Op-ed: The Food System Cannot Become Another Fossil-Fuel Industry Escape Hatch
As I started thinking about this piece in January, wildfires had begun ravaging Los Angeles. By the time I had written it, entire neighborhoods had been wiped off the map, from fires that were among the most destructive in California’s history. While the current administration may blame “woke” DEI environmentalists for the blazes, science shows that the climate crisis contributed to the severity of the damage. Meanwhile, the administration is decimating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s premier climate research institution. “Fossil fuel producers continue to shapeshift to shirk responsibility and find new avenues for oil and gas. They’ve got their eyes on one: the food system.” Most of us didn’t need another reminder that the climate crisis is not a future to fear, but a reality on our doorstep. We are heartbroken for those who have lost everything, and angry and frustrated that our political leaders have failed to confront the driving force behind the crisis: the fossil fuel industry. The political headwinds we’re facing make it all the more challenging, enabling fossil fuel producers to continue to shapeshift to shirk responsibility and find new avenues for oil and gas. They’ve got their eyes on one: the food system. The food system is responsible for an estimated one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions driving this crisis. One key reason: the industrial food chain and its ultra-processed foods are deeply dependent on fossil fuels. Consider, if you will, a simple bag of potato chips with a not-so-simple origin story. At nearly every step of this ultra-processed food’s path from the field to the grocery store, fossil fuels are key. Growing vast monocultures of potatoes requires synthetic fertilizers whose production requires massive amounts of energy. It also necessitates petroleum-based pesticides, from fungicides to herbicides, to ward off weeds and stop sprouting. Irrigation and farm equipment also depend on fossil fuels. Most processing facilities still rely on non-renewable energy to power the machinery for sorting, washing, trimming, slicing, blanching, frying, and seasoning. Fossil fuels provide the raw materials for the plastics in packaging, and, typically, the power to transport those chips to distribution centers and supermarkets, corner stores, vending machines—wherever you find them. And that’s just potato chips. Fossil fuels are used throughout our food system—across much of the foods produced by the industrial food chain. By one estimate commissioned by my organization, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, food systems account for at least 15 percent of annual global fossil fuel consumption. (Though, we stress, this is a rough estimate, since assessing usage around the world is exceedingly challenging; we need more and better data.) “Where Are the Fossil Fuels?” infographic from the Fuel to Fork podcast. The analysis found that 42 percent of that total fossil fuel consumption comes from processing and packaging stages, largely driven by the global rise of ultra-processed food. Another 38 percent comes from retail consumption and waste; and the rest is from industrial inputs (like pesticides and fertilizer) and agriculture production. To paraphrase grocery industry expert Errol Schweizer in the podcast Fuel to Fork, which my organization helps produce, fossil fuels are the lifeblood of the food system. Fossil fuels are on track to be an even bigger presence in our food system. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a nonprofit environmental organization, warns that as sectors like transport are decarbonizing, the fossil fuel industry has its sights on food, particularly through petrochemicals. CIEL notes that an estimated 74 percent of all petrochemicals are already used for agricultural fertilizer and plastic. The International Energy Agency projects that by 2050 half of all oil and gas will be used for petrochemicals. Based on current levels, 40 percent of that will be going into our food system in the form of plastics and fertilizers. In another report, CIEL notes how chemical companies are introducing microplastic-coated pesticides and fertilizers as a ‘climate solution’. Industry boosters state that microplastic-coated pesticides and fertilizers reduce nitrous oxide emissions by slowing the release of pesticides and fertilizers, so the farmer has to apply less frequently and use less. But, as CIEL adds in the report, the industry has acknowledged that assessing use reduction is challenging. CIEL also points out that using these plastic-coated agrochemicals “directly introduces microplastic into the environment and potentially into the food supply. It also compounds the health and environmental hazards posed by agrochemicals themselves.” Also, as CIEL and others call out, these products not only don’t significantly reduce usage, they cause other problems. Along with increasing the presence of plastics in food production and threatening public