4. New food sources and food production systems

New food sources and food production systems

The global population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 with growth rates expected to vary across different regions (UN, 2019). To meet the increasing demand for food, the overall food production will need to be raised by about 70 percent above 2009 levels, by 2050 (FAO, 2009). However, gains made in food production so far have come at an enormous cost to the environment. Studies show that agriculture can contribute to climate change, and have considerable impact on the health of soils, forests and ecosystems (Poore and Nemecek, 2018; Ritchie and Roser, 2021). It is estimated that 34 percent (or 18 Gt CO₂ equivalent per year) of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2015 came from our food systems (Crippa et al., 2021). Agriculture is also increasingly putting pressure on our finite natural resources with nearly half of all cultivated land on the planet and 70 percent of freshwater worldwide used by agriculture (FAO, 2017; FAO, 2020; Ritchie, 2019). On the other hand, climate change is already affecting our ability to maintain food production by reducing crop yields and nutritional content of major cereals (Beach et al., 2019; MacDiarmid and Whybrow, 2019; Sultan, Defrance and Lizumi, 2019; Zhao et al., 2017). Agnolucci et al. (2020) found that increasing temperatures will have more disproportionate impacts on countries that are already facing food insecurities.

Increasing awareness of these impacts is propelling efforts to find (or innovate) and bring to mainstream new food sources and food production systems that are more sustainable than those available conventionally. Dietary shifts to those that incorporate sustainable choices while reducing consumption of animal-based foods have been promoted as potential means of mitigating environmental and animal welfare concerns as well as alleviating some public health issues. New food sources imply those that have not been widely consumed, either because their consumption have been historically restricted to certain regions in the world or they have recently emerged in the global retail space thanks to technological innovations. They are also considered new within the framework of existing Codex standards (Box 3). New food production systems reflect novel innovations or advancements in preexisting food technologies that are involved in producing some of the new foods that are finding their way into the mainstream.

© Shutterstock/Vadim Petrakov

Some of the new food sources highlighted in the subsequent sections are edible insects, jellyfish, plant-based alternatives, and seaweeds (or macroalgae). Cell-based food production as a new food production system is also discussed