While the demand for exotic food continues to grow, countries cultivating this produce pay huge environmental costs as they make last-ditch efforts to meet the market expectations, a number of experts have warned.
Deforestation, water pollution, and the loss of pollinators are just some of the direct side effects of the excessive production of avocados, palm oil, acai berries, mangos, and many other foodstuffs. These, in turn, lead to the destruction of biodiversity, an increase in air temperature, erratic rainstorms, and ultimately to irretrievable climate changes, according to an academic researcher, Manuel Ochoa Ayala.
Explaining the increase in demand for these products Luisa Carvalheiro, a professor of biology and ecology at Brasilian Universidade Federal de Goias, said:
“I remember a time when acai was just a humble berry, a staple for the Amazon’s indigenous communities. That was before the inky purple berries became all the rage in Europe and the U.S., a so-called superfood promising everything from weight loss to lasting youth.”
Over the past few decades, these tropical plant species have become popular components of a healthy diet for people in developed countries which prompted a huge upsurge in their production.
Now that these foodstuffs are available all over the world, the few tropical countries that cultivate them are faced with substantial environmental issues.
A study by Carbon Footprint Ltd shows that a small pack of two avocados involves an emissions footprint of 846.36g CO2, almost twice that of one kilo of bananas (480g).
“Intensive avocado production has caused biodiversity loss, extreme weather conditions, extensive degradation of the soil and is on the brink of causing an entirely human-made environmental disaster, ” Manuel Ochoa Ayala noted.
Palm oil is made from oil palms, huge plantations of which can be found in Brazil. Its production has led not only to pollution but also to deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, the most important green ecosystem on earth. This significantly diminishes the ability of the Amazon Forest to absorb carbon dioxide thus boosting global warming. Oil palm plantations cover over 27 million hectares on Earth and forests and human settlements have been destroyed to extend this thereby dealing a severe blow to biodiversity.
All this goes hand in hand with man-made environmental issues such as water and soil pollution, for instance. Sandra Damian, a researcher at the University of Brasilia, has said that the environmental impact of palm oil production on Brazilian soil and on people’s lives is tremendous. Research conducted at her University shows that after the oil palms began to be planted in 2010, “people living there began to report a mysterious wave of chronic, debilitating, and sometimes fatal, symptoms: headaches, itching, skin rashes and blisters, diarrhea and stomach ailments”. Many of these health complaints arose shortly after drinking from or bathing in local streams and it subsequently transpired that all those symptoms were a result of the use of pesticides to protect palm oil crops, the researcher said.
Referring to potential solutions, academic researcher Manuel Ochoa Ayala mentioned the need for sustainable farming certificates as a way of making sure that the food being purchased is not the product of deforestation or involves the indiscriminate exploitation of aquifers. Trade agreements should also consider the environmental impact so that “consumption in one country should not be at the cost of destroying the origin country,” he said.
It is also very important to raise people’s “awareness of the environmental impact of what we consume” in reducing the climate impact of food production. The researcher has called for a rethinking of our diet and lifestyle trends.
“We live on a global and fully integrated planet where what you happily eat with your friends and family while watching sports could be destroying entire ecosystems,” Manuel Ochoa Ayla concluded.
