Green Schools - Food Workshop June 2019

1. Green Schools – Food Workshop June 2019 Delivered by Lourdes Youth and Community Services www.lycs.ie

2. Find Somebody Who

3. What is food? • What is food and where does it come from?

4. We Are Our Food/We Are Nature

5. Overview of the Context • all life on earth is at real risk. • we are in a mass extinction event. • we are in abrupt climate breakdown. • we are in ecological collapse • AND carbon emissions keep rising

6. Climate Change: 12 years to change system

7. Ecological Collapse

8. The Great Turning • Watch Joanna Macy Video

9. Major Food Issues • Spread western diet and growing global population • Hunger, malnutrition, disease, obesity and food poverty • Food using up increasing land, encroaching into biodiverse areas • Food waste • Contributing to and affected by climate change • Corporate control of seeds, land, inputs, processing and distribution of food • Human rights abuses in food labour

11. Not one Food System • The traditional subsistence farming system which existed till the 1950s in Ireland still dominates in the rural global south, with about 2 billion surviving on less than 5 acres of land. (Wikipedia) • The industrial system from the global North has now reached into all areas of the world. • A new sustainable food system is also emerging. It works with fewer inputs than the industrial system and includes regenerative agriculture, agroecology, organic agriculture and permaculture.

12. Food System Images • Put your images into two piles, traditional and industrial systems. • Discuss the pros and cons of each system from as many angles you can think of • Take notes so you can share your main points with other groups

13. Which System?

14. LAND USE

15. Land Use • Only 71 percent of Earth's land surface is defined as habitable • Humans live on 1% of habitable land but use half of it for agriculture

16. Impact of Land Conversion • We are converting forests, woody savannas, and grasslands into crops and pastures, and draining peatlands for agriculture. • This damages ecosystems’ ability to provide habitats, water, clean air and climate regulation • Also, this displaces peasant and indigenous communities in the Global South

17. Food System Threatened The UN has warned that the world’s soils face exhaustion and depletion, with an estimated 60 harvests left before they are too degraded to feed the planet, and a 2014 study in the UK found matters are not much better, estimating 100 harvests remaining. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-soil-farming/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues-idUSKCN0JJ1R920141205

18. Damaging the Land • World has lost of a third of arable land in the past 40 years

19. Damaging the Land • This is due to : • continual ploughing • heavy use of nitrogen fertilizers This damage is permanent as it takes around 500 years for just 2.5cm of topsoil to be created https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/arable-land-soil-food-security-shortage

20. Monoculture

21. Deforestation

22. Pollinators Dying

23. Water & Pesticides • Agriculture accounts for 70% of all freshwater withdrawn from rivers, lakes, and aquifers. • more than half of the nitrogen fertilizer applied to crops is lost to the environment—placing pressure on freshwater and coastal ecosystems.

24. Livestock Uses Most Land • More than three-quarters of our agricultural land is used for the rearing of livestock (grazing & animal feed production). • But meat and dairy supplies only 17 percent of global caloric supply and only 33 percent of global protein supply. • In other words, the 11 million square kilometres used for crops supply more calories and protein for the global population than the almost 4-times larger area used for livestock.

25. CLIMATE CHANGE

26. Climate Change & Agriculture https://foodsource.org.uk/31-what-food-system%E2%80%99s-contribution-global-ghg-emissions-total

27. INDUSTRIAL FOOD

28. Industrial System • Mechanisation • Monoculture • Huge pesticide & herbicide use • GMO, seed patenting, bio-piracy (patenting plant DNA traditionally owned by the people) • Huge corporate power/lobbying • Processed food/hidden food processes • Export orientated, linked to free trade systems

29. More Industrialisation of food? • Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lbjHWoDIRw

30. Changing Food

31. Margarine – a healthy food? 31

32. Cheap crops for food industry • Huge yields of staples like corn mean surplus available for processed food industry. • When corn is made into cornflakes and marketed heavily, huge profit added. • ‘Externalises’ costs such as water, soil, land

33. The Problems with Processed • Unhealthy – high sugar, salt, fat • Addictive ingredients to sell • Cheap Fillers e.g. cellulose, horse • Lower welfare (people and animals) • More impact planet • High marketing, e.g. to kids • Less educated, poorer more susceptible 33

34. Industrial Food in Education/Dietary Advice

35. Real food or food product? • Look at food labels of common food items in supermarket. • Give each food a red, orange or green label in terms of how close to real food it is. Look at: • Ingredients not recognisable as food/you don’t have at home • Is it marketed heavily? • Overall number of ingredients • Health claims on the pack • High salt, fat, sugar

36. FEEDING PEOPLE

37. Evolution?

38. Feeding Problems HUNGRY - 821 million do not have enough to eat MALNOURISHED - Further 2 billion have micronutrient deficiencies (under and overweight people) OBESE - 1.9 billion overweight people or obese worldwide, tripled since 1970

39. Part of Same Problem

40. 1/3 to ½ Global Food Wasted

41. Globalisation

42. Nutritional Transition

43. Global rise in diabetes, hypertension and obesity

44. What does this image mean?

45. Obesity & Inequality • Obesity rises in line with inequality (e.g. US high, Japan low) • Lower education/income associated with obesity • Poorer (low and middle income countries) now seeing huge rise in obesity & related illnesses • those on $1/$2 a day target market for food corporations

46. FOOD POVERTY IN IRELAND

47. Food Poverty in Ireland • 1 in 11 people in Ireland experience food poverty, which is the inability to afford or to have access to, food to make up a healthy diet.

48. Child Food Poverty 2018

49. Food Poverty in Ireland • Lack variety in food choices (individual tastes and financial constraints) • Mainly not cooking, more reheating due to lack skill, time, motivation. • Many mothers, single males and single older persons will skip or omit meals, conserving both time and food supplies, but children getting 3 meals and snacks. • Reliance on take-aways on weekends, and frozen food at end of month when money tight. • Dining out v rare. • Households with kids – processed and convenience foods dominated. • Single older people – more knowledge about food and tend to cook from scratch but meal skipping common (lack appetite, company) Based on Safefood research 2011. 49

50. GLOBAL HUNGER