Today is the 2022 World Food Safety Day which includes several celebratory events and actions around the world such as the panel discussion under the theme “Safer food, better health”, hosted by the WHO, FAO, and the Codex Secretariat. This highlights the link between food safety and public health, a top priority of our society. The second half of the event is dedicated to the role of different players in ensuring sustainable food production and consumption of safe foods in different settings by improving health outcomes.
This is connected with another priority of our society: climate change action, which is related to the transformation towards sustainable food production as well as the impact of climate change on the food system that may place food safety at risk. Given the above, it is clear that the transition of the food system to achieve maximal sustainability is governed by a multitude of constraints, one of which is ensuring food safety. Current demands include ensuring animal welfare and highly nutritious food etc.
Let this day be food for thought on how we aim to form a resilient food system. Looking into one direction of action might compromise the entire system’s function. This means that a holistic approach is necessary, such as the One Health Triad formed from the people, animals, and environment. Following this example, different pillars for the transition of the food system can be identified.
As part of the PROTECT Communication, Education and Outreach program, all the Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) are expected to engage in Communication, Education and Outreach activities. These outreach activities are meant to address key challenges of “climate change” and bring social awareness to the general public, especially in school children.
We, ESRs Gopi Talari and Rhea Chhaya decided to conduct two outreach activities in India during our annual leave at two schools, one at a primary school (3rd grade to 7th grade: aged 9 to 13 years) and another at a secondary school (8th to 10th grade: aged 14 to 16 years). Both took place in the Southern part of India, Laxmipuram village, East Godavari district, in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
We planned to give a research presentation followed by some fun activities to have a better understanding of how impactful our talk was and the general awareness of the students. As the school children are from non-English backgrounds, talks were given in the regional state language, “Telugu”. The majority of the students were interested in expressing their thoughts in drawing and some in writing. So, we conducted a drawing and essay writing competition on the topic of “Causes of Climate Change and its Impact on the Environment”.
The day before the event, ESR Gopi visited the schools and got approval to conduct the event in the afternoon session. Drawing and essay writing topics were given to the students and a motivational speech to encourage participation in the competition.
On the day of the event at each school, all the students from the school participated in drawing and essay competitions. Followed by a research presentation by both the ESRs, Rhea gave a talk on “Climate Change Impacts on Food Safety” and thanked the participants for taking part in the day’s activities via Zoom and Gopi translated it for the primary school kids. The children were extremely engaged and wrote very well by addressing the challenges and their role as students to combat this climate change issue. They also drew amazing drawings. One particular stand out was a very talented girl from the 4th standard who had a vocal and hearing impairment who expressed her views with wonderful drawings. Three of the best were selected from each school for both competitions and awarded prizes. It was hard to select the winners among all the students as everyone did exceedingly well. We gave consolation prizes to encourage participation along with appreciation certificates. The district education officer visited the school and appreciated the event, it was a great success with the help of the school’s headmasters, administration and parents’ support.
The Outreach activities got picked up by the Andhra Pradesh state local newspaper.
Did you know that a bottle of one kilogram of milk produced under conventional dairy production systems emits about 2 kilogram of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent emissions through its life cycle from “farm-to-fork”? If you think again 2 kg of carbon dioxide, weighs twice as much as the actual weight of the product!
But why are carbon emissions detrimental? Planet earth is undergoing climatic changes that will continue to be in effect at an increasing rate. Even if these changes do not seriously affect our own lives, they will certainly affect next generations. Carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are forming a layer in the earths’ atmosphere and trapping the heat from the sun, the so-called greenhouse phenomenon. Global warming is a physical phenomenon that is intensified by the greenhouse phenomenon. This means limiting emissions cannot stop global warming but can slow it down. As a result, the less GHG emissions humanity causes, the less detrimental the impact of global warming will be.
For daily fastmoving consumer goods, including dairy products, price is usually the principal purchasing criterion. But what if people started purchasing products based on how environmentally sustainable they are?
Consumers have the power to transform the dairy industry, and every other goods sector, by shifting their consumption behaviour towards the most sustainable choice they can afford. This will inevitably lead to a new form of competition between the companies. Companies, rather than solely focusing on generating profit, will shift their production towards satisfying the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. In that way environmental sustainability will become the new norm of competency among the world company networks.
As regards global warming, the Paris Agreement in 2015 affirmed between 196 parties around the world, established that all sectors will have to reach the net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050-2070 to limit global warming well below 2 °C and towards 1.5 °C. All party members of the Paris Agreement will have to set their own governmental regulations to enforce companies and citizens to move towards net-zero carbon.
But how easy will it be for the dairy sector to accomplish the net-zero carbon target? The mission towards creating a net-zero dairy sector is a great challenge. This sector is responsible for a significant release of carbon emissions, representing about 3% of total emissions by human activities. These emissions are mainly caused by bovines’ enteric fermentation and energy use. However, for the dairy industry, the mitigation potential for achieving the net-zero carbon target is a great challenge because of the inability to control the methane emission from bovine enteric fermentation. Thus, a well thought carbon mitigation plan will need to be put into action in order to meet the net-zero carbon target. This plan will target the limitation of the carbon emissions resulting from energy use by improving the energy efficiency and by switching to greener fuels, the minimisation of waste along the dairy chain, and the application of waste valorisation technologies to produce bioenergy and other useful dairy by-products from waste streams.
The dairy sector not only has to take net-zero carbon actions but also address some critical upcoming future challenges. It will have to respond to the expected increase in food demand due to global population growth. A broad estimate for the increase in food demand is a 70% rise compared to the food demand levels in 2005. Climate change is affecting the dairy sector mainly in three ways: First, the expected warmer climates will affect the crop yield, reducing available animal feed. Secondly, rising temperatures can cause heat stress to cows leading to decreased milk production and increased mortality risk. Finally, food safety concerns escalate since pathogens in milk may develop heat resistance. In such a scenario, more intensive pasteurisation methods may be required, and lower refrigeration temperature will be needed for ensuring that products will be safe for consumption. These climate change effects will cause serious uncertainty to the dairy industry if adaptation actions are not taken.
All the above-mentioned challenges can lead to a huge rise in energy demand for the dairy sector which will make the “net-zero carbon” goal even more challenging. Specifically, a net-zero carbon mitigation strategy should be coupled with climate change adaptation actions. The industries and companies of the dairy sector that acknowledge their social and environmental responsibility and start taking “net-zero carbon” actions from an early stage, can significantly reduce the downside risks associated with climate change adaptation. Most importantly, companies should make their sustainable dairy products affordable enough to be accessible to the general public. During this process, it is up to consumers to realise the power of their purchasing preferences, to move the dairy industry to a more sustainable future.
