerns.

Other efforts to reduce the effects of intensive animal protein production include a Dutch-led search for alternative proteins, like lab-grown meats, and a recent government announcement that it aims to increase the consumption of plant proteins to 50% of the national diet by 2030.

Yet another factor pushing the Netherlands ahead of other countries is size. The small country has become a global hub for food production and innovation, growing lots of food on tiny plots that are, in some ways, the exact opposite of America’s vast agricultural lands. But being so innovative cuts both ways, Moleman says: the country has one of the highest livestock densities in the world, but also the highest per capita consumption of meat alternatives in Europe.

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It’s too soon to tell what impact the end of fresh meat discounts will have on Jumbo’s protein split, but since the summer of 2022, when major Dutch retailers first set their protein split targets, company data shows that previous efforts to boost plant sales have succeeded, says Moleman, whose NGO co-authored the Dutch protein split assessment.

Jumbo’s plant-boosting initiatives include the introduction of price parity between animal meats and the supermarket’s own brand of plant alternatives. This led to a jump of 15% in alternative sales and, during the full year 2023, a drop of 3% in conventional meat sales.

At Lidl’s Dutch supermarkets, the current split is 61% animal-sourced meat versus 39% plant sales, and the company is aiming for a similar flip to selling 60% plant proteins by 2030. As part of that effort, Lidl ran a test project that placed alt-meats next to animal meats, resulting in a 7.14% increase in plant-based sales, Moleman says. It also launched a minced-beef product that uses 40% pea protein, is 33% cheaper than pure ground beef and produces 37.5% less emissions.

Although Moleman says it is too soon for concrete emissions-reduction data, lowering animal protein sales is expected to be a priority, given that about 34% of indirect, or Scope 3, grocery emissions come from meat, and 17% from dairy. The drive to reduce sales from animal-sourced meat will likely accelerate as supermarkets’ own emission targets kick in, with a recent study by Madre Brava finding that the 15 largest European supermarket chains “have a target in place or will set one by the end of this year to reduce emissions from the food they sell.”

Even partial reductions of meat and dairy sales should have major climate impacts. Another Madre Brava study found that six major food providers could cut their meat-sales emissions by 40% if they replaced half their beef, pork and chicken with legumes, tofu and plant-based meat alternatives.

Now, more European supermarkets have begun publishing their own protein split initiatives, although not all are committing to specific targets. The broader European protein split uptake, Wall says, is driven by factors that include both the emergence of flexitarian consumers and emissions concerns. Just as in the Netherlands, he says, “campaigning by animal welfare and environmental groups . . . has helped create a growing segment of conscious consumers . . . looking to cut down on meat and dairy consumption.”

Forward-looking retailers see the shift to selling fewer animal-based products as a way to meet their climate goals. As French retail giant Carrefour told Madre Brava, “a shift from animal proteins to vegetal proteins will be necessary to achieve our Scope 3 [emissions] targets.”

How the U.K. is doing with its reduction goals

In the U.K., where participating grocery chains tend to include fewer products in their protein splits, Lidl’s latest data shows it is selling about 15% plant-based protein foods and about 7% dairy alternatives. The U.K. chain Sainsbury’s annual data shows that about 15% of protein sales are plants, while the dairy split is 7% plant-based. Tesco’s latest disclosure shows a similar plant/animal split of 11% plant/89% animal-sourced and a dairy split of 7% plant versus 93% meat and other animal-sourced food.

Because of the different measurement systems, it’s difficult to compare the effectiveness of the Dutch and U.K. splits. Although there are no individual protein split targets, several U.K. retailers have signed up to a World Wildlife Fund commitment, called the WWF Basket, that includes an “ambition . . . for retailers to work towards a 50-50 split between sales of plant and animal proteins by 2030.”

Is there any hope for something similar in the United States?

To a U.S. consumer, these initiatives might sound a bit like hopeful fan fiction; one more example of the way Europe is so far ahead of the United States when it comes to combatting climate change through addressing food systems.

Wall says that although they lag behind Europe, cities like New York, with its university and healthcare company–backed Plant-Powered Carbon Challenge, are blazing a trail.

He holds out hope, too, that European protein split leaders – which own U.S. brands like Giant and Stop & Shop – might bring “inspiration from what’s happening in Europe” to their locations in the United States.

Culture wars over meat inevitably make these kinds of transitions harder, Moleman says, adding that the Netherlands has its own share of polarization around meat and livestock. But that makes it all the more important for supermarkets to be involved, he argues.

