Bringing it Down to Earth: Nature Risk and Agriculture

The concrete risks identified specifically for the agricultural sector include physical risks linked to its dependencies and impacts on nature’s resources, and may be related to climate change, deforestation, soil loss and degradation, low agrobiodiversity, resistance to agrochemicals and antibiotics, the production and use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, freshwater resources and the emer. [...] And in the context of this report, includes food system’s costs and benefits to the environment, health, society and the economy. [...] In fact, the total cost of these externalities was estimated to equal about 13% of the world’s GDP.24 In ranking the regional sectors with the most impact on the environment, the food sector was responsible for more than half of the most damaging activities, on a par with the coal industry. [...] In addition to changing the way agriculture operates, which is the focus of this report, solutions can be found in the sale and marketing of the food we eat, the management of waste and plastics, the efficient use of energy in transport and storage, and the management of water use in production and processing. [...] And this biodiversity is declining at more than twice the rate of terrestrial or marine populations.63 Agriculture is one of the leading polluters of rivers, aquifers, lakes and coastal waters due to the intensive use of agrochemicals, runoff of organic matter, drug residues and sediments.64 Direct application of fertiliser is not the only culprit behind the transgression of this planetary boundar.