This PD Event is open to: All Registrants of BCIA

Join the BCIA’s reading club session for an opportunity to discuss the paper “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers." by Poore J. and T. Nemecek. 2018. Science 360: 987-992.

Thom ODell, Ph.D., P.Ag. is a Regional Agrologist, who works for the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food. He will be facilitating the discussion. "Sustainable food systems are a passion of mine. I often say: we need to grow more food closer to home with a smaller environmental footprint."
So, how do we compare the footprint of different foods, crops, and crop management systems?
The topic is fraught with emotion. Everyone has to eat and most of us have strong opinions about what we like and want to eat which leads to a high potential for conflict. People's livelihoods are also at stake so public declarations and policy changes ought to be evidence-based and made with caution.

Food is produced and processed by millions of farmers and intermediaries globally, with substantial associated environmental costs. The paper compares life cycle assessment of environmental impacts for 40 food products representing approximately 90% of global protein and calorie consumption. The environmental cost of producing the same goods can be highly variable. However, this heterogeneity creates opportunities to target the small numbers of producers that have the most impact.

This paper we will be discussing provides one estimate for the relative GHG cost of different foods.
Poore and Nemecek (2018) attempted to compare environmental impacts for a variety of foods and multiple environmental impacts. The paper illustrates the complex challenges of estimating the life cycle costs of foods and is somewhat controversial.

For an additional optional read, we will also be looking at an opinion piece published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the next year stated "... the evidence underpinning many widely touted recommendations about what to grow and eat [to reduce environmental impacts] is remarkably sparse and generally biased." (Halpern et al. 2019).

NOTE: This is an interactive session in which you are expected to participate in the discussion. Please make sure you download the reading material and be ready to discuss it during the session. You are also expected to conduct yourself professionally during these sessions and be respectful of all other participants.  

Download the main discussion paper, HERE.

Download the secondary paper (optional reading) HERE.