Protein split initiatives have had some challenges, Moleman says. They often work better when major retailers publicly commit together, mainly because being the one to renege in that situation would be bad publicity. Government support for plant-based goals and broader behaviour change are important too, he says, as well as improvements in the quality and availability of meat alternatives. Finally, he adds, there are some relatively painless options supermarkets can take, such as removing egg yolks from salad dressing and reducing the meat content of ready meals and adding more plants.

“It is important to realize that the extreme opposition represents a very small but vocal minority, and we should not worry too much about convincing them. There is a much larger group of people that are on the fence; they are not very keen on alternative proteins or on changing their diets, but they broadly support measures to improve planetary and human health,” he says.

At the same time, Moleman warns, plant-based advocates should avoid falling into the trap of becoming culture warriors themselves. “It is crucial that the plant-based movement comes out of its progressive bubble and reaches out to people on the fence.”

Grocery stores, then, are in a unique position to get people eating more plants. Outside of the “progressive bubble,” supermarkets can be a “crucial partner,” Moleman says, one that can “reach almost the whole of society.”

This article was originally published by Sentient. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style.

The post Dutch supermarkets are trying to get shoppers to choose plant-based proteins over meat appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“It damages their teeth, and eventually the cows or goats die,” Kitol says. The thickets also provide cover for predators like wild dogs and hyenas. “They hide there because it is so thick that you can’t see them. At night, when the goats or sheep walk around, they are attacked and killed.”

Last year, experts with Penn State’s PlantVillage project, which helps smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, arrived to train Kitol and others in the area on a clever way to turn mathenge from a problem into an asset. Workers gather up those troublesome weeds – biomass – and convert them into biochar, concentrated carbon that they “charge” with nutrients by mixing it with manure. Farmers then apply the mixture to their fields, sometimes planting grass that provides fodder for livestock. Kitol says that the biochar helps his soils retain water and improves their fertility, leading to higher yields.

Well beyond Kenya, biochar is having a moment: the worldwide market was worth $600 million last year and could rise to more than $3 billion next year. Anywhere people are producing waste biomass – corn stalks, weeds, dead trees – they’re also producing a powerful tool for sequestering carbon and improving soils. And if farmers can prove how much biomass they’re turning into biochar, they can prove how much carbon they’re putting back into the ground. Through a group like PlantVillage, a company can then pay those farmers to offset its carbon emissions. (Biochar in general accounts for more than 90% of durable carbon credits that have already been delivered worldwide.)

So with biochar, farmers are getting a new source of income and a way to better retain rainwater and boost yields. They’re helping mitigate climate change while adapting to its ravages. “Helping to solve an invasive species and land degradation problem, and produce biochar at the same time, is amazing,” says James Gerber, a data scientist who studies agriculture at the non-profit climate group Project Drawdown. “Anything that gets money into the hands of smallholder farmers in Africa is probably just a good thing. But if it’s part of a functional, verifiable carbon-credit program, even better.”

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The trick to making biochar is pyrolysis. As people have known for millennia, if you expose biomass to very high temperatures but in a low-oxygen environment, it doesn’t combust into all-consuming flames; it turns into a kind of charcoal. Companies can do this with big industrial chambers, producing the biochar you can buy for your garden. Smallholder farmers can do it by digging a pit and adding biomass in layers, which restricts oxygen to the smouldering fire at the bottom. A simple kind of metal kiln does the same.

Whatever the method, the plant material isn’t fully combusting and billowing smoke. With biochar, you end up with concentrated, solid carbon. “It’s essentially coal,” says David Hughes, the founder of PlantVillage. “It goes into the ground and it doesn’t break down, and this is because of the temperature you’ve exposed it to.”

Because biochar is so spongy, it helps the soil retain more water – an especially welcome trait given the worsening droughts in Africa and elsewhere. But that sponginess also demands special care when applying to a field. “If you just put biochar into the soil, it will suck up all the nutrients in there, and your plants will do worse,” Hughes says. “So you have to charge it with nutrients. You can do that with compost or NPK – nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium – blends.”

Traditionally, a farmer might burn piles of waste like corn stalks, emitting carbon into the atmosphere. If different farms across a landscape are doing this after a harvest, air quality plummets and imperils human health.

So for a group like Biochar Life, which provides carbon-removal offsets for biochar, the first step is to get a farmer to stop processing their waste biomass the old way. “We need to prove that the farmer didn’t burn it or just leave it there and let the biomass decompose and create methane,” says Aom Kwanpiromtara Suksri, the co-founder and global head of development and compliance at Biochar Life, which has offices in Asia and Africa and has formed a partnership with PlantVillage.

To be sure, carbon offset systems have been plagued with problems. One is a perverse incentive to deforest an area and plant trees again, selling those credits to companies. Where there’s been deforestation from logging or agriculture, planting a bunch of a single species of tree doesn’t create a proper ecosystem. There’s no boost to biodiversity, and tree plantations don’t sequester nearly as much carbon as a real forest.

