{"id":54850,"date":"2020-08-29T06:28:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-29T11:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54850"},"modified":"2020-08-29T06:28:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T11:28:48","slug":"how-our-food-choices-cut-into-forests-and-put-us-closer-to-viruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54850","title":{"rendered":"How our food choices cut into forests and put us closer to\u00a0viruses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How our food choices cut into forests and put us closer to\u00a0viruses<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme\u00a0simplification of ecological systems<\/a>, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths of monocultures.<\/p>\n

From cattle farming to oil palm plantations, industrial agriculture remains the greatest\u00a0driver of deforestation<\/a>, particularly in the tropics. And as agricultural activities expand and\u00a0intensify<\/a>, ecosystems lose\u00a0plants, wildlife and other biodiversity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The permanent transformation<\/a>\u00a0of forested landscapes for commodity crops currently drives more than a quarter of all global deforestation. This includes soy, palm oil, beef cattle, coffee, cocoa, sugar and other key ingredients of our increasingly simplified and\u00a0highly processed<\/a>\u00a0diets.<\/p>\n

The erosion of the forest frontier has also increased our exposure to\u00a0infectious diseases<\/a>, such as\u00a0Ebola<\/a>,\u00a0malaria<\/a>\u00a0and other\u00a0zoonotic diseases<\/a>. Spillover\u00a0incidents would be far less prevalent<\/a>\u00a0without human encroachment into the forest.<\/p>\n

We need to examine our\u00a0global food system<\/a>: Is it doing its job, or is it contributing to forest destruction and\u00a0biodiversity loss<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and putting human life at risk?<\/p>\n

What are we eating?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The food most associated with biodiversity loss also tends to also be connected to\u00a0unhealthy diets<\/a>\u00a0across the globe. Fifty years after the\u00a0Green Revolution<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the transition to intensive, high yielding food production reliant on a limited number of crop and livestock species \u2014 nearly 800 million people still go to bed hungry; one in three is malnourished; and up to two billion people suffer some sort of micronutrient deficiency and associated health impacts, such as stunting or wasting.<\/p>\n

\"Forest
A large soy field cuts into the forest in Brazil.<\/span>\u00a0(Shutterstock)<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n