The hidden costs of industrial ag are mind-blowing

The UN report linked in the quoted story actually covers all agriculture worldwide. But when you look at the second paragraph below, you know almost all the problems are originating with the greedheads of Big Ag.

Food systems are about much more than just food. What’s on your plate or in your bowl is important, of course, but food is linked with everything from labor rights and healthcare to social justice and the climate crisis.

But when consumers buy a cluster of tomatoes on the vine or a carton of eggs, the price does not necessarily consider that inter-tangled web of connections. These external impacts of food production—on human health, animal welfare, workers, biodiversity, waterways, or soil—aren’t always reflected in the market price.

The movement to calculate, value, recognize, and pay down these costs is known as True Cost Accounting (TCA), and we’ve talked about it before. But in a landmark report just published, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization took on the massive task of analyzing virtually the entire world’s food system through the lens of TCA.

This report estimates that the global quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems is approximately US$12.7 trillion.

It’s almost like a debt the food system owes to the world—a debt that, so far, it’s not making payments on. - Food Tank