Global health and environmental costs of food industry are $10tn a year – UN
‘Price tag’ of non-communicable diseases, malnutrition, poverty and harm to planet is 10% of global GDP, says UN food agency
The health and environmental damage caused by food production costs the world $10tn (£8tn) a year, or 10% of global GDP, the UN said.
Conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, the consequence of poor diets, account for $7.3tn, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which has put a “price tag” on the hidden costs of the global food industry in its annual report, published on Monday.
“In the last [few] years people have realised planetary boundaries have been put under pressure and, in many cases, crossed,” said David Laborde, director of the FAO agrifood economics division.
“While food is central to our life, it also has significant impact on the environment and health,” he said. “Assigning them a value is one way to quantify these different impacts.”
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Image: The typical daily diet of one Mexican girl in Texcoco, who suffered a heart attack aged 11 after consuming an average of 6,600 calories a day. She was also diagnosed with diabetes. About 77% of deaths globally are due to these non-communicable diseases. Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Reuters