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Journal Article

Pre- and post-production processes increasingly dominate greenhouse gas emissions fromagri-food systems

Authors

Tubiello,  Francesco N.
External Organizations;

Karl,  Kevin
External Organizations;

Flammini,  Alessandro
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Guetschow

Gütschow,  Johannes
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Obli-Laryea​​​​​​​,  Griffiths
External Organizations;

Conchedda,  Giulia
External Organizations;

Pan,  Xueyao
External Organizations;

Qi,  Sally Yue
External Organizations;

Halldórudóttir Heiðarsdóttir,  Hörn
External Organizations;

Wanner,  Nathan
External Organizations;

Quadrelli,  Roberta
External Organizations;

Rocha Souza,  Leonardo
External Organizations;

Benoit,  Philippe
External Organizations;

Hayek,  Matthew
External Organizations;

Sandalow,  David
External Organizations;

Mencos Contreras,  Erik
External Organizations;

Rosenzwei,  Cynthia
External Organizations;

Rosero Moncayo,  Jose
External Organizations;

Conforti,  Piero
External Organizations;

Torero,  Maximo
External Organizations;

External Ressource

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6011123
(Supplementary material)

Fulltext (public)

essd-14-1795-2022.pdf
(Publisher version), 4MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Tubiello, F. N., Karl, K., Flammini, A., Gütschow, J., Obli-Laryea​​​​​​​, G., Conchedda, G., Pan, X., Qi, S. Y., Halldórudóttir Heiðarsdóttir, H., Wanner, N., Quadrelli, R., Rocha Souza, L., Benoit, P., Hayek, M., Sandalow, D., Mencos Contreras, E., Rosenzwei, C., Rosero Moncayo, J., Conforti, P., Torero, M. (2022): Pre- and post-production processes increasingly dominate greenhouse gas emissions fromagri-food systems. - Earth System Science Data, 14, 4, 1795-1809.
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1795-2022


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_27847
Abstract
We present results from the FAOSTAT emissions shares database, covering emissions from agri-food systems and their shares to total anthropogenic emissions for 196 countries and 40 territories for the period 1990–2019. We find that in 2019, global agri-food system emissions were 16.5 (95 %; CI range: 11–22) billion metric tonnes (Gt CO2 eq. yr−1), corresponding to 31 % (range: 19 %–43 %) of total anthropogenic emissions. Of the agri-food system total, global emissions within the farm gate – from crop and livestock production processes including on-farm energy use – were 7.2 Gt CO2 eq. yr−1; emissions from land use change, due to deforestation and peatland degradation, were 3.5 Gt CO2 eq. yr−1; and emissions from pre- and post-production processes – manufacturing of fertilizers, food processing, packaging, transport, retail, household consumption and food waste disposal – were 5.8 Gt CO2 eq. yr−1. Over the study period 1990–2019, agri-food system emissions increased in total by 17 %, largely driven by a doubling of emissions from pre- and post-production processes. Conversely, the FAOSTAT data show that since 1990 land use emissions decreased by 25 %, while emissions within the farm gate increased 9 %. In 2019, in terms of individual greenhouse gases (GHGs), pre- and post-production processes emitted the most CO2 (3.9 Gt CO2 yr−1), preceding land use change (3.3 Gt CO2 yr−1) and farm gate (1.2 Gt CO2 yr−1) emissions. Conversely, farm gate activities were by far the major emitter of methane (140 Mt CH4 yr−1) and of nitrous oxide (7.8 Mt N2O yr−1). Pre- and post-production processes were also significant emitters of methane (49 Mt CH4 yr−1), mostly generated from the decay of solid food waste in landfills and open dumps. One key trend over the 30-year period since 1990 highlighted by our analysis is the increasingly important role of food-related emissions generated outside of agricultural land, in pre- and post-production processes along the agri-food system, at global, regional and national scales. In fact, our data show that by 2019, pre- and post-production processes had overtaken farm gate processes to become the largest GHG component of agri-food system emissions in Annex I parties (2.2 Gt CO2 eq. yr−1). They also more than doubled in non-Annex I parties (to 3.5 Gt CO2 eq. yr−1), becoming larger than emissions from land use change. By 2019 food supply chains had become the largest agri-food system component in China (1100 Mt CO2 eq. yr−1), the USA (700 Mt CO2 eq. yr−1) and the EU-27 (600 Mt CO2 eq. yr−1). This has important repercussions for food-relevant national mitigation strategies, considering that until recently these have focused mainly on reductions of non-CO2 gases within the farm gate and on CO2 mitigation from land use change. The information used in this work is available as open data with DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5615082 (Tubiello et al., 2021d). It is also available to users via the FAOSTAT database (https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/EM; FAO, 2021a), with annual updates.