ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that in order to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from food production and to preserve natural and agricultural biodiversity, policies that separately address the demand and the supply sides of the food system will be required. It deals with arguably two most severe effects on the Earth systems caused by food production - climatic change and loss of natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. The food and agriculture systems' role in climatic change has increasingly been put on the political and scientific agenda. Avoiding dangerous climate change involves reducing the global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50" by 2050, or even more if the climate turns out to be more sensitive to increased levels of greenhouse gases. The carbon dioxide emissions due to transportation of food often gain large attention in media and among NGOs. Scarce agricultural land resources become an even larger challenge as the world calls for large-scale climate mitigation.
