By Lydia DePillis, Manuela Andreoni and Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...our grocery bills would be considerably more expensive if environmental costs were included, researchers say. ...For years, economists have been developing a system of “true cost accounting” based on a growing body of evidence about the environmental damage caused by different types of agriculture. Now, emerging research aims to translate this damage to the planet into dollar figures. By displaying these so-called true prices, sometimes next to retail prices, researchers hope to nudge consumers, businesses, farmers and regulators to factor in the environmental toll of food. The proponents of true cost accounting don’t propose raising food prices across the board, but they say that increased awareness of the hidden environmental cost of food could change behavior. We asked  True Price , a Dutch nonprofit group ...to provide a window into some of their research. They came up with a data set ...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/23/lab-grown-meat-animals-climate By Oliver Milman , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The meat ... came from a named pig, an affable-looking swine called Dawn. ...a clump of her cells were grown in a lab to create what’s known as “cultivated meat”, a product touted as far better for the climate – as well as the mortal concerns of pigs and cows – and is set for takeoff in the US. ...“A harmless sample from one pig can produce many millions of tons of product without requiring us to raise and slaughter an animal each time,” said Eitan Fischer, founder of Mission Barns, a maker of cultivated meat that invited the Guardian to a taste test in an upscale Manhattan hotel. ...Mission Barns is one of about 80 startup companies based around San Francisco’s Bay Area now jostling for position after one of their number, Upside Foods, became the first in the country to be  granted approval  by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Novemb...

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/nov/18/lab-grown-meat-safe-eat-fda-upside-foods By Oliver Milman , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The US government has cleared the way for Americans to be able to eat lab-grown meat, after authorities deemed a meat product derived from animal cells to be safe for human consumption. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  will allow  a California company called Upside Foods to take living cells from chickens and then grow them in a controlled laboratory environment to produce a meat product that doesn’t involve the actual slaughter of any animals. The FDA said it was ready to approve the sale of other lab-grown meat, stating that it was “engaged in discussions with multiple firms” to do the same, including companies that want to grow seafood from the cells of marine life. ...Making food more sustainable is a major focus of the Cop27 climate talks, shortly finishing in Egypt. The global production of food is responsible for  a third o...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/climate/global-food-waste-solutions.html By  Somini Sengupta , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In Seoul, garbage cans automatically weigh how much food gets tossed in the trash. In London, grocers have stopped putting date labels on fruits and vegetables to reduce confusion about what is still edible. California now requires supermarkets to give away — not throw away — food that is unsold but fine to eat. Around the world, a broad array of efforts are being launched to tackle two pressing global problems: hunger and climate change. Food waste, when it rots in a landfill, produces methane gas, which quickly heats up the planet. But it’s a surprisingly tough problem to solve. Which is where Vue Vang, wrangler of excess, comes in. On a bright Monday morning recently, she pulled up behind a supermarket in Fresno, Calif., hopped off her truck and set out to rescue as much food as she could under the state’s new law — helping store managers comply wi...

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/food-deficits-in-africa-will-grow-in-a-warmer-world By Aaron Sidder , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Africa has one of the world’s fastest population growth rates. Growth models project the continent’s current population of about 1.3 billion people will nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050—and it’s likely to keep growing beyond that. At the same time, malnutrition is widespread in Africa—21% of the population faces food insecurity—and the continent is especially vulnerable to climate change. Warmer regions are already experiencing  desertification , and areas of low agricultural productivity are susceptible to climate shocks from adverse weather,  drought , flooding, and erratic rainfall. The combined effects of population growth and climate change raise a serious question for the continent: How will Africa  feed its growing populace  in increasingly unfriendly conditions? Beltran-Peña and D’Odorico  applied the results from agrohydr...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/bread-baking-sustainable-grain-kernza/ Source: By Sarah Kaplan , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Scientists hope this new kind of perennial grain offers a taste of what environmentally friendly farming could look like. ...Most commercial crops are annual. They provide only one harvest and must be replanted every year. Growing these foods on an industrial scale usually takes huge amounts of water, fertilizer and energy, making agriculture a major source of carbon and other pollutants. Scientists say this style of farming has imperiled Earth’s soils, destroyed vital habitats and contributed to the dangerous warming of our world. But Kernza — a domesticated form of wheatgrass developed by scientists at the nonprofit Land Institute — is perennial. A single seed will grow into a plant that provides grain year after year after year. It forms deep roots that store carbon in the soil and prevent erosion. It can be planted alo...

https://eos.org/articles/using-food-to-tell-the-climate-change-story Source:  By  Rachel Crowell , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: “We all eat” is a simple statement that underscores the power of food as a vehicle for discussing the science of climate change, said  Michael Hoffmann , professor emeritus of entomology at Cornell University and lead author (along with Carrie Koplinka-Loehr and Danielle L. Eiseman) of the forthcoming book Our Changing Menu: What Climate Change Means to the Foods We Love and Need (2021). A companion website will feature a searchable database of ingredients and the impacts that climate change is having on them.  Coffee ,  wine , and  olives  are just a few of the foods that are projected to be heavily affected....  

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/food-and-farming-could-stymie-climate-efforts-researchers-say Source:  By   Erik Stokstad , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...Even if energy, transportation, and manufacturing go entirely green, emissions of greenhouse gases from the food system would put the world on track to warm by more than 1.5°C, a target set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. For the world to have a chance of preventing significant harm from climate change, the study authors say, all parts of food production need rapid and significant reform—everything from reducing deforestation for new fields to eating less meat. ...Carbon dioxide comes from many sources, such as cutting down tropical forests to make way for fields and pastures, running farm machinery, and manufacture of agrochemicals. Fertilizer also emits nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas. And cows release methane, a powerful warming gas, in their burps and manure. ...The team assumed no radical chan...