Big Food, Environment, and Climate ChangE

---

This chapter examines the major challenges, environmental impacts, and sustainability of today’s global agrifood system, including conventional (industrial) agriculture, commercial fishing, and food waste. It discusses how agriculture causes climate change while being shaped by its effects, as warmer temperatures and unstable weather like droughts and floods impact crop productivity and nutrient composition, threatening global food security. It describes how livestock production and factory farms (to make meat, dairy, and eggs) and the agrifood system drive deforestation, emitting greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, contributing to global warming. It examines water, fertilizers, and pesticides in food production and their relation to dead zones, pollution, soil degradation, and climate change. It scrutinizes the commercial fishing industry, sharing how overfishing and by-catch have diminished biodiversity and disrupted ocean ecosystems. The chapter closes on food waste and food loss, including its magnitude, causes, and impact on climate change and the environment.