{"id":28591,"date":"2020-05-28T13:52:32","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T17:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=28591"},"modified":"2020-07-06T11:44:38","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T15:44:38","slug":"how-to-spot-opportunities-in-sustainable-food-and-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/how-to-spot-opportunities-in-sustainable-food-and-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Spot Opportunities in Sustainable Food and Agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to June 2020 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n

\"\"The food and agriculture sector is in the early stages of a far-reaching transition toward more sustainable food production and consumption. Growing environmental and resource pressures, changing consumer demands, technological innovation and ever-tightening regulatory interventions are disrupting depletive practices and unhealthy preferences. This transformation is creating fast-growing insurgent companies and changing the business models of incumbent firms, creating compelling investment opportunities for active investors.<\/p>\n

Drivers of Disruption<\/h2>\n

The food and agriculture sector both causes, and is vulnerable to, environmental degradation. Pressures are intensifying as growing populations and rising living standards drive increased consumption of resource-intensive foods. But awareness is rising, and consumption patterns are changing rapidly as consumers shift toward flexitarian diets that involve more natural and sustainably produced foods.<\/p>\n

Meat alternatives are being developed rapidly, with sales of plant?based meats projected to expand by 25% per year over the next decade.[1]<\/a><\/sup> Similarly, for companies in the natural food space, the slowdown in the consumption of branded, processed food has had a significant impact.<\/p>\n

Enormous volumes of waste produced by our food system exacerbate the above impacts. Up to one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, at an economic cost of up to $1 trillion per year.[2]<\/a><\/sup> There is growing consumer demand for solutions.<\/p>\n

Food production and agriculture can contribute to climate change through deforestation, which reduces the planet\u2019s natural carbon storage capacity, and through the sector\u2019s use of inputs such as fossil fuels and fertilizers. Globally, livestock rearing is responsible for 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.[3]<\/a><\/sup> Agriculture-related tropical deforestation contributes to around 8% of GHG emissions.[4]<\/a> <\/sup><\/p>\n

\"bees
Excessive use of chemical nutritional and crop protection inputs has negative ecological and human health impacts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Excessive use of chemical nutritional and crop protection inputs has negative ecological and human health impacts. Global use of pesticides has increased 81 percent.[5]<\/a><\/sup> Pesticides can destabilize ecosystems by altering the nutrient balance and reducing soil biodiversity, leading to declines in crop yields.[6]<\/a><\/sup> Decaying nitrogen fertilizers produce GHGs, while nitrogen and phosphorus runoff pollute groundwater and can lead to vast hypoxic \u201cdead zones\u201d in lakes and coastal waters.<\/p>\n

Water scarcity is one of the most urgent food security issues facing many of the world\u2019s countries. Globally, 70 percent of fresh water is used for food production-related irrigation, exposing the sector to changing patterns of precipitation. Around 1.2 billion people live in areas of physical water scarcity; an additional 500 million people are approaching this situation.[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Overuse of antibiotics \u2014 some 70 percent of antibiotics in the European Union are used in animal farming \u2014 is contributing to an antibiotic resistance crisis that is already costing Europe \u20ac1.5 billion per year in healthcare costs and productivity losses.[8]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Across the range of environmental and social impacts, governments are responding with policies and measures to improve the efficiency of food and agriculture production, reduce its environmental impacts and improve health outcomes.[9]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Opportunities<\/h2>\n

Fortunately, there is a global universe of companies that are helping to address the sustainability challenges of this sector \u2014 companies working to reduce costs by improving efficiency, lower environmental impacts, facilitate the provision of safe and nutritious food and promote animal welfare standards along the food value chain.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n