By contrast, Biochar Life says that its offset system is easier to quantify and that it’s so far distributed more than $300,000 to farmers, and $265,000 to local teams that verify the credits. “We can’t generate a credit until we’ve proven that we’ve generated biochar, and that biochar has been charged and put back into the ground,” says Matt Rickard, Biochar Life’s chief operating officer.

Then there’s an issue of permanence: if farmers plant a bunch of trees and a drought strikes, and those trees all wilt or catch on fire, their carbon is going right back into the atmosphere. Scientists are still working out how long biochar can last in different kinds of soils and climates, but indications are that it can last thousands or possibly millions of years. And compared to waiting for a tree to grow and capture carbon, adding biochar to soil sequesters the carbon in the ground immediately.

“Biochar, it’s kind of chemically locked in – it’d be very difficult to reverse that,” Gerber says. “For me, that is the most important reason that biochar has greater potential for carbon credits.”

And unlike planting a new forest and walking away, farmers can keep producing biomass, charging it with nutrients, and adding it to the soil year after year. At the very least, a smallholder farmer like Kitol is getting a better handle on an invasive species while boosting yields and preparing his soils for the drier times ahead. “I see the future of biochar as promising,” he says. “Biochar will be widely used as more people recognize its benefits.”

This article originally appeared in Grist. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Grist is a non-profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at grist.org. 

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In 2015, the World Health Organization declared glyphosate a “Probable Human Carcinogen.” This link to cancer was reinforced in January 2024 when a jury in the United States concluded Roundup caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and ordered chemical company Bayer — which purchased Roundup producer Monsanto in 2018 — to pay US$2.5 billion in damages. Bayer has announced it intends to appeal the verdict.

Scientists have also raised concerns about the environmental harms of long-term glyphosate application. To name just a few, glyphosate threatens honey bee populations and has been found to kill birds, fish and soil microorganisms, all of which are crucial for ecosystem health.

In the face of these concerns, some governments have restricted or even banned glyphosate application, though no such ban is in place in Canada.

Banning glyphosate is an essential step in protecting the health of humans and our ecosystems. Until a full ban is achieved, however, the pioneering work of farmers in Mexico shows how agroecological techniques can replace these chemical interventions.

Toxic exports

In April 2024, Mexico was set to become the largest jurisdiction to enact a total ban on glyphosate. However, just before the ban came into effect the government announced a pause.

Officials cited concerns about a lack of viable substitutes, but critics believe the waffling has more to do with intense lobbying by agro-industry, including heavy pressure from the U.S. – the main exporter of glyphosate to Mexico.

Monsanto, the producer of glyphosate which was purchased by Bayer in 2018, has been shown to have influenced academic research to downplay the health risks of its valuable product.

In the northern region of Mexico’s Veracruz State, we are working with small-scale citrus farmers to help them transition away from glyphosate (and other agrochemicals) by supporting adoption of agroecological farming methods.

Our research shows that agroecological farming is a viable alternative and, with a little bit of support, large numbers of farmers are keen to make change.

Scaling up agroecology

The farmers we work with are abandoning glyphosate one hectare at a time. With funding from Mexico’s National Research Council, we have built a team of 38 agroecology technicians and community leaders who are helping farmers develop the knowledge and skills they need to replace chemicals with other practices.

Our team supports farmers to plant legume cover crops to crowd out weeds, and we have provided thousands of weed whackers to make manual weed control quicker and easier. We are also teaching farmers to make their own products from inexpensive local materials, like agua de vidrio — a solution of ash and lime — that provides nutrients to plants and helps control pests and diseases.

Part of what makes this work successful is that we are leading by example, using the Gómez family citrus farm as a living classroom. That farm used to produce conventional oranges. Then, in 2004, the family transitioned one hectare to organic production as an experiment. By 2012, the entire 16-hectare farm had transitioned away from agrochemical use and was certified as organic.

Since then, the Gómez’s have implemented a wide range of agroecological practices on the farm. They also created an outdoor classroom space and an area dedicated to producing compost and other ecological inputs.

In 2018 almost 1,000 people visited the farm — dubbed Huerta Madre, or Mother Farm by locals — to learn about agroecological methods. Thanks to government funding, in 2023 the number of visitors jumped to more than 2,500. The funding also enabled researchers and technicians to connect with more than 10,000 farmers across the region, sharing information about the potential dangers of glyphosate and the viability of agroecological alternatives.

Of those 10,000 farmers, 3,600 are now actively working with our team to stop using glyphosate and implement agroecological alternatives.

