ROMA – The global food system is intrinsically illogical, we read in a note from WWF just spread. It uses 40% of the Earth’s ice-free surface, is the main cause of biodiversity loss, is responsible for 70% of fresh water consumption and over a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, almost a third of the world’s population does not have enough food. On the occasion of World Food Day of October 16, the WWF, as part of its campaign Our Futurereturns to ask institutions for greater care of the food system and with it the natural resources and ecosystems it exploits, bringing attention to the results of the loss of biodiversity analyzed in the Living Planet Report 2024 released globally last week.
The links of foods with destruction. Too often the food we consume, even in Italy, from chicken to fish, to products containing palm oil, coffee and chocolate, has direct links to the destruction of some of our most precious ecosystems. The Amazon and other rainforests around the world, home to some of the most iconic species, are being razed to reclaim the land, which is then used to raise livestock or for crops and plantations. The WWF reports that almost 90% of deforestation, especially in tropical and subtropical areas rich in biodiversity, is caused by our consumption. It is essential to put an end to all this.
The EU imports deforestation. The European Union is the second largest “importer” of tropical deforestation in the world after China. Among EU countries, Italy is the second largest consumer of raw materials at risk of nature destruction, being responsible for the deforestation of almost 36,000 hectares per year. Soy, palm oil and beef were the raw materials imported into Italy with the associated greatest tropical deforestation. With their food consumption, every Italian is responsible for the deforestation of 6 square meters per year.
The regulation approved in 2023. To reduce the impact of the consumption of Italian and European citizens on forests, the EU approved in 2023, the EUDR, the European “anti-deforestation” regulation which provides that, from 30 December this year, 7 raw materials (soya, palm oil, beef, coffee, wood products, cocoa, rubber) and all their derivatives can be introduced on the European market only if the importing companies they will be able to demonstrate that the products have not caused deforestation, for example by tracing the place of production and all stages of the supply chain.
But they want to postpone those rules for a year. Last October 2, however, the European Commission proposed to postpone the entry into force of the EUDR by twelve months, therefore to December 30, 2025. Just tomorrow (16 October) the EU Member States will decide whether to accept this proposal. This decision by the European Commission follows the requests of various Member States, including Italy, and the pressure from the business world who believe there are unresolved critical issues that do not allow them to operate immediately in compliance with the required technical documentation.
Most soy is linked to deforestation. Soy has become a key ingredient in the diet of farmed animals, fueling an intensive industry that consumes huge quantities of the legume to produce meat, dairy and eggs. Most soy is linked to deforestation and conversion of savannas and grasslands in South America, such as the Cerrado, the most biodiverse savanna ecosystem in the world that is home to iconic species such as the jaguar, the largest feline on the American continent and the third largest carnivore on the planet of which only 170,000 specimens remain in nature and today it survives in 50% of what was its natural territory.
What to think about when eating a chicken leg. Few know, while eating chicken breast or a pork chop or farmed salmon, that that food arrived on our plate thanks to the clearing of forests and the loss of unique species. Today, nowhere in the world is the loss and degradation of forests and other priority ecosystems caused by industrialized agriculture more evident than in South America. Also, the coffee and chocolate at the end of the meal may have been produced at the expense of the planet’s forests.
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