Science of Sustainability 53 Industrial processes themselves remain very much the same, albeit enhanced by recent manufacturing techniques such as lean production and just-in-time (JIT). Industry extracts materials from the natural resource base, such as minerals and energy resources discussed above and, coupled, with financial and human resources, develops products for market. However, coupled with this activity is the production and distribution of pollution into the human environment.
Issues of depletion also affect non-energy inputs for industry, such as iron, copper and rare earth elements, and the concept of ‘peak’ also applies to them. The British Geological Survey (2016) publishes an annual Risk List for chemical elements or element groups that possess economic value and are necessary to maintain our economy and lifestyle. The numerical rank- ing value on the Risk List is an index score reflecting seven criteria: scarcity, production concentration, reserve distribution, recycling rate, substitutabil- ity, and governance of both the top-producing and reserve-hosting nations.
In 2012 those elements considered at high or very high risk, ie with index scores greater than 8.5, were rare earth elements: antimony, bismuth, germa- nium, vanadium and gallium. The top reserve holder and leading producer for all these elements except germanium and gallium is China. China is also the leading global producer of all the elements listed above and in fact is the leading producer of 15 of the top 20 high-risk elements on the Risk List.
The Risk List gives an indication of which elements or groups may be subject to supply disruption resulting from human factors such as geopoli- tics, resources nationalism, strikes, accidents and lack of sufficient reserves.
The British Geological Survey’s message for firms and countries is to develop diversified supplies of primary resources and make full use of secondary or substitute resources and recycling to reduce intensity of resource use. Such activities will also impact current logistics and supply chain designs and operations.
For the periods between 1990–92 and 2010–12, the shares of southeast- ern and eastern Asia saw the most marked decline, from 13.4 to 7.5 per cent and from 26.1 to 19.2 per cent respectively, while Latin America also declined from 6.5 to 5.6 per cent. Meanwhile, shares increased from 32.7 to 35.0 per cent in Southern Asia, 17.0 to 27.0 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 1.3 to 2.9 per cent in Western Asia and Northern Africa.
However, the effects of climate change may prevent further declines in undernourishment due to crop failures, drought and rising prices. World cereal production declined in 2012/13 to 2.27 billion metric tonnes as a result of summer drought, particularly in the United States. By harvest time in late 2012, the US Department of Agriculture estimated that the produc- tion of corn, soybeans, sorghum and hay was down 27.5 per cent, 16 per cent, 26.5 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. However, world produc- tion has since recovered and estimates for 2015/16 were 2.47 billion metric tonnes (Statista, 2016).
The most severe and extensive drought in 25 years seriously affected US agriculture in 2012, with impacts on the crop and livestock sectors and with the potential to affect food prices at the retail level (USDA Economic Research Service, 2012). The drought destroyed or damaged a significant portion of US agriculture in 2012 – about 80 per cent of agricultural land and 60 per cent of farms – which was more extensive than any drought since the 1950s. This drought led to increased retail prices for beef, pork, poultry, and dairy products well into 2013. But in the short term, drought conditions also led to herd culling in response to higher feed costs with resulting short- term meat supply increases.
Lawrence (2016) argues that overuse of agrochemicals in intensive farm- ing practices to increase farm yields has contributed to losses in biodiversity and pollinators vital to food as increases in pest resistance threaten to reverse previous gains in yields. She notes that while research has found that over a short period yields per hectare for individual crops are greater in intense agricultural systems, over a longer period more mixed and diverse farming produces more when considering total farm output. As an example of this intensity, British farmers typically treat each wheat crop over its growing cycle with four fungicides, three herbicides, one insecticide and one chemical to control molluscs. They buy seed that has been pre-coated with chemicals against insects, spray the land with weedkiller before and after planting and apply chemical growth regulators to control the height and strength of the grain’s stem. They spray against aphids and mildew during the growing season and often spray just before harvesting with the herbicide glyphosate to desiccate the crop which saves energy costs of mechanical drying.
Science of Sustainability 55 Lawrence proposes there are other different and more ecological visions for future farming and food. One example is a large-scale horticultural export company based on Kenya’s Lake Naivasha in Africa. The company, Flamingo Homegrown, has abandoned its use of chemical pesticides in response to a campaign highlighting their effect on workers’ health and also in recognition they were on a losing treadmill of spraying and pest resist- ance. Flamingo have reinvented their agriculture by employing groups of highly trained African scientists to study and reproduce in labs the fungi and mycorrhizae present in healthy soil that form intricate links with plant roots.
Thus, they are working to harness the land’s immensely complex ecosystems rather than waging chemical war on it, and have built vast greenhouses dedicated to breeding and harvesting ladybirds to control pests biologically rather than chemically.
Coupled with such production issues, Tristram Stuart (2009) noted that approximately 40 million tonnes of food are wasted by households, retailers and food services each year. This amount of food would be enough to satisfy the hunger of every one of the 870 million people worldwide suffering from undernourishment. Further, irrigation water used globally to grow food that is wasted would be enough for the domestic needs of 9 billion people at 200 litres per person per day, or the number expected on the planet by 2050. Trees planted on land currently used to grow unnecessary surplus and wasted food would theoretically offset 100 per cent of GHG emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
Stuart (2009) argues that the United States and Europe, including the UK, have nearly twice as much food as is required for the nutritional needs of their populations and that up to half the entire food supply is wasted between the farm and the fork. Further, UK households waste 25 per cent of all the food they buy. The fishing industry is also not immune to waste, according to Stuart. Around 2.3 million tonnes of fish are discarded in the North Atlantic and the North Sea each year; 40 to 60 per cent of all fish caught in Europe are discarded either because they are the wrong size, species, or because of the European quota system.
While Stuart is an activist, the facts behind his arguments have cogency and are voiced by others. One element of waste that is not discussed in depth is the inefficiency of logistics and supply chain activities to deal with this food. For example, France has legislated that supermarkets must donate unsold food to charities or for animal feed rather than destroying or throw- ing it away (Chrisafis, 2015). This was sparked by official estimates that the average French person throws out 20.3 kilograms (kg) of food per year, of which 7 kg is still in its original packaging. The 7.1 million tonnes wasted