Total Global Hidden Cost of Agrifood was $11.6 Trillion in 2023
In November, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization published its 2024 State of Food and Agriculture report on global “agrifood” or the entire food supply chain. The report highlights the hidden costs—environmental, social, and health—of these systems in 2023, based on the US dollar’s purchasing power parity in 2020. An estimated 1.23 billion people are employed in agrifood systems.
The global hidden cost of agrifood was estimated to be almost $11.63 trillion, of which about $2.95 trillion (25% of total) were environmental.
Of the of hidden environmental costs, about $1.45 trillion (49.2%) were from nitrogen (emissions and runoff), $1.26 trillion (42.7%) were from emissions of greenhouse gases, and almost $237 billion (8%) were from land-use change. The latter refers to any kind of human modification of land.
Countries with the highest hidden costs from nitrogen were China ($306 billion), Brazil ($173 billion), and US ($26.4 billion).
The three countries with the highest hidden costs from greenhouse gas emissions were China ($1.82 trillion), US ($1.44 trillion), and India ($1.33 trillion).
Meanwhile, countries with the highest hidden costs from land-use change were Australia ($114 billion), US ($26.4 billion), and Indonesia ($24.8 billion).
Some countries had hidden benefits from land-use change, e.g., return of forest or other land—with the top three being Kazakhstan ($6.07 billion), Argentina ($6.02 billion), and China ($3.63 billion).
Sources:
FAO. 2024. The State of Food and Agriculture 2024 – Value-driven transformation of agrifood systems. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd2616en
Comments