Food Safety a Key Factor in Achieving a Sustainable Food Supply

Over the next 30 years, Mick Rickerd, corporate executive chef of nutrition services at Spectrum Health, a healthcare system in Grand Rapids, Mich., says it will be necessary to shift from conventional methods of farming to alternative models, growing food in safe, controlled environments, due to the expanding urban environment. This might include an urban container-controlled micro farm, an aquaculture facility, or a hydroponics farm. These environments can provide pathogen-free conditions and grow more with less land. For example, 10 urban container-controlled micro farms the size of a city lot (about 1/5 acre) can produce as much fresh produce as a 20-acre field.

Effects of Population Growth

Over the next 10 to 30 years, population growth will continue to challenge the agriculture industry to grow more using less land, as well as less water and energy, says Nikki Cossio, founder and CEO of Measure to Improve, LLC, a produce sustainability consulting firm in Salinas, Calif. More attention will need to be given to nurturing healthy soils to cultivate plants that are more resistant to diseases and pathogens.

As the population grows, agriculture will compete with development for land. “If farmers can’t make a decent living, they will be more likely to sell out to development, reducing the capacity to grow food,” Cossio says.

Ultimately, population growth is on a collision course with climate change. “While growth increases the demand for food, climate change decreases the ability to meet the demand due to extreme weather events, changing growing regions, and shortening growing seasons, not to mention reduced resources,” Cossio says.

To meet these challenges, a better understanding of today’s resource usage is needed. “We can only improve what we measure; we need to get serious about collecting and understanding data about how we use resources,” Cossio says. “This will help us to be proactive and build resiliency, rather than wait for government mandates. This will also help anticipate and mitigate risks.”

The World Economic Forum states that the solution to ensuring food security and sustainability amid rapid population growth needs to be multi-faceted and focus on reducing global warming, developing skills, and making agriculture more productive and sustainable, among other factors. In addition, plant science, automation, and technologies employing artificial intelligence can also play a critical role in feeding future generations, Kroes says.

Initiatives to Improve Sustainability

While some forces work against food sustainability, steps can be taken to improve it. Innovative technology is increasingly helping ensure food safety and sustainability, most notably in the form of tracking and tracing food across the supply chain using blockchains and Internet of Things (IoT)-connected sensors, Kroes says.

Technology can also help organizations better forecast and manage supply and demand across their food chains. Real-time condition monitoring and precise recall abilities will prevent unsafe food from getting onto grocery store shelves and will make it easier to pull unsafe food off shelves if needed, Kroes says.

Food packaging is another area of focus. “The ability to extend the life of fresh food has allowed for distributing food further away from its source,” says Daniels. “However, packaging can also increase risk by pushing the life of a product and providing an atmosphere that’s conducive to pathogen growth.”

Sarah Chartier, MBA, senior sustainability project manager of supply chain services at Spectrum Health, says the packaging industry can support sustainable food efforts through more intentional design efforts to limit packaging waste. Plastic waste has global implications from production to disposal, including microplastics that pollute the natural environment. “Creating solutions to dispose of packaging as part of the product design process is critical to reducing waste,” she says. “Limiting materials to those that are easy to recycle with conventional recyclers is a helpful short-term solution.”