Sustainable Bites 13.9.23
Welcome to our biweekly round-up of food, sustainability and hospitality news bites. Dig in…
The amuse bouche
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IPBES publish landmark report on invasive species
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UK continues to waste edible produce as global food insecurity intensifies
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Thieves make away with almost €500,000 worth of extra virgin olive oil
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Irish dairy farmers devastated by EU call for cattle cull
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First draft of Global Plastics Treaty finally released
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Indigenous communities in Borneo awarded rights to 70,000 hectares of forest
And for the main…
IPBES publish landmark report on invasive species
A landmark assessment report has concluded that invasive species play a key role in 60% of global plant and animal extinctions.
The report from The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that harmful invasive species are costing the global economy at least $423bn every year and are a leading threat to biodiversity of life.
In 2019, the IPBES Global Assessment Report found that invasive alien species are one of the five most important direct drivers of biodiversity loss – alongside changes in land- and sea-use, direct exploitation of species, climate change and pollution. This follow-up report was produced by 86 experts from 49 countries, working for more than four-and-a-half years. It draws on more than 13,000 references, including significant contributions from Indigenous Peoples and local communities, making it the most comprehensive assessment ever carried out of invasive alien species around the world.
“Invasive alien species are a major threat to biodiversity and can cause irreversible damage to nature, including local and global species extinctions, and also threaten human wellbeing,” said Professor Helen Roy (United Kingdom), Co-Chair of the assessment with Prof. Anibal Pauchard (Chile) and Prof. Peter Stoett (Canada).
As a result of human activity, more than 37,000 alien species have been introduced to regions and biomes around the world. Over 3,500 of these are harmful invasive alien species – seriously threatening nature, nature’s contributions to people and good quality of life. People with the greatest direct dependence on nature – such as Indigenous Peoples and local communities – are found to be at even greater risk. More than 2,300 invasive alien species are found on lands under the stewardship of Indigenous Peoples – threatening their quality of life and even cultural identities.
“We want to highlight that the thing that works the best is prevention. That’s the main message. It’s much more cost-effective to prevent the introduction of invasive species such as taking biosecurity measures, border controls and risk analysis of non-native species that are being introduced intentionally,” said Pauchard. However, the report found that, while 80% of countries have targets related to managing invasive alien species in their national biodiversity plans, only 17% have national laws or regulations specifically addressing these issues.
One way the hospitality industry can play a part is to put more invasive species on menus, making them an accessible and desirable option for consumers and creating demand. Read a guest blog here from Winifred Adeyemi, Africa Seen & Heard, sharing some fantastic examples of how restaurants around the world are stepping up to this challenge and serving up mouth-watering, sustainable dishes from invasive species.
UK continues to waste edible produce as global food insecurity intensifies
An investigation from the Evening Standard last week revealed that a staggering 2.9 million tons of perfectly edible farm produce is being dumped in landfill, incinerated or sent to waste treatment plants that produce biogas. The wasted farm produce is enough to provide the equivalent of seven billion meals a year – at a time when 13.7 million people nationwide are experiencing food insecurity, according to the Food Foundation.
Last year, the scale of discarded farm produce was highlighted in a WWF report called Hidden Waste, stating that 9,600 square kilometres of land is used to produce perfectly good food that will never get sent for human consumption. Some farm waste is inevitable — due to over-production, weather variability, fluctuations in demand and rejection of produce for cosmetic reasons. However, rather than being used to feed those who are struggling with food insecurity, surplus food is bulldozed and left to rot, used for animal feed, or sent to landfill or anaerobic digestion plants to produce biogas.
Britain’s two largest food redistribution charities, FareShare and the Felix Project, report surging demand for food from charities and schools they are unable to satisfy mostly due to an acute shortage of surplus food. FareShare said it has 1,500 charities, schools, community groups and faith organisations on its waiting list, while the Felix Project has 618.
The Felix Project said that the government should incentivise farmers to pick, package and transport their produce to make it available. A £25 million annual government subsidy would facilitate a “surplus with purpose” scheme that would enable the provision of 100 million extra meals. George Wright, CEO of FareShare, said: “The Government could spend a tiny fraction of the £750 million a year it spends on anaerobic digestion subsidies to get good food to people.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s special envoy for food security, Dr Cary Fowler said that the world could fall short of food by 2050 due to falling crop yields, insufficient investment in agricultural research and trade shocks.
In Canberra last week to give the keynote address at the Crawford Fund’s annual conference – titled ‘Global Food Security in a Riskier World’, Fowler said studies show the world needs to produce 50-60% more food by 2050 in order to feed its growing population – but crop yields rates were projected to decline by between 3-12% as a result of global heating.
“We’re going to fall fairly short of being able to provide that kind of increase in food production by mid-century,” Fowler said. “We are in the midst of a global food crisis. More than 700 million people were undernourished in 2022 compared to 613 million in 2019. It’s an incomprehensibly large number and a human tragedy. Every country is affected, including countries like Australia, but especially the most vulnerable around the world.”
Thieves make away with almost €500,000 worth of extra virgin olive oil
As prices of extra virgin olive oil soar, a group of thieves stole over €450,000 worth of extra virgin olive oil from a Spanish oil mill.