health, microplastics used this way dissolve in the soil, impacting soil health, reducing how much water soils can retain, and destroying healthy microorganisms essential for nutrient cycling. But raising the alarm about the growing connections between food systems and fossil fuels is a challenge, because these emissions are often made invisible. Back to that bag of potato chips: The petrochemicals used in fertilizer’s manufacture are responsible for some 34 percent of energy used in potato crop production, yet they aren’t counted in the total emissions for the food sector according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), or in national emission inventories governments share with the United Nations. “Despite being crucial elements of our food’s journey from field to fork, and carbon-intensive ones at that, neither fertilizer, pesticide, or plastic production are made visible as food-related emissions.” Instead, they are accounted for in different sectors altogether: manufacturing and industry. The same is true for plastic used in food packaging. Despite being crucial elements of our food’s journey from field to fork, and carbon-intensive ones at that, neither fertilizer, pesticide, or plastic production are made visible as food-related emissions. What is also hard to see are the subsidies the fossil fuel industry enjoys. By one estimate, the industry benefits from $7 trillion in subsidies annually, making inputs like synthetic fertilizer and pesticides artificially cheap and therefore possible to use on a vast scale. As Raj Patel, author and a Civil Eats advisor, points out on Fuel to Fork, fossil fuels “enable certain kinds of large-scale industrial agriculture to be profitable.” Meanwhile, we collectively pay the true cost. Fossil fuels make it possible to grow crops in vast monocultures using pesticides instead of biodiversity to deter insects and employing energy-intensive synthetic fertilizers that actually deplete natural soil health and fertility. Fossil fuels also help make ultra-processed foods often the cheapest and most profitable to produce and sell, contributing to a global epidemic of diet-related ill-health. They allow our food to be grown in far-flung places and wrapped in plastic to sit on shelves for months on end, adding further to the carbon emissions bill as well as disrupting local foodways. This method of production also enables us to raise livestock on an industrial scale: Artificially cheap fossil fuel makes it economically feasible to grow vast monocultures of feed, primarily corn and soybeans, needed for Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). The CAFO system, with its dependence on vast amounts of feed crops, has many knock-off climate effects. Soybean production in Brazil, one of the world’s largest exporters of soybeans for animal feed, has contributed to massive deforestation and land use change there, releasing locked-in carbon into the atmosphere. Mismanaged farm waste on CAFOs has a climate toll as well, responsible for as much as 7 percent of global farming emissions. And methane emissions from ruminants, like cattle, are another significant source of climate impacts. Fossil fuels have enabled us to soar past our ecological limits. A man watches the flames from the Palisades Fire burning homes on the Pacific Coast Highway amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo credit: Apu Gomes/Getty Images) I’m not naive about the challenges of reducing the use of fossil fuel in the food chain or loosening industry’s stranglehold on policymaking. I do believe, however, that by exposing the links between this industry and our food, we can mobilize the political will for action on food systems transformation to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. And, as more people see the links between fossil fuels and food, we can start to trace a path out of this dependency and find solutions—not just big, thorny, political ones, but everyday ones, too. For those who have the access, and the means, we can make changes ourselves: increase our consumption of whole foods from local, small-scale organic farmers, reduce our consumption of ultra-processed foods, avoid plastic when possible, eat less meat from factory farms, and reduce food waste—to name just a few examples. Alongside these choices, we must collectively work to prevent the industry from using the food system as an escape hatch, a new market for oil and gas as the public demands decarbonization in other parts of the economy. We can support practices like agroecology and regenerative approaches that reduce dependency on synthetic fertilizer and pesticides while catalyzing a cascade of benefits, from better health outcomes to biodiversity protection. And we can also make clear that climate action requires food system action. If we needed any further reminder about why this is so urgent, the thousands of acres of blackened, charred Los Angeles neighborhoods should be more than enough. The post Op-ed: The Food System Cannot Become Another Fossil-Fuel Industry Escape Hatch appeared first on Civil Eats.