Reaching this number of farmers has been possible in part because the current Mexican government has made it clear that agroecology is a priority. While agroecological farming has long been championed by “peasant organizations” and social movements, political support of the kind happening in Mexico today has been harder to come by (although there are some notable exceptions).

Presidential decree

A cornerstone of Mexico’s pro-agroecology policy was a 2020 decree by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the country would eliminate glyphosate use by January 2024. The decree was immediately criticized by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). It was also contested — including via legal challenges — by Mexican agri-business interests, primarily in the country’s north where large-scale conventional farming dominates the landscape.

In February 2023, Obrador postponed the date of the ban to April 1, 2024. Then, just days before it was to come into effect, the government announced the ban would be paused. Advocates of the ban reacted with formal protest letters, media interviews and social media posts. They highlighted how research and practice has demonstrated the viability of an array of glyphosate alternatives, including the scaling up of agroecology amongst citrus farmers in Veracruz.

To date, the ban remains on hold, and it is unclear what incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum will do about it.

Will we ever see a glyphosate ban?

Mexico is not the first country to waver on a glyphosate ban. Sri Lanka imposed a ban in 2015 but lifted it by 2022. In the European Union, several member states have been vocal in their desire for a ban, but glyphosate was re-authorized for a ten-year period in December 2023.

While the reasons may be complex, it is clear that stemming the tide of glyphosate is challenging, even when there is significant political will. This is likely at least in part due to the significant lobbying power of companies like Bayer.

Even if a formal ban remains out of reach, Obrador’s decree created an important opening for agroecology in Mexico. While some initiatives have existed for decades, especially in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, government support has sparked development of many more.

The presidential decree also enabled unusually high levels of investment into agroecological research and development. Coupled with other pro-agroecology policies, the decree has created momentum for scaling up agroecology across the country. The thousands of citrus farmers who are finding success without glyphosate in Veracruz can attest to that.

Erin Nelson is associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology, University of Guelph, Laura Gomez Tovar is researcher on agroecology, organic agriculture and local markets, University of Chapingo, and Manuel Ángel Gómez Cruz is professor of agricultural policy, agroecology and agricultural economics, University of Chapingo.

The authors’ research was conducted with the support of research assistant Luis Enrique Ortiz-Martínez.

This article was first published by The Conversation. Read the original story here. 

The post What we can learn from Mexico’s struggle to ban a potent pesticide appeared first on Corporate Knights.

While environmental groups zero in on animal agriculture as a top driver of climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss and ocean degradation, a growing number of consumers and governments have been demanding more from the sector to cut its carbon footprint.

However, most of the industry’s efforts so far appear to be focused on shifting messaging and undercutting climate policies rather than shifting practices.

Recent analysis by UK-based think tank InfluenceMap shows that the meat and dairy sector in the European Union is using much the same playbook used by Big Oil to chip away at climate policies. “The findings highlight that backsliding on climate and environmental policy in Europe cannot be explained solely by pressure from the farmers protests seen in recent months,” says the report, released in May. “In fact, years of the corporate meat and dairy sector’s strategic narrative building along with detailed policy engagement, both of which mirror fossil fuel industry tactics, have played a pivotal role.”

Researchers at InfluenceMap set out to understand the meat and dairy industry’s influence on the EU’s climate-related goals. They looked at 10 major corporations and five industry associations and how their advocacy affected six key EU policies aimed at tackling agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. The policies include a framework to transition Europeans to more sustainable diets and new rules around pollutants such as methane on European farms.

What they found was a concerted three-year campaign by the sector, aimed at subverting the EU’s efforts to reduce its environmental footprint and meet its net-zero targets. The strategic advocacy significantly influenced the trajectory of European policy-making around both the production and consumption of meat and dairy in the region, the authors found.

For example, the report notes, industry associations including the European Dairy Association, the European Livestock and Meat Trades Union, European Livestock Voice and others, were largely unsupportive of the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy. The Farm to Fork strategy “should facilitate the shift towards sustainable diets, combining regulatory and non-regulatory initiatives necessary to secure a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system,” according to the report.

In fact, none of the industry associations analyzed for the report were shown to have engaged “positively” with those EU policies intended to help transition diets or reduce livestock emissions.

Industry associations also vigorously opposed these policies by using tactics reminiscent of fossil fuel lobbying, the report notes. “Both sectors employ similar misleading narratives through strategic public messaging to sow doubt and undermine the need to tackle GHG emissions from the meat and dairy sector.”

In particular, researchers highlighted two narratives: “emphasizing the importance of livestock for society; and distancing livestock from being viewed as a driver of climate change.” And it worked, according to the report, thanks to intense corporate lobbying from 2020 to 2023, with one-third of the examined policies significantly weakened and half of them stalled. Some of the key initiatives affected by these efforts include the Sustainable Food Systems Framework and revisions to the Industrial Emissions Directive, which regulates farm pollutants.

