The State of Food and Agriculture 2024 report was released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
- The report analysed the quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems for 153 countries, covering 99 per cent of the world’s population.
Hidden cost of agrifood systems
- A hidden cost associated with food production, consumption, and distribution was defined as any cost to an individual or society that is not reflected in the market price of a product or a service.
- India’s hidden costs were third largest in the world, after China and the United States — $1.8 trillion and $1.4 trillion, respectively.
- India’s total hidden costs of agrifood systems were around $1.3 trillion annually, largely driven by unhealthy dietary patterns and dietary risks associated with non-communicable diseases.
- These dietary risks stemming from high consumption of processed foods and additives and low consumption of plant whole foods and beneficial fatty acids form over 73 per cent of the total hidden costs of agrifood systems in India.
- The dietary patterns are linked to alarming non-communicable diseases (NCD), such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes, far exceeding the costs related to environmental degradation and social inequalities.
- Overconsumption of processed foods and additives in India had a hidden cost of $128 billion (at 2020 purchasing power parity), while low consumption of plant whole food and fruits and beneficial fatty acids had a combined hidden cost of $846 billion annually.
The other major contributors to hidden costs included social costs like:
- poverty among agrifood workers (driven by distributional failures in agrifood systems, leading to low productivity and wages),
- environmental costs like emission of greenhouse gases along the entire food value chain from food and fertiliser production and energy use and
- nitrogen emissions at primary production level (ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions to air, nitrogen runoff and leaching) and from sewerage.