While the current administration may blame “woke” DEI environmentalists for the blazes, science shows that the climate crisis contributed to the severity of the damage. Meanwhile, the administration is decimating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s premier climate research institution. Most of us didn’t need another reminder that the climate crisis is […] The post Op-ed: The Food System Cannot Become Another Fossil-Fuel Industry Escape Hatch appeared first on Civil Eats.
As I started thinking about this piece in January, wildfires had begun ravaging Los Angeles. By the time I had written it, entire neighborhoods had been wiped off the map, from fires that were among the most destructive in California’s history.
While the current administration may blame “woke” DEI environmentalists for the blazes, science shows that the climate crisis contributed to the severity of the damage. Meanwhile, the administration is decimating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s premier climate research institution.
“Fossil fuel producers continue to shapeshift to shirk responsibility and find new avenues for oil and gas. They’ve got their eyes on one: the food system.”
Most of us didn’t need another reminder that the climate crisis is not a future to fear, but a reality on our doorstep. We are heartbroken for those who have lost everything, and angry and frustrated that our political leaders have failed to confront the driving force behind the crisis: the fossil fuel industry.
The political headwinds we’re facing make it all the more challenging, enabling fossil fuel producers to continue to shapeshift to shirk responsibility and find new avenues for oil and gas. They’ve got their eyes on one: the food system.
The food system is responsible for an estimated one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions driving this crisis. One key reason: the industrial food chain and its ultra-processed foods are deeply dependent on fossil fuels.
Consider, if you will, a simple bag of potato chips with a not-so-simple origin story. At nearly every step of this ultra-processed food’s path from the field to the grocery store, fossil fuels are key. Growing vast monocultures of potatoes requires synthetic fertilizers whose production requires massive amounts of energy. It also necessitates petroleum-based pesticides, from fungicides to herbicides, to ward off weeds and stop sprouting. Irrigation and farm equipment also depend on fossil fuels.
Most processing facilities still rely on non-renewable energy to power the machinery for sorting, washing, trimming, slicing, blanching, frying, and seasoning. Fossil fuels provide the raw materials for the plastics in packaging, and, typically, the power to transport those chips to distribution centers and supermarkets, corner stores, vending machines—wherever you find them.
And that’s just potato chips. Fossil fuels are used throughout our food system—across much of the foods produced by the industrial food chain. By one estimate commissioned by my organization, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, food systems account for at least 15 percent of annual global fossil fuel consumption. (Though, we stress, this is a rough estimate, since assessing usage around the world is exceedingly challenging; we need more and better data.)
“Where Are the Fossil Fuels?” infographic from the Fuel to Fork podcast.
The analysis found that 42 percent of that total fossil fuel consumption comes from processing and packaging stages, largely driven by the global rise of ultra-processed food. Another 38 percent comes from retail consumption and waste; and the rest is from industrial inputs (like pesticides and fertilizer) and agriculture production. To paraphrase grocery industry expert Errol Schweizer in the podcast Fuel to Fork, which my organization helps produce, fossil fuels are the lifeblood of the food system.
Fossil fuels are on track to be an even bigger presence in our food system. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a nonprofit environmental organization, warns that as sectors like transport are decarbonizing, the fossil fuel industry has its sights on food, particularly through petrochemicals. CIEL notes that an estimated 74 percent of all petrochemicals are already used for agricultural fertilizer and plastic.
The International Energy Agency projects that by 2050 half of all oil and gas will be used for petrochemicals. Based on current levels, 40 percent of that will be going into our food system in the form of plastics and fertilizers.
In another report, CIEL notes how chemical companies are introducing microplastic-coated pesticides and fertilizers as a ‘climate solution’. Industry boosters state that microplastic-coated pesticides and fertilizers reduce nitrous oxide emissions by slowing the release of pesticides and fertilizers, so the farmer has to apply less frequently and use less.
But, as CIEL adds in the report, the industry has acknowledged that assessing use reduction is challenging. CIEL also points out that using these plastic-coated agrochemicals “directly introduces microplastic into the environment and potentially into the food supply. It also compounds the health and environmental hazards posed by agrochemicals themselves.”