There was, however, a clear divide among companies (as opposed to industry associations). Consumer goods giants like Unilever and Nestlé showed more cooperative stances on the policies compared to meat and dairy producers such as Arla and Danish Crown. On Arla’s corporate website in May 2023, for example, “the company seemed to oppose the need for the transition of diets recommended by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], suggesting that consumers become ‘confused’ regarding sustainable diets which leads them to deselect dairy products.”

Moreover, the meat and dairy industry’s advocacy also influenced political discourse, notably within the centre-right European People’s Party (the EPP, the largest party in the European Parliament, is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s party), shaping its opposition to policies affecting dietary transitions and agricultural emissions reduction. By aligning with industry narratives, the EPP’s stance during 2022 and 2023 mirrored the interests of meat and dairy producers and their lobbying bodies, setting a tone for potential shifts in policy ahead of the 2024 EU elections.

InfluenceMap’s findings expose a sophisticated campaign by the meat and dairy sector to weaken EU climate policies.

“Following obstructive behavior from the industry, and the infiltration of industry narratives in the EU Parliament and EU Commission, policies that are fundamental to reducing GHG emissions in line with scientific advice have been significantly weakened or have stalled,” Venetia Roxburgh, EU program lead at InfluenceMap, said in a statement. “Without science-based policies tackling the sector, it does not seem likely that European agricultural GHG emissions will reduce in line with 1.5°C.”

Much like similar efforts made by these industries in North America, these tactics have reshaped the landscape of European environmental regulation, delaying and diluting crucial measures meant to help mitigate animal agriculture’s well-documented impact on climate and the environment.

The post Here’s how the meat and dairy lobby is watering down climate policy in Europe appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“The majority of them sent me emails to say, ‘Can I pay you maybe 50 bucks this week and 50 bucks that week because I can’t afford it, but there’s no other place I can learn these skills,’” Sundance says. She started feeling uncomfortable about charging for the program. “A lot of these people grew up in the same lifestyles as me where you didn’t have a lot of money laying around,” she says. Sundance, 27, didn’t come from a farming background but experienced food insecurity firsthand growing up in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. She fell into the agriculture industry after doing some farm work on her travels through Cuba, where she learned about the concept of food justice. Still, finding an entry point into the industry proved difficult initially as many available training or educational programs were either unpaid internships or expensive farm schools. 

Now Sundance Commons, the non-profit arm of her for-profit Sundance Harvest farm, has a new-farmer training program to teach young people, at no charge, practical skills about farming and how to start their own farms.

Sundance and her partner Jon Gagnon founded the non-profit in 2019 and originally called it Growing in the Margins. They have offered free support for new farmers in the past through their incubation program and workshops while also providing tools and resources. However, the new-farmer training is the first comprehensive educational program at Sundance Commons, providing participants a wide array of tactile skills and knowledge over 15 weeks. 

Thanks to new grants that Sundance Commons secured, the non-profit is able to have two cohorts of 20 participants each year for 2024 and 2025. So far, the applications are all from people 29 and younger, more than 50% are Black, and 95% are women or femme-identifying people.

Sundance Commons began as an 800-square-foot plot of land at Downsview Park and now operates out of four farm locations all within an hour of Toronto. The Rexdale property, located in a diverse, low-income neighbourhood, is where the majority of the new-farmer training program happens, since, unlike most farms, it’s on Toronto’s transit line. “When I started farming, I didn’t drive, and having a TTC-accessible location that has a working greenhouse, that has all the bells and whistles, that has a market garden, allows these amazing youth to really see how things work and to actually see it close by,” Sundance says. 

Participants learn how to operate tractors, prepare beds, compost, keep bees, raise poultry, operate irrigation systems, and grow a variety of vegetables and cover crops. The program also provides mentoring and checking in about participants’ future goals in the agriculture industry, giving them the technical skills needed to either get jobs in the industry or start their own farm businesses. 

When I started farming, I didn’t drive, and having a TTC-accessible location that has a working greenhouse, that has all the bells and whistles, that has a market garden, allows these amazing youth to really see how things work and to actually see it close by.

-Cheyenne Sundance

A critical element of the new-farmer training is that at the end of the program, participants can potentially gain access to land to kick-start their own operations. “That’s part of seeing it in a multi-year phase because farming is not like other kinds of industries – you kind of need time,” says Gagnon, land access coordinator at Sundance Commons. “It might take even more than a season to get a business set up; it might take three to five years.” 

Sundance and Gagnon explain that the barriers to entry are high for young people interested in farming in Ontario. The options to learn are limited to expensive farm-school courses that could cost thousands of dollars or unpaid internships on farms. 

