Dutch and EU consumption-based assessments of nitrogen losses throughout the global food system

The modern global food system is the largest driver of nitrogen imbalances across the world. These problems are exacerbated by excessive and resource-intensive food demand prone to large amounts of loss and waste throughout the food system. Increasing international trade is shifting the burden and upstream nitrogen demand and downstream eutrophication impacts beyond national borders and moving beyond the safe regional boundaries for their presence in the environment. To better understand drivers and solutions to close nitrogen loops, we use the global food input-output model FABIO, which monitors the movement of biomass and the land utilized across global supply chains, encompassing 191 countries, and 130 agricultural and food products. We couple FABIO to nitrogen crop demand, livestock manure management systems, and agricultural surpluses to assess the consumption-based drivers for nitrogen emissions stemming from the agricultural system. A substantial amount of nitrogen losses can be attributed to traded commodities especially toward high-income nations. We further show how policy measures in a high-income nation (the Netherlands) related to the taxation of meat and carbon emissions from the food sector can lead to significant reduction of manure application (up to 20 kt N/yr) and nitrogen losses (over 1 kt N/yr) on a global scale. However, as the Dutch food system relies heavily on manure, there may be a concomitant increase in the need for synthetic fertilizers to account for the significant drop in manure of nearly (14 kt N/yr). We provide similar scenarios for various, more ambitious dietary changes (e.g. the EAT-Lancet diet) at the EU level that can help ameliorate global nitrogen losses, focusing in areas sensitive to terrestrial and aquatic eutrophication and acidification.