The true cost of food : a preliminary sssessment

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dc.contributor.author Hendriks, Sheryl L.
dc.contributor.author De Groot Ruiz, Adrian
dc.contributor.author Herrero Acosta, Mario
dc.contributor.author Baumers, Hans
dc.contributor.author Galgani, Pietro
dc.contributor.author Mason-D’Croz, Daniel
dc.contributor.author Godde, Cecile
dc.contributor.author Waha, Katharina
dc.contributor.author Kanidou, Dimitra
dc.contributor.author Von Braun, Joachim
dc.contributor.author Benitez, Mauricio
dc.contributor.author Blanke, Jennifer
dc.contributor.author Caron, Patrick
dc.contributor.author Fanzo, Jessica
dc.contributor.author Greb, Friederike
dc.contributor.author Haddad, Lawrence
dc.contributor.author Herforth, Anna
dc.contributor.author Jordaan, Daniel Du Plessis Scheepers
dc.contributor.author Masters, William A.
dc.contributor.author Sadoff, Claudia
dc.contributor.author Soussana, Jean-François
dc.contributor.author Tirado, Maria Cristina
dc.contributor.author Torero, Maximo
dc.contributor.author Watkins, Matthew
dc.date.accessioned 2024-07-11T10:09:07Z
dc.date.available 2024-07-11T10:09:07Z
dc.date.issued 2023-01
dc.description.abstract Ensuring sustainable food systems requires vastly reducing their environmental and health costs while making healthy and sustainable food affordable to all. One of the central problems of current food systems is that many of the costs of harmful foods are externalized, i.e., are not reflected in market prices. At the same time, the benefits of healthful foods are not appreciated. Due to externalities, sustainable and healthy food is often less affordable to consumers and less profitable for businesses than unsustainable and unhealthy food. Externalities and other market failures lead to unintended consequences for present and future generations, destroying nature and perpetuating social injustices such as underpay for workers, food insecurity, illness, premature death and other harms. We urgently need to address the fundamental causes of these problems. This chapter sets out the results of an analysis to determine the current cost of externalities in food systems and the potential impact of a shift in diets to more healthy and sustainable production and consumption patterns. The current externalities were estimated to be almost double (19.8 trillion USD) the current total global food consumption (9 trillion USD). These externalities accrue from 7 trillion USD (range 4–11) in environmental costs, 11 trillion USD (range 3–39) in costs to human life and 1 trillion USD (range 0.2–1.7) in economic costs. This means that food is roughly a third cheaper than it would be if these externalities were included. More studies are needed to quantify the costs and benefits of food systems that would support a global shift to more sustainable and healthy diets. However, the evidence presented in this chapter points to the urgent need for a system reset to account for these ‘hidden costs’ in food systems and calls for bold actions to redefine the incentives for producing and consuming healthier and more sustainable diets. The first step to correct for these ‘hidden costs’ is to redefine the value of food through true-cost accounting (TCA) so as to address externalities and other market failures. TCA reveals the true value of food by making the benefits of affordable and healthy food visible and revealing the costs of damage to the environment and human health 3. en_US
dc.description.department Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development en_US
dc.description.librarian hj2024 en_US
dc.description.sdg SDG-02:Zero Hunger en_US
dc.description.uri https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-15703-5 en_US
dc.identifier.citation Hendriks, S. et al. (2023). The True Cost of Food: A Preliminary Assessment. In: von Braun, J., Afsana, K., Fresco, L.O., Hassan, M.H.A. (eds) Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation, pp. 581-601. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15703-5_32. en_US
dc.identifier.isbn 978-3-031-15702-8 (print)
dc.identifier.other 978-3-031-15703-5 (online)
dc.identifier.other 10.1007/978-3-031-15703-5_32
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/96933
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Springer en_US
dc.rights © 2023 The Author(s). Open Access. This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. en_US
dc.subject Sustainable food systems en_US
dc.subject Food systems en_US
dc.subject Healthy food en_US
dc.subject True-cost accounting (TCA) en_US
dc.subject SDG-02: Zero hunger en_US
dc.title The true cost of food : a preliminary sssessment en_US
dc.type Book chapter en_US


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