Traditionally, farmland and knowledge has been passed down over generations. All that has changed. Today, many young people interested in farming don’t have that access to generational knowledge of farming or family land. And as a result, there are very few pathways to crack into that world and find a network of people who can help. 

According to a 2023 RBC report, 40% of Canadian farmers plan to retire in the next 10 years, and more than half of them have no plan for their land post-retirement. That means farms will face a dire labour shortage in the next decade without a younger generation of farmers ready to flow into the industry. Today, only 4.1% of Canada’s farm operators identify as racialized or Indigenous. The inaccessibility of the agricultural industry poses a huge gap for its future. “So we kind of build the connections [for young farmers] to basically try to fix that gap that has kept it inaccessible for so many,” Gagnon says. That’s a big part of why the training program “works so symbiotically with the land access,” he adds.

For Selina-Rachel Mendez, access to a support network at Sundance Commons was the real game-changer to build her beekeeping and honey business, The Drip. When she decided to pursue beekeeping, Mendez found that many workshops were dedicated to people who were just curious about it or wanted to keep bees as a hobby, and so touched only on surface-level knowledge.

 “I needed someone to really sit me down and be like, ‘Hey, here is how you need to move within a hive, here is what you need to look for to make sure that your hive is healthy, here is what you need to do throughout the course of the season to make sure that you are being sustainable and ethical with your beekeeping,” she says. 

Through Sundance, Mendez was also able to get free land access for her hives in exchange for a portion of the honey she produced.

 “When you have those connections and you have that network and that support system, it really helps you stay afloat,” she says. She now also teaches beekeeping workshops and will be doing sessions for the new-farmer training program at Sundance Commons. 

For Gagnon, training marginalized youth interested in agriculture is part of a bigger picture of ensuring that young farm workers have equity and agency, he explains. “They are the most important part of the food system.”

Neha Chollangi is a freelance journalist based in Montreal, where she covers grassroots social movements and environmental activism. 

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Evolved over thousands of years and cultures, wine is something we all take for granted. But that is all about to change.

Recent publications on climate volatility have painted a bleak picture of the future for this beloved alcoholic beverage.

It is now clear that global warming is affecting most of the crops that are essential to feed the world. Climate change is impacting the production of both staple food crops like wheat, rice and corn and also commodity crops including coffee, cocoa and grapes.

Most of the world’s vineyards, including its most venerable names, are facing incredible existential challenges that pose essential risks to their very survival if they don’t adapt to the changing environmental conditions. Canadian wine is by no means exempt from these changes.

Signs of things to come

In January 2024, the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia experienced a devastating cold snap, with temperatures plummeting below minus 20 C. This unprecedented climatic event inflicted severe damage to all the grapevines in the region and could result in a 97 to 99 per cent decrease in annual grape and wine production across the region — with projected revenue losses over the next few years in the $440 to $445 million range.

It is still too early in the season to assess the full extent of the damage and, while many vines will need replacement, there is still hope that with careful management some vines will bounce back within a few years.

The Okanagan cold snap is merely the latest climate change-induced climatic event to rock the Canadian and global wine industry in recent years.

Drought conditions, heat waves and smoke from forest fires have heavily impacted grape yields and resulted in variations in wine quality across regions. The cumulative effect of these climate-related events underscores the undeniable influence that climate change is already having on wine production and quality.

The viticulture industry must confront and adapt to these challenges to ensure its sustainability and resilience in the face of ongoing environmental changes.

The future of wineries

In order to adapt, the wine industry will need to embrace new production methods and technologies while promoting collaboration between researchers and growers.

Agriculture technologies — ranging from precision viticulture tools to high-resolution spatial information and AI — offer invaluable insights into vineyard management, grape quality optimization and environmental practices.

Providing more support to viticulturists can help incentivize sustainable farming practices and eco-labelling. At the same time, providing access to resources and education can significantly enhance the industry’s resilience and sustainability over the long term.

Meanwhile, forward-thinking new policies could encourage research and development in areas like climate change adaptation, disease management and alternative grape varieties more suitable for changing environmental conditions. Policymakers should promote the adoption of renewable energy sources and more climate-resilient approaches to the vines and the soil.

Canadian governments should provide financial incentives and support the wine industry’s transition to a more sustainable future. The recently announced $177 million, three-year extension to the federal government’s Wine Sector Support Program is a good start.

Climate change not entirely to blame

Grapevines are often cultivated in areas that are incredibly vulnerable to changes in climate and while global warming is the greatest challenge the wine industry faces, it is not the only one.

