Here are some of the issues surrounding our food “industry” – click here to see some solutions.


In the developed nations the energy equivalent to about 350 gallons of oil are required to feed each person each year.



Every unit of food energy produced requires on average 10 units of energy derived from fossil fuels.

Energy is used to:

  • Plough the land
  • Create pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser
  • Spray the land with  pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser
  • Plant the crops
  • Spray the crops with pesticides and herbicides
  • Pumping water to irrigate the crops
  • Harvest the food
  • Transport the food to a processor or warehouse
  • Process the food
  • Transport the food to distribution centres, markets and shops
  • Transport the food to the point of consumption (home, restaurant, etc)
  • Cook the food.

Much of our food is transported huge distances and there are many examples of countries exporting and importing the same amount of a product eg the UK imports about 114,000 tons of milk each year but exports 119,000 tons!

In 2015 7.3 million tonnes of this food was then not used and was sent to landfill. It is estimated that this cost each UK family £700 per year.

Meanwhile 8.4 million UK families are struggling to put food on the table, the equivalent of the whole population of London. As many as half of these families regularly go a whole day without food.


It is also estimated that the cost of food distribution (which includes packaging, refrigeration, transportation, advertising, middle people, etc) costs about 70% of the price paid for the food

Is this sustainable?

We are in an age where we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground and too much of our food “industry” is reliant on fossil fuels. Somehow we need to transition to a more sustainable way of feeding ourselves.

Resilience

Another issue is the resilience of our food system. We have an ever increasing number of mouths to feed in Leeds and on this planet and although there is more than enough to go round it is not shared equally.

Much of our food comes via one supply chain – a food industry that supplies our supermarkets. This operates on a “Just In Time” principle so as to maximise profits. This system is open to disruption as we have seen in other countries. If we looked closely we might even notice disruption more locally but it is often hidden by clever marketing.

Food supplies could easily be disrupted by politics (Brexit!), changes in trade agreements, disputes, war and extreme weather (the hot summer of 2018). Because we are so dependent on these supply chains we are vulnerable in Leeds to food shortages. To make our food system more resilient we need to increase the number of inputs into the system so that if one fails others are available, and we need to make sure that these inputs aren’t all dependent on the same things.