How far are food systems from sustainability?

The global food system, whose role is to nourish humanity, has significant environmental impacts. Through greenhouse gas emissions, disruption of the nitrogen cycle, depletion of water resources and biodiversity degradation, it is not only the health of the Earth System but also food production itself that are threatened when sustainability thresholds are crossed. Without action, due to projected population growth and dietary changes, this situation can only worsen. It is therefore essential to implement profound changes, which require assessing the sustainability of the food system on a global scale and at high spatial resolution to take into account the different pratices and local conditions.

We assess the various footprints of the food system (GHG emissions, water, nitrogen, biodiversity) on a global scale, at high resolution (5’ arcmin i.e 10 km at the Equator), and specifically for 25 crops in 2000 and 2020. Then, by comparing these footprints to various local or regional limits, we similarly evaluate the sustainability of the food system. The comparison between 2000 and 2020 allows us to track the temporal evolution of the sustainability of crop production. This assessment highlights regions where multiple limits are exceeded and whether the situation is worsening, indicating production systems that are particularly unsustainable.

Such study considering multiple environmental dimensions at high resolution paves the way for analyzing synergies and trade-offs to bring the global food system back within environmentally sustainable boundaries.