For much of the world, food has never been as abundant or as inexpensive as it is now, but at what cost? The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the cost of diet-related ill health is somewhere around $7 trillion, which is far more than the “profits” of food and agriculture. Those profits, like the cheaper, more plentiful food they stem from, take no account of the external costs of climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and, ultimately, human health.

Professor Tim Benton has spent his career working at the interface between agricultural and food politics and environment.

“If we don’t get to grips with these challenges,” he told me “then ultimately the only thing to happen is some big calamity at some point in the future, where the planet bites back and says, I’ve had enough.”

Notes

1. Tim Benton’s paper with Rob Bailey — The paradox of productivity: agricultural productivity promotes food system inefficiency — is a very readable summary.


2. Here is the transcript.


3. This is not the first time the podcast has looked at prices and externalities – search for prices – and it will not be the last.

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