The last 20 years have seen a significant drop in wine consumption as changing lifestyles, price hikes and health concerns push consumers — particularly young people — to cut back on alcohol. When people do indulge in wine, they are increasingly splurging on pricier bottles, choosing quality over quantity.

Data shows that Gen Z is sipping far less alcohol (around 20 per cent less) than previous generations and more young people than ever are jumping on the no or low alcohol “NoLo” movement.

China, long a major wine market, has so far seen a 25 per cent drop in wine sales in 2024 as rising prices and economic slowdown has left fewer glasses clinking than ever. Simply put, the wine world is experiencing a sobering moment.

Turning challenge into opportunity

Wine is one of life’s great pleasures and an intrinsic part of human cultures — likely almost as old as civilization itself.

For those of us who drink wine, it is imperative that we try to be mindful of how we can all support our local viticulture industry in these challenging times.

As consumers, our role is pivotal in supporting resilience. Actions ranging from embracing local products, visiting vineyards, buying new wines crafted from climate-resilient varieties and staying informed about the challenges confronting the winery sector all can contribute to a brighter future for the industry.

We need to believe that the Canadian wine industry can not only adapt to change but can also thrive by producing great wines and developing the wine tourism that will educate consumers about the tradition and cultural heritage of Canadian wine making.

While global warming news can often seem all doom-and-gloom there remains a ray of hope. Using adaptation strategies and embracing agritech innovation, we can mitigate the impacts of climate change as much as possible. This adversity could catalyze a heightened focus on sustainability, adaptation and innovation within the viticulture sector. That, if nothing else, would be a positive outcome.

Laila Benkrima is agronomy consultant, at the B.C. Centre for Agritech Innovation, at Simon Fraser University. 

This article was first published by The Conversation. Read the original story here. 

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Agriculture emits around 16 gigatons of greenhouse gases a year – about a third of the world’s total emissions. Animal farming alone is responsible for 19% of all emissions, according to a 2021 study (although estimates vary). Simply shifting diets to be less heavy on meat and dairy could reduce food-related emissions by 49%. And yet very limited progress has been made on the issue as most politicians steer clear of critiquing the carbon footprint of, well, steers.

Wading into this hot-button arena is an institution that has generally kept quiet on this front: a new paper by the World Bank lays out a roadmap for how the world can substantially reduce the emissions from food systems partly by redirecting the subsidies given to the meat and dairy industries.

“The narrative is clear: to protect our planet, we need to transform the way we produce and consume food,” writes Axel van Trotsenburg, a senior managing director for development policy and partnerships at the World Bank, in a forward to the paper.

The paper’s authors say that reallocating subsidies for meat and dairy toward lower-carbon plant-based alternatives is the most cost-effective way for high-income countries to reduce demand for meat and dairy products that are harming the planet.

Alternative burger companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have struggled to bring the price of their products down close to what consumers pay for actual meat. But such a shift in subsidies could potentially reverse that, making plant-based products the cheaper option.

“The full cost pricing of animal-sourced food to reflect its true planetary costs would make low-emission food options more competitive,” the report says.

The food system must be fixed because it is making the planet ill.

In the United States, the government provides US$38 billion a year in subsidies to meat and dairy. In 2021, the Canadian government allocated $1.7 billion in subsidies for animal agriculture.

The paper says the annual investments needed to transition food systems will also need to increase 18 times, to US$260 billion, to cut emissions in half by 2030 and keep the world on track to be net-zero by 2050. It recommends that high-income countries do more to help the food industry use renewable energy and give more financial and technical support to lower-income countries to help them adopt the same changes.

Benefits of a sustainable food system

In addition to cutting emissions, the health, economic and environmental benefits from such a transition could amount to US$4.3 trillion in 2030. The costs of the transformation are estimated to be less than half the amount the world currently spends on agricultural subsidies, the paper says.

The report also included chicken as a lower-emissions alternative to other types of meats, but climate advocates say this might send the wrong message. “I know there are different kinds of calculations between different kinds of meats,” Sini Eräjää, Greenpeace’s EU food campaigner, told Climate Home News, “[but] first and foremost, we need to change to more plant-based diets.”

The World Bank released the paper while countries party to the Paris Agreement are working to update their climate plans. But governments don’t need to wait until the plans are due in 2025 to start taking action.

“The food system must be fixed because it is making the planet ill and is a big slice of the climate change pie,” the report says. “There is action that can be taken now to make agrifood a bigger contributor to overcoming climate change and healing the planet. These actions are readily available and affordable.

