Simran Sethi is a journalist and educator focused on food, sustainability and social change. Named the environmental “messenger” by Vanity Fair, a top 10 eco-hero of the planet by the U.K.’s Independent, and one of the top eight women saving the planet by Marie Claire, Simran is the author of the award-winning book, Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, about the story of changes in food and agriculture told through bread, wine, chocolate, coffee, and beer. She is an associate at the University of Melbourne’s Sustainable Society Institute in Australia and a former visiting scholar at the Cocoa Research Centre in St. Augustine, Trinidad.
Q: Can you explain briefly to readers the relationship between climate change, biodiversity, resilience, and our food supply?
This is a big question. A conversation that’s grown louder in recent years (in IPCC reports and beyond) is how climate change is impacting and will impact our food supply. In some areas, a warming planet will be a good thing but general consensus is that global warming will be a net loss to agriculture and food security. This loss is exacerbated by the way we grow and raise food. Increasingly, it’s the same types and amounts, grown on larger farms in monoculture.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 95 percent of the world’s calories now come from 30 species. Of 30,000 edible plant species, we cultivate about 150. Three-fourths of the world’s food comes from just 12 plants and five animal species. This reduction in what we grow and eat, coupled with industrialization, is efficient from a business perspective but food isn’t a widget. Relying on fewer kinds of foods to feed ourselves makes us more vulnerable to any social and environmental challenges that may surface. It increases risk.
Read More