At least 50,000 litres was stolen from a family-owned mill near Córdoba in Spain, where the olive oil was stored ahead of bottling. Martin Parra, the manager of the mill, told a local newspaper he believed the thieves must have used two large tankers, which take up to an hour to fill.
"We have asked several neighbors and no one heard or saw anything, so two large trucks entered, and they left without being seen by anyone," he said.
The cost of a bottle of extra virgin olive oil has jumped about 15% since mid-July in Spanish supermarkets, Bloomberg reported. This increase is a result of erratic weather caused by climate change; heatwaves and droughts are wreaking havoc on the agriculture industry across the Mediterranean.
Irish dairy farmers devastated by EU call for cattle cull
Irish dairy farmers face the prospect of having to cull or sell significant portions of their herds within the next four months, following an EU decision to tighten controls over permitted limits of nitrogen per hectare.
Up to 3,000 dairy producers will be affected, having a devastating impact on Ireland’s rural economy. With the nitrogen cap a per-hectare limit, the only alternative to reducing herd sizes would be to lease more land – an impossibility for most, as milk prices continue to fall while land values skyrocket. Many of the country’s dairy farmers are members of small-scale co-ops in rural areas, and are simply not in a position to suffer significant financial losses. A cull of this scale will devastate these families.
Until now, Ireland has been subject to more lenient EU limits when it comes to reducing the nitrogen leaching into groundwater and rivers. Because Irish dairy is traditionally grass-fed, farmers have been working within a limit of 250kg of nitrogen per hectare – significantly higher than the 170kg permitted in most EU countries. However, water quality has not improved, meaning that the limit will drop to 220kg per hectare from 2024.
President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association Pat McCormack said the government was “selling out” Ireland’s dairy industry in an “abject surrender” to Brussels.
President of the Irish Farmers’ Association Tim Cullinan said the cap will have “massive ramifications for Irish farmers”. The IFA estimates that individual farms affected by the legislation will lose between €6,522 and €18,336 in profits, with an overall loss to the rural economy of up to €236 million.
In addition to a historic and cultural significance that is difficult to overestimate, Ireland’s dairy industry is of crucial importance to the country’s economy, supporting 54,000 jobs and worth €13.1 billion per year.
First draft of Global Plastics Treaty finally released
The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution have released a “zero draft” of the Global Plastics Treaty (GPT). Endorsed by 175 nations of a UN resolution for an international legally binding agreement, the GPT aims to change how plastics are designed, produced, and recycled. The historic agreement will address topics such as the lifecycle of plastics and ocean pollution, and is expected to drive new collaborations and innovations throughout the sector.
“This draft is only the starting point,” said Eirik Lindebjerg, Plastic Policy Lead for WWF Global. “We need countries to dial up ambition and finalise a plastics treaty that is globally binding, with bans on high-risk, single-use products.”
The GPT draft includes a significant focus on plastic reduction, in direct opposition to plastic companies’ plans to triple plastic production by 2060. It lays out a number of options for scaling back the use and manufacturing of plastic, whether by having countries set their own mandatory reduction targets or asking them to adhere to a global target established in the treaty. The draft suggests that countries phase out microplastics as well as “problematic and avoidable” products such as single-use cutlery. It proposes additional targets for “reuse, repair, repurposing, and refurbishment”.
Delegates will discuss the options presented this November when they gather in Nairobi for a third round of negotiations. Details to be ironed out include whether reduction targets and timelines should be set at national or global level, and whether countries should be required to implement specific parts of the treaty.
“The Global Plastics Treaty must cut plastic production by at least 75% to ensure that we are staying below 1.5° Celsius,” said Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign Lead for Greenpeace USA. “For the sake of our collective future, we cannot waste this moment.”
We desperately need stringent global legislation around reductions in plastic production, as well as investment in alternatives that are significantly better for the environment. As Managing Director Plastics Europe Virginia Janssens said, there is also an urgent need for better infrastructure to support these shifts. “A massive investment in collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure globally has to be a top priority if we are to meet the 2040 objective.” At the moment, 50% of European plastic waste is incinerated – and, of the 95 million tonnes of CO² emitted per year in 2020, one-third is caused by incineration.
A sweet treat to finish…
Indigenous communities in Borneo awarded rights to 70,000 hectares of forest
The Indonesian government has recognised the rights of 15 Indigenous Dayak communities to nearly 70,000 hectares of forest on Borneo – the largest cluster of customary forests ever recognised by the state.
This is a long time coming for the Indigenous Peoples of Gunung Mas, who began the process to obtain formal customary rights to their forests more than 11 years ago, according to Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance, AMAN.
The recognition of these ancestral forests is part of President Joko Widodo’s flagship social forestry programme, which aims to reallocate 12.7 million hectares of state forests to local communities and give them the legal standing to manage their forests for 35 years.
In addition to the enormous cultural significance of ensuring that Indigenous Peoples have rights to their ancestral lands – preserving traditional ways of life, ancestral knowledge, heritage foodways and livelihoods – there are also huge environmental benefits. Since this protects these forests from industry access, it safeguards their roles as carbon sinks, as homes to endangered species and in maintaining biodiversity.
Save Our Borneo, a Central Kalimantan-based environmental NGO, said there are many Indigenous communities in the region still fighting to get their ancestral forest rights recognised.
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