Opinion: How a Codex Planetarius can account for the true cost of food

When Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle” in 1906, exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the U.S. meatpacking industry, it began a slow march of incremental reform to the food system. Nearly 60 years later, to avoid the proliferation of different food health and safety programs, countries began adopting the Codex Alimentarius, or Food Code — an international code of minimum mandatory health and safety standards for food production. Fast forward another 60 years, and we now face a challenge of equally monumental proportions: How to reduce the biggest environmental impacts of food production while simultaneously meeting the burgeoning demand for food as the global population expands and grows wealthier. In response, the World Wildlife Fund and its global partners have begun developing a second codex that addresses the health of the environment. Modeled on the safety standards of Codex Alimentarius, “Codex Planetarius” would establish environmental standards to reduce the key environmental impacts of producing globally traded food. Food production and the environment The environmental impact of food production is unparalleled, with consequences that extend far beyond farmland. It is responsible for 70% of habitat and biodiversity loss, including vast swaths of land in Brazil that has been deforested for cattle grazing. It is also responsible for 70% of human freshwater use, mainly for irrigating crops in areas where there isn’t sufficient rainfall to support growth. And it is responsible for 78% of water pollution, largely from soil erosion and agrochemical runoff, as well as more than one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions — carbon dioxide and other gases that are rapidly warming the planet. Climate change exacerbates these issues, creating a feedback loop that intensifies the strain on our ecosystems. As the planet warms, some areas that are currently devoted to producing food will become unsuitable or will have to be used for different crops. Displacement of crop production will likely result in inefficiency as well as conflict, deforestation or habitat conversion, biodiversity loss and/or new demands for water and other resources. Over the past 25 years, the amount of food traded globally has seen a nearly fourfold increase. As countries ramp up food production, particularly for export, it is crucial that prices reflect the actual costs of production, including the environmental impacts. If not, they risk depleting their natural resources and jeopardizing their ability to feed future generations, both at home and abroad. Food importers must also pay fair prices, or they may find that the food they rely on is no longer available in the future or costs much more. Because most governments can’t or won’t make their food systems more sustainable and resilient, these hidden costs get passed on to nature — and the societies that depend on it — driving a vicious cycle of unsustainable practices and long-term negative consequences for people and the planet. A set of standards for food production In response, some companies have adopted voluntary standards, but these efforts have proven insufficient because they generally reward the best producers — those that already take steps to reduce the environmental impacts of food production. And because the standards are voluntary, producers who don’t comply can still sell to markets that don’t care. We need to focus on producers that create the biggest impacts — the least efficient 10%-20% of producers who only create 5%-10% of products but contribute 60%-80% of the negative impacts. By improving the performance of the producers who create the most impact, we can go a long way toward stemming the harshest effects of food production on the environment. But companies can’t lift up the poorest performers; governments must do that. To that end, Codex Planetarius proposes minimum performance levels that will reduce the key environmental impacts of food production. These include soil erosion, habitat, and biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, excessive use of water and other inputs, as well as the lack of traceability and transparency. Once the codex undergoes peer review, the partnership will launch several pilot programs to test it in target commodity markets and geographic areas. Ultimately, the goal is to help safeguard our ability to meet the growing demand for food, while simultaneously conserving the planet’s essential ecosystems and reducing food’s contribution to climate change. The obvious question then becomes, how do we pay for this? The 1% Solution To begin, we are proposing “The 1% Solution,” a 1% environmental fee added to the price of food exports. The funds raised by this fee would go into a fund to help less-efficient producers cover the cost of reducing their critical impact on nature. Like Codex Alimentarius, Codex Planetarius and the 1% Solution would need to initially be implemented by governments through trade agreements and then under the auspices of an international entity like the World Trade Organization. And as with the Codex Alimentarius, it won’t happen overnight. In 1963, just over two dozen countries adopted the codex standards; today, 188 countries and the European Union have done so. It is essential that we start to establish proof of concept for Codex Planetarius now — one commodity, one country, and one trade agreement at a time. This would help level the playing field, ensuring that every ton of food sold generates funds to support the transition to more sustainable and resilient production. And while a 1% fee on the wholesale cost of food exports would not affect what consumers pay at the store, it would go a long way toward securing the natural resources that undergird the global economy. Companies alone can’t mobilize the funding needed to address the key environmental impacts of the global food system. Governments need to level the playing field. With Codex Planetarius and the 1% Solution, we can rewrite the rules of global food trade, ensuring that sustainability becomes the norm, not the exception.