Hidden costs of food production, agrifood systems

We’ve come a long way in the global battle against poverty and malnutrition. Yet, a complete eradication of hunger remains impossible as long as escalating global challenges are not addressed. From global pandemics, worldwide market crises, climate change, biodiversity loss, worsening poverty and numerous calamities, it is time for radical new approaches to the way we produce our food if we are to achieve Zero Hunger.

Dealing with these multiple challenges and feeding the growing global population will require radical new approaches to the way we manage the many intricate relationships that bring food to our plates, what we call agrifood systems. Agrifood systems yield many benefits – they nourish us, provide livelihoods and promote economic growth and at the same time strengthen cultural identities. However, they can also damage the environment, the social fabric and people’s health; such “hidden costs” of agrifood systems are seldom accounted for but are borne by the society as a whole.

The United Nations Food System Summit (UNFSS) in 2021 and, more recently, the UNFSS+2 Stocktaking Moment earlier this year, underlined the importance of fully understanding and reinforcing the positive contributions, value and complexities of agrifood systems, and the need to transform them to realize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and decrease hunger and poverty worldwide.

Since then, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has been instrumental in gathering and publishing data and evidence on agrifood systems to foster better informed decision-making. FAO’s latest flagship publication, The State of Food and Agriculture 2023, published on Nov. 6, is dedicated to uncovering the true impacts, both positive and negative, of global agrifood systems, to guide decision-making towards increased sustainability.

The report has found that, in the Philippines, the hidden costs of our agrifood systems are equivalent to 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). This is a huge amount, although comparable to that in other middle-income countries. Unhealthy dietary patterns leading to diseases and lower labor productivity are the main culprit. In total,