Also, as CIEL and others call out, these products not only don’t significantly reduce usage, they cause other problems. Along with increasing the presence of plastics in food production and threatening public health, microplastics used this way dissolve in the soil, impacting soil health, reducing how much water soils can retain, and destroying healthy microorganisms essential for nutrient cycling.
But raising the alarm about the growing connections between food systems and fossil fuels is a challenge, because these emissions are often made invisible. Back to that bag of potato chips: The petrochemicals used in fertilizer’s manufacture are responsible for some 34 percent of energy used in potato crop production, yet they aren’t counted in the total emissions for the food sector according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), or in national emission inventories governments share with the United Nations.
“Despite being crucial elements of our food’s journey from field to fork, and carbon-intensive ones at that, neither fertilizer, pesticide, or plastic production are made visible as food-related emissions.”
Instead, they are accounted for in different sectors altogether: manufacturing and industry. The same is true for plastic used in food packaging. Despite being crucial elements of our food’s journey from field to fork, and carbon-intensive ones at that, neither fertilizer, pesticide, or plastic production are made visible as food-related emissions.
What is also hard to see are the subsidies the fossil fuel industry enjoys. By one estimate, the industry benefits from $7 trillion in subsidies annually, making inputs like synthetic fertilizer and pesticides artificially cheap and therefore possible to use on a vast scale. As Raj Patel, author and a Civil Eats advisor, points out on Fuel to Fork, fossil fuels “enable certain kinds of large-scale industrial agriculture to be profitable.”
Meanwhile, we collectively pay the true cost. Fossil fuels make it possible to grow crops in vast monocultures using pesticides instead of biodiversity to deter insects and employing energy-intensive synthetic fertilizers that actually deplete natural soil health and fertility. Fossil fuels also help make ultra-processed foods often the cheapest and most profitable to produce and sell, contributing to a global epidemic of diet-related ill-health.
They allow our food to be grown in far-flung places and wrapped in plastic to sit on shelves for months on end, adding further to the carbon emissions bill as well as disrupting local foodways.
This method of production also enables us to raise livestock on an industrial scale: Artificially cheap fossil fuel makes it economically feasible to grow vast monocultures of feed, primarily corn and soybeans, needed for Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
The CAFO system, with its dependence on vast amounts of feed crops, has many knock-off climate effects. Soybean production in Brazil, one of the world’s largest exporters of soybeans for animal feed, has contributed to massive deforestation and land use change there, releasing locked-in carbon into the atmosphere. Mismanaged farm waste on CAFOs has a climate toll as well, responsible for as much as 7 percent of global farming emissions. And methane emissions from ruminants, like cattle, are another significant source of climate impacts.
Fossil fuels have enabled us to soar past our ecological limits.
A man watches the flames from the Palisades Fire burning homes on the Pacific Coast Highway amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo credit: Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
I’m not naive about the challenges of reducing the use of fossil fuel in the food chain or loosening industry’s stranglehold on policymaking. I do believe, however, that by exposing the links between this industry and our food, we can mobilize the political will for action on food systems transformation to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
And, as more people see the links between fossil fuels and food, we can start to trace a path out of this dependency and find solutions—not just big, thorny, political ones, but everyday ones, too. For those who have the access, and the means, we can make changes ourselves: increase our consumption of whole foods from local, small-scale organic farmers, reduce our consumption of ultra-processed foods, avoid plastic when possible, eat less meat from factory farms, and reduce food waste—to name just a few examples.
Alongside these choices, we must collectively work to prevent the industry from using the food system as an escape hatch, a new market for oil and gas as the public demands decarbonization in other parts of the economy. We can support practices like agroecology and regenerative approaches that reduce dependency on synthetic fertilizer and pesticides while catalyzing a cascade of benefits, from better health outcomes to biodiversity protection.
And we can also make clear that climate action requires food system action. If we needed any further reminder about why this is so urgent, the thousands of acres of blackened, charred Los Angeles neighborhoods should be more than enough.
The post Op-ed: The Food System Cannot Become Another Fossil-Fuel Industry Escape Hatch appeared first on Civil Eats.