5.2.11—Sustainable food supply strategies

A sustainable food strategy should reduce demand or waste, lower production emissions, or raise productivity without expanding agricultural land.

Bottleneck	Bounded strategy examples	Check for shifted burdens
High demand	plant-based meat substitutes or dietary change	nutrition, processing and affordability
Food loss or waste	longer shelf life, better storage and distribution	packaging and energy use
Greenhouse gases	reduce nitrogen loss, low-methane rice, reduce ruminant methane	yield, cost and feasibility
Land pressure	improve yields through suitable breeding, GM or precise inputs	biodiversity, ownership and input dependence

Cold storage can reduce post-harvest loss, but its net benefit depends on energy source and whether the saved food reaches people who can access it.

Locate the bottleneck, select a matching strategy, then evaluate new energy, nutrient, equity or biodiversity costs across the system.

Higher productivity alone is not sustainable if it expands inequity or shifts damage elsewhere.