On May 3rd, I drove to Quebec City to speak at the Canadian Nutrition Society’s annual conference (a pre-conference workshop called Advancing Food System Sustainability). As a small, fairly new organization, this opportunity was a huge honour for me and for Drawdown Dietetics. I spoke on May 4th, in a big conference room in front of a smart and dedicated audience. I wanted to write about this experience here, because a few things struck me over the course of the day, and some of my views changed.
If I’m honest, looking at the speaker line-up for the workshop made me nervous. The first (keynote) speaker was a beef farmer and the managing director of a national agri-food think tank. I thought about my planned presentation on life-cycle assessment (LCA) data, showing the high climate impact of beef, and about my descriptions of the greenwashing that goes on with sustainability claims from agricultural groups. I felt the stress of an impending conflict that I definitely did not want to have.
The second speaker represented the government agency Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and covered Canada’s Food Policy. One part of the Policy is focused on local food (an investment of $70 million). We don’t recommend local food as a strategy for climate action at Drawdown Dietetics (you can read about why here), so I was apprehensive about contradicting the premise of this government initiative.
I swallowed my fear and headed to the workshop. What unfolded surprised me: the keynote speaker fully acknowledged the environmental impact of raising livestock for meat, talked about lab-grown meat (“it will happen”), and even suggested that Canada should be more ambitious on research and development in that area. He noted that agriculture in general is set to be the greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally, and noted that the way we have achieved high levels of food productivity (and thus food affordability) is by increasing the use of nitrogen fertilizer (another contributor to climate change).
This was refreshingly direct and transparent, and it made clear to me the complex, difficult trade-off between immediate food security (lowering the price of food by increasing fertilizer application and intensifying production for an abundant food supply) and long-term food security (slowing down deforestation for agriculture, using less fertilizer and making production less efficient, leading to higher prices but lessening food’s environmental impact). There are so many other trade-offs in this puzzle: protecting biodiversity and wild spaces for other species, water security, soil quality). This presentation also noted that “sustainability requires more trade”. That is, we need to trade globally for a sustainable food system, instead of doubling down on local food production with limited trade. Overall, I really appreciated this talk, and felt that there was no greenwashing or cherry-picking of data involved.
The second presentation on Canada’s Food Policy also surprised me. While the policy does not address plant-rich diets, it does look at addressing food waste (with a Food Waste Reduction Challenge). The Local Food Infrastructure Fund also includes some really useful priorities for spending. Examples of funded projects include things like community kitchens and gardens, safe food storage and cold chains (like refrigerated vehicles), rainwater capture systems, support for traditional indigenous food systems and practices, and installing solar panels. Many of these projects will likely have huge benefits for food safety, access, sovereignty, and even sustainability (for example, if less food is wasted with improved cold chains). While I’m still skeptical that local food initiatives or funding will help address climate change, the specifics of these projects seem helpful to the food system in other ways.
The other speaker on my panel, Nathan Pelletier at the University of British Columbia and the Food Systems PRISM Lab, presented an excellent overview of the importance of sustainability measurement, specifically highlighting LCAs of food operations. I was not aware of the PRISM Lab before this workshop, but their work is extremely important and supportive of a sustainable food system in Canada. One potentially pivotal project they are leading is the development of a Canadian Agri-food Life Cycle Data Centre. I am so excited at the prospect of having a database of food impacts based on Canadian supply chains. This would really improve the level of transparency for food sustainability in Canada, and I think could support much more research into various climate action strategies in the food system here. Identifying food “hotspots” will allow dietitians and others to address them. Aside from this project, Dr. Pelletier also described findings from an LCA on Okanagan cherry-growing: the LCA found that a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions (around 40%) are generated by flying in seasonal agricultural workers. He described the counter-intuitive results that LCAs tend to find when looking at any food production system–that the transportation of food (i.e. the distance food travels from farm to consumer) is insignificant in the context of all the emissions that food generates in its production.
I really appreciated Dr. Pelletier’s presentation, because this counter-intuitive finding about local food often receives pushback or is dismissed. I understand this reaction–local food systems have been promoted for a long time–but having other researchers and academics validate the evidence helps us all to refocus our attention and resources on effective climate actions. It also gave me more confidence in my own presentation by corroborating our position at Drawdown Dietetics.
Another speaker represented the Upcycled Food Association, which aims to divert food waste from landfills to be used in complementary supply chains (worth a look if food waste reduction is part of your work, especially if you’re in a food corporation). One example of successful upcycling is a brand of cracker that uses malted grains, a waste product of beer brewing. This presentation was such a good reminder that even within the single solution of “food waste reduction,” there are so many options for actions to take. We can help people reduce their household waste, we can look at composting, food service operations, and waste diversion! There are so many tools available to prevent food from going unused, and producing methane in landfills.
I’ll end with a few take-aways that I think dietitians need to pay attention to in this space:
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Different groups (agricultural groups, governments, researchers, non-profits) have different perspectives on what a sustainable food system looks like, but there is much more agreement on the reality of the situation we’re in, and the evidence before us, than I first assumed when I looked at that line-up of speakers.
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Throughout the workshop, multiple speakers returned to the need to understand “the consumer”, or food behaviours on the demand side of the food system. In my opinion, dietitians and our skills are being overlooked on sustainable food. Dietitians are a key missing profession among groups more focused on the supply side of this problem–agricultural groups, economists, and technologists. I’m not sure what the solution to this is, but it really stuck out to me. For example, at one point someone wondered aloud where we would even find food intake data, or how we could possibly get people to eat differently. My immediate reaction was that there’s an entire field of nutrition and dietetics with answers and experience dealing with these questions.
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We need to collaborate across vastly different disciplines to address food’s role in climate change. I know this sounds both simple and daunting, but it’s imperative. We can do a lot as dietitians, but we need to discuss, debate, and try to come to agreement on what we’re doing with everyone else working on this issue. The current approach of many different groups doing many different things is probably contributing to consumer confusion about what we mean by “sustainable food”.
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I really am grateful for the Canadian Nutrition Society for bringing together these different perspectives on sustainability–it was well designed for rich conversations.
Thanks for reading!
Anneke