By now you might’ve seen the mind-boggling numbers from the United Nations this week: The hidden environmental, health, and social costs of our agri-food systems amount to at least $10 trillion a year — representing almost 10% of global GDP.
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s flagship The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 report uses true cost accounting to put a price tag on market, institutional, and policy failures. It’s a big deal because, well, knowing the full cost of a problem is an important step before solving it, and the idea is to push global agri-food systems toward greater sustainability. The 150-page report disaggregates those costs to the national level, with data on 154 countries.
Let’s go through some key findings: