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Equal space and weight are often given to stops along the way, including food processing, transportation, and retail. The diagrams also typically float aloof in space—unattached to any legal system, economy, or private entity. Despite their alluring simplicity, these characterizations fail to capture true imbalances of power and responsibility in food production, standing in stark contrast to modern food industry realities.
Large-scale food and beverage companies, engaged in processing and manufacturing raw agricultural materials for profit in global markets, are not just another step in the food system path. They play an outsized role in driving disparities in human health and environmental sustainability.
Source: USDA, 2021
Food processing companies currently make one fourth of every dollar spent on groceries in the U.S., with just a handful of companies controlling as much as 98.4% of the market share in some categories of prepared foods. By comparison, the country’s more than 2.5 million farmworkers, the majority of which are undocumented and unprotected by fair wage laws, get just eight cents for every dollar spent on groceries.
Food processing companies like Nestlé (Switzerland), Coca Cola (U.S.), Danone (France), and Unilever (United Kingdom/Netherlands) are bottlenecks in the global food system, exerting undue influence over both what and how much is produced by farmers upstream as well as what and how much is eaten by consumers downstream.
As Jeffrey Sachs poignantly pointed out prior to the United Nations’ recent Food Systems Summit, “We have a world food system. It is based on large multi-national companies; it is based on private profits; and it is based on a radical denial of the rights of poor people.”
Pressure on farms
Despite this concentration of power and wealth, international agendas for public health and sustainable food production often call for reform not by the most powerful food companies but, instead, by farmers and consumers.
The agricultural sector—a diverse set of small-, medium-, and large-scale producers found around the world—is widely criticized for greenhouse gas emissions, land deterioration, and water use. Little is mentioned, however, about the artificial demand created by food processing companies for derivatives of farmers’ crops and livestock, including refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and animal-sourced meats and fats. By encouraging overeating in their meals and product formulations, fast food companies and food processors create excess consumer demand, putting undue pressure on farms to supply massive quantities of cheap, unsustainably produced foods.
Far from determining the ultimate use of the whole seeds, grains, vegetables, and legumes they produce, farmers are increasingly trapped in cycles of dependence—relying on expensive and contractually bound use of pesticides and fertilizers to increase yields and compete in the global market. Their lands and production capacities are consequently degraded, creating new economic pressures and driving increased rates of suicide, all to meet food processing companies’ ever-heightening demands.
Blaming the consumer
Instead of accountability, a U.N. business declaration called for food processing companies to “incentivize consumers as agents of change to create demand for sustainably produced, high quality healthy and nutritious diets.” Efforts such as Meatless Mondays, public education campaigns, and by-the-pound meat taxes on consumer purchases are often proposed as solutions to the bad behavior of individual consumers, who are purportedly “at the end of the supply chain [and] arguably in the best position to drive positive change along its entirety," wrote the authors of a 2020 article in Nature.
But changing consumer behavior is not a panacea. Efforts to shift diets not only face deep-rooted and reasonably held cultural norms, they must also come to terms with worsening food environments; poor purchasing power for healthier food alternatives like whole fruits, legumes, and vegetables; and an outcry against colonialism in the face of efforts to veganize already malnourished, protein-poor diets in low- and middle-income countries.
Despite these ethical concerns, many in the academic community continue to promote these and other small-scale interventions (urban agriculture is another example), which fail to reflect the lived realities of impoverished households and allow food processing companies to evade their own responsibilities—including their disproportionate influence over millions of diets around the world.
Although we’d like to believe that all food options are equally accessible, global food environments are being increasingly monopolized by large and highly consolidated food and beverage companies, each flooding grocery aisles with addictive products, employing aggressive marketing strategies, and, ultimately, driving excess consumption and diet-related chronic disease.
As outlined by Consumer International, “Many of the approaches for achieving the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and climate targets rely heavily on consumers making different purchasing choices, or modifying their usage of goods or products and services. But this is not a fair responsibility to place on consumers where the current structure of the marketplace favors unsustainable options.”
Holding food processing companies accountable
Public health researchers must recognize the responsibility food processing companies have to reduce the health and environmental costs of their products. Efforts such as the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s Four Pillar Framework fill this gap in advocacy and provide clear and practical guidance on corporate alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals in the food industry, outlining specific responsibilities held by the private sector to remedy past harms and modify business strategies to more ethically and sustainably produce healthy foods. As the bottleneck of power and wealth concentration in the food supply chain, the food processing industry is a far more effective and efficient target of reform than the diverse hundreds of millions of global consumers and farmers at opposite ends of the food system.
Research and policy must identify how food processing companies can mitigate damages caused to human health and natural environments. Instead of burdening consumers (who already shoulder the hidden cost of food through health care, pollution cleanups, and other public services) with increased prices or taxing of unhealthy foods, solutions should prioritize consumer protection by taking into account the intrinsic disparities of the consumer-supplier relationship, including disparities in bargaining power, knowledge, and resources.
Greater transparency of the environmental and social risks incurred by all actors in the food supply chain, not just agricultural producers alone, is needed so that consumers, policymakers, and investors alike can disfavor risky and unsustainable business practices. Government regulation must also look beyond current marketing and labeling laws (which simply put the onus of informed decision-making back on the consumer) to set and enforce strict standards for what food and beverage products can be legally produced and sold.
Food processing plays an important role in food and nutrition security, extending shelf-life and fortifying staple foods with essential vitamins and minerals. Far from complete abolition, increased attention and accountability for these powerful private sector players can ensure that food production contributes to—and does not continue to impede—human and planetary health.
Abrania Marrero is a PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a former Agents of Change in Environmental Justice fellow.
Banner photo credit: Viki Mohamad/Unsplash
The more people experience climate change, or even hear about storms and wildfires, the more it is expected to impact their mental well-being.
Some mental health experts have started preparing for the tsunami of need some leaders anticipate in the coming years.
A small group of high school students from around Pittsburgh set up chairs in a circle on the patio outside of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens for a monthly climate action meeting, organized by Communitopia.
Each student expressed their own reasons for getting involved, like Claire Bertolet, a 9th grader at Pittsburgh Allderdice High School, "I'm afraid life is not going to be like it is today, and we're not going to be living as comfortably," she said. "In the future it's going to be too late and we're not going to have time to act on it."
Some expressed concern for social and environmental justice, others for the impact of large corporations on the climate.
Allderdice junior Malcolm Kurtz is an avid hiker and bird watcher. "I am really concerned with how species are affected by climate change," he said. Kurtz finds meaning in climate work, while Ava DiGiacomo, a sophomore at North Allegheny High School, said the state of the world sometimes makes her feel helpless.
"This summer I started spending a lot more time outside, and there were moments when I would just sit and think, 'This world is so beautiful, and it's slowly getting ruined,'" she said. "And sometimes it feels like, personally, I can't do anything that's really going to make a big change. And that's not that's not an easy feeling to deal with."
But they are creating community around climate action, so they don't have to do it alone. On the evening they gathered in early October, some had just attended a climate march, and the group had organized a bicycling event called Pedal-Topia.
Rebecca Carter, a junior at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, appreciates the community they are creating. "Things like Pedal-Topia, where we can get together and do something in nature as a group of activists can be really helpful and cathartic," she said.
A need for climate-aware therapists
Dr. Elizabeth Haase, chair of the American Psychiatric Association's climate change committee, thinks students like this are on the right track. Feelings of anxiety, grief and longing for what's been lost in the environment, and worry about what will happen in the future with climate change, are all becoming more pervasive, according to Haase.
She's among a growing group of mental health professionals pushing for more climate awareness among counselors. Haase is also on the steering committee of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, which is growing. "I think in five years we've gone from being a band of seven to eight people to 240 members," she said. The group has a directory of climate-aware mental health professionals.
Treating climate anxiety is not the same as clinical anxiety disorders, according to Haase. "It's a different animal, a different response when you're facing a real world problem," she said.
She compares it with treating someone with claustrophobia. She would encourage that person to face their fear, and spend time in enclosed spaces, like a subway car.
Related: Feeling anxious about climate change? Experts say you're not alone
"That is not an appropriate response when the subway car is on fire, right?" Haase asked. "The subway is on fire. You don't want to sit there and let your fear wash over you. You want to start doing stuff."
When her patients express concerns about natural disasters, climate change and ecological collapse, she advises them to find ways to talk with their family and friends about it and also to take action - join a climate group, write to their local congressperson, or pack up photographs and important belongings in an emergency backpack.
"Even just doing something like that gives you a greater sense of control, and it creates a safer space for you to be in when something bad is happening," Haase said.
A call for therapists to train others to serve the growing needs
Rebecca Carter, talking with Julie Grant of The Allegheny Front about her concerns about climate change. (Credit: Njaimeh Njie)
Dr. Gary Belkin, a former deputy health commissioner of New York City, and founder of the Billion Minds Institute, which is focused on the social aspects of climate change, wants the mental health community to start taking action quickly.
He already sees more mental health needs than there are available therapists, and climate change - the heat, droughts and wildfires, and general background stress it causes - is going to make that worse.
"We really have to get good at rethinking how we can reach a ton of people across that spectrum, and the only way we're going to do that is by enlisting communities to be part of doing that," Belkin said.
Belkin spearheaded a program in New York where mental health professionals trained employees at child care centers, churches and programs for at-risk youth, places that he calls the front lines for mental health.
"We skilled those staff in screening for distress and illness, for basic counseling skills," he said. "We have to engineer things so you don't have to look for care or support. You trip over it. And that's really what we have to aim for."
Beginning efforts to expand climate care in Pittsburgh
Walter Lewis, CEO of the Homewood Children's Village in Pittsburgh, says a few years ago he wouldn't have connected climate change with the mental health of his organization's clients. That's starting to change. (Credit: Njaimeh Njie)
One group on the front lines in Pittsburgh is starting to look into climate change and mental health: the Homewood Children's Village. It has six advocates that stay in touch with 300 members, including more than 100 families, according to the nonprofit's CEO, Walter Lewis. They regularly check in about education, economics, food, and health, including mental health.
"Probably three or four years ago, it would have never dawned on me to think about some of the types of trauma and mental health impacts of climate change," he said.
Disadvantaged communities like Homewood are expected to experience worse climate impacts than their wealthier neighbors. Lewis now sees the neighborhood's high rates of basement flooding, and childhood asthma, as potentially climate-related. So even though his advocates are not mental health professionals, Lewis says he can raise their awareness about how traumatic these types of incidents can be for their clients.
"People are now more empathetic to knowing that, 'Hey, we just had a heat wave, these are some things you might want to think about when you're talking to your families or the children that you work with,'" he said.
A new approach: Community-based therapy
Dr. Kenneth Thompson and his daughter Alice Thompson (pictured in Shadyside) (Credit: Njaimeh Njie)
As the number of people reporting anxiety and stress around climate change grows, others in Pittsburgh are trying to expand the available mental health care.
Dr. Ken Thompson, a community psychiatrist, based at the Squirrel Hill Medical Center in Pittsburgh, and his daughter Alice Thompson, a fourth year medical student, have been working to bring Integrated Community Therapy to the U.S. through their Visible Hands Collaborative.
Currently their free sessions are held twice a week online.
A trained facilitator welcomed more than a dozen people to a recent Tuesday evening online session, using a technique practiced in Brazil for 27 years, where in-person groups as large as 200 people gather to share their experiences, learn from each other and gradually deal with problems in their families and neighborhoods.
"The goals of this method are to help people learn how to express themselves and sort of have emotional literacy, how to talk about their feelings, and how to help people develop a sense of empathy with each other," Ken Thompson explained.
Facilitators are trained over months, it doesn't take years like mental health professionals. There are now around 40,000 facilitators in Brazil, as well as other countries, and the Thompsons are starting to train facilitators in the U.S.
"Having a safe space that's sustained over time is going to be really helpful, especially as climate change progresses," Alice Thompson said. "It will allow people to connect not only over their trauma, but also externally so they can support each other in other ways."
Her father continued, "It becomes a real powerful glue, and I feel like we need a lot of glue in this society...to keep us hanging together," he said.
In our polarized society, efforts like this are starting to help more people re-learn how to talk with others, and see their shared humanity, and hopefully reweave some of the community fabric that's been pulled apart. Because as the climate worsens, people are going to need each other.
Banner photo: The student climate strike on September 24, 2021 in Pittsburgh brought out more than 150 young people. Experts say this kind of action can help people who are anxious about the climate crisis. (Credit: Julie Grant/The Allegheny Front)
This story is part of a collaboration between Environmental Health News and The Allegheny Front for a series called "Pollution's mental toll: How air, water and climate change shape our mental health," with funds from the Pittsburgh Media Partnership.
Follow the fallout from this investigation on Twitter at the hashtag: #EHNmentalhealth
Struggling with your mental health? Want to take action against pollution and climate change? Check out our solutions guide.
