Breakthrough Institute Releases White Paper Highlighting Climate Impacts of Agricultural Trade

BERKELEY, Calif., June 06, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- While the carbon footprint per unit of production in the United States is below the average of other top exporting countries for many of the world’s leading agricultural goods, a new report from The Breakthrough Institute, a global research center that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges, finds that trade has never been a major focus of U.S. policy debates about how to decarbonize agriculture or otherwise improve its environmental sustainability.

The report, titled “How to Cut Emissions Through Agricultural Trade,” analyzes data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on five of the world’s top agricultural exports, maize (corn), wheat, beef, pork, and chicken. Among the report’s findings, the United States produces several key commodities with a lower carbon footprint than other major exporters, but many countries with higher carbon footprints also export more than countries with lower emissions.

Additional findings from the report make a case for policymakers to consider policies that concentrate food and agriculture production in countries with the lowest emissions and rates of agriculturally-driven deforestation and other land-use change, which is a large contributor to agriculture’s carbon footprint:

• The United States produces a number of goods with the lowest relative carbon footprint: For most agricultural goods examined, the carbon footprint per unit of production in the United States is below the average of other top exporting countries. Maize (corn) production in other top exporting countries is, on average, more than two and half times more emissions-intensive than in the United States, while for beef and chicken production, emissions from production and land use per kilogram (kg) of meat produced are substantially lower in the United States than in the other top exporting countries.
• International competitiveness and carbon footprints are not aligned: When it comes to the production of beef, chicken, and pork, the largest exporters from 2015-2019—Brazil (beef), Brazil (chicken), and the United States (pork)—don’t have the lowest carbon footprints. Brazil is the largest exporter of chicken, despite having an emissions intensity that is almost 80% higher than chicken production in the United States, the second largest exporter. Similarly, Russia and the United States are the top two exporters of wheat but also have the highest rates of emissions from production among major exporters and some of the highest when including land-use change.
• The average emissions intensity of global agricultural trade is on track to increase: Unfortunately, export data from 2000 to 2019 reveals that, for many agricultural products, exports from countries with high emissions intensities are increasing more quickly than exports from countries with low emissions intensities. For example, compared to the United States, exports from Brazil have increased almost three times as quickly for beef, nearly three times as fast for chicken, and more than 22 times more quickly for maize. Likewise, growth in pork exports from the United States have outpaced exports from Germany and Canada.
  

The report includes several recommendations for policymakers including different trade policies to shift agricultural production and exports from high emissions to low emissions countries. One option is to incorporate agricultural products into a renewed WTO Environmental Goods Agreement that aims to reduce tariffs for environmentally beneficial products. The report also suggests the United States and other major exporters should examine how trade promotion programs can be used to expand international demand for exports that replace higher-carbon products.

“Reducing the agricultural sector’s greenhouse gas emissions is a pressing challenge if we are to decarbonize the global economy,” said Dan Blaustein-Rejto, Director of Food & Agriculture at The Breakthrough Institute. “The interconnectedness of our food system demands global solutions that can account for international trade. Policymakers have a number of pathways to achieve global agricultural emissions reductions, and targeted action in this space can have a dramatic and sustainable impact.”

To read the full report, please visit: https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environment/how-to-cut-emissions-through-agricultural-trade

About The Breakthrough Institute
The Breakthrough Institute is an environmental research center based in Berkeley, California. Our research focuses on identifying and promoting technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges in three areas: energy, conservation, and food and farming. For additional information about the Breakthrough Institute, please visit: https://thebreakthrough.org

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