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While demand for beef, chicken and pork are on the rise on the continent, Africans consumed just 9.6 kilograms of meat per capita from 2020 to 2022 compared to North Americans’ 78.6 kilos. Grains like millet and maize form the backbone of African cuisine, but they merely hint at the continent’s diverse culinary landscape. Take Nigeria, where okra, fufu (made from yam or cassava) and vibrant leafy greens like ewedu and spinach grace daily meals. In Ethiopia, teff injera, a gluten-free flatbread, pairs with lentil-based stews (wats) bursting with vegetables, while Kenyan ugali (cornmeal porridge) is served with sukuma wiki greens and indigenous fruits like tamarind and baobab. These food cultures, intricately connected with geography, climate and tradition, showcase the ingenuity and adaptability of African communities.

Deep cultural and spiritual threads are woven into the fabric of plant-based diets in many African nations. Abstaining from certain foods serves as ritual cleansing, ancestor veneration or a way to strengthen community bonds. It underscores the profound connection between food, faith and cultural identity in many African communities. Understanding these nuances is crucial as Africa’s food systems evolve. 

Parallel to this, in the United States, African American women have emerged as leading voices in the vegan movement, illustrating a profound and transformative cultural shift. A 2015 Harris Poll survey found that 8% of Black respondents were vegetarian or vegan, while that was true for just 3% of the overall population. This movement is not merely a dietary trend but a significant cultural renaissance, echoing a broader historical narrative in which African American dietary customs, shaped under the harsh conditions of slavery, resulted in soul food that originally comprised scraps from the slave owners’ tables, fried to make them more palatable. 

Today African American women are also leading a wave of plant-based start-ups and restaurants, such as Samantha Edwards’s New Breed Meats, with offerings like plant-based jerk chicken. More than just a dietary trend, Afro-veganism and African American veganism are vibrant movements that celebrate a plant-based diet’s cultural depth, ecological wisdom and culinary creativity. These movements are not just about choosing plant-based foods but about reclaiming and redefining African American food traditions.

Moreover, these dietary shifts are intertwined with broader discussions about food sovereignty, access to healthy foods in Black neighbourhoods and the environmental impact of food choices. Afro-veganism and African American veganism advocate for a more equitable food system that honours the planet and its people.

The challenges of expanding the plant-based economy in Africa – ranging from fragile infrastructure and food spoilage to deep-seated cultural preferences for animal protein – have spurred innovative solutions from local entrepreneurs. Among these, VeggieVictory stands out as a pioneering force. As Nigeria’s first vegan restaurant and plant-based food tech business, VeggieVictory is influencing the societal narrative around meat consumption, showcasing that plant-based foods can fulfill both nutritional and cultural needs.

With that in mind, the founder of VeggieVictory, Hakeem Jimo, helped spearhead ProVeg International’s expansion into Nigeria last year. As the director of ProVeg Nigeria, Jimo said he’s hoping to “transform the food system to help people transition to healthier, more climate-friendly diets.”

Nigeria isn’t the only African nation experiencing a shift. South Africa also has a ProVeg office, and The Plant Powered Show in Cape Town has quickly become one of the most successful food and lifestyle events on the South African exhibition calendar. All further evidencing the growing appetite for plant-based consumer choices. 

The people who will benefit most from this transition are those in the Global South for whom land pressures from animal agriculture have forced them to leave their land.

 

– Hakeem Jimo, director of ProVeg Nigeria

As the continent evolves, so will its plant-based story, offering unique contributions to the global conversation on food, sustainability and cultural identity. With this evolution comes a web of opportunities and challenges. Increased global demand for plant-based products could empower local farmers, create new jobs and generate economic prosperity. Yet navigating this shift equitably is paramount. 

Currently, land distribution is often skewed toward smallholder farms, which are vital for rural livelihoods and national food security. Research from the non-profit Grain and the International Land Coalition highlights how large-scale land acquisitions by corporate entities are increasingly prevalent, particularly in regions primed to expand plant-based crop production. These acquisitions often prioritize export markets and can undermine the economic and social fabric of rural communities. To counteract these potential disparities, policies and frameworks that prioritize equitable land distribution, support for smallholder farmers and sustainable agricultural practices are crucial. 

“The people who will benefit most from this transition are those in the Global South for whom land pressures from animal agriculture have forced them to leave their land,” ProVeg Nigeria’s Jimo said in a statement. The group is pushing for a national strategy that implements “a better food system by encouraging food innovation, particularly in the plant-based egg, milk and protein spaces.”

“It’s all about the numbers,” Jimo said. “Nigeria is set to become the world’s third most populous country in the next couple of decades. But time is not on our side. To truly address climate change and health epidemics, we need to shift our diets today.

Shilpa Tiwari is CEO of No Women No Spice, an organic spice company, and Isenzo Group, a sustainability strategy firm. 

Check back here as we roll out our Plant Power package this week, along with the release of the 2024 Spring issue of Corporate Knights.

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