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	Microplastics hinder plant photosynthesis, threatening millions by PNAS, IPBES, Guardian News   Mar. 2025   Researchers say problem could increase number of people at risk of starvation by 400 million in next two decades, highlights Damian Carrington.   The pollution of the planet by microplastics is significantly cutting food supplies by damaging the ability of plants to photosynthesise, according to a new assessment.   The analysis estimates that between 4% and 14% of the world’s staple crops of wheat, rice and maize is being lost due to the pervasive particles. It could get even worse, the scientists said, as more microplastics pour into the environment.   Over 700 million people were affected by hunger in 2022. The researchers estimated that microplastic pollution could increase the number at risk of starvation by another 400 million in the next two decades, calling that an “alarming scenario” for global food security.   Other scientists called the research useful and timely but cautioned that this first attempt to quantify the impact of microplastics on food production would need to be confirmed and refined by further data-gathering and research.   The annual crop losses caused by microplastics could be of a similar scale to those caused by the climate crisis in recent decades, the researchers behind the new research said. The world is already facing a challenge to produce sufficient food sustainably, with the global population expected to rise to 10 billion by around 2058.   Microplastics are broken down from the vast quantities of waste dumped into the environment. They hinder plants from harnessing sunlight to grow in multiple ways, from damaging soils to carrying toxic chemicals. The particles have infiltrated the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans.   “Humanity has been striving to increase food production to feed an ever-growing population but these ongoing efforts are now being jeopardised by plastic pollution,” said the researchers, led by Prof Huan Zhong, at Nanjing University in China. “The findings underscore the urgency of cutting pollution to safeguard global food supplies in the face of the growing plastic crisis.”   People’s bodies are already widely contaminated by microplastics, consumed through food and water. They have been found in blood, brains, breast milk, placentas and bone marrow. The impact on human health has been linked to strokes and heart attacks.   Prof Denis Murphy, at the University of South Wales, said: “This analysis is valuable and timely in reminding us of the dangers of microplastic pollution and the urgency of addressing the issue..”   The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, combined more than 3,000 observations of the impact of microplastics on plants, taken from 157 studies.   Previous research has indicated that microplastics can damage plants in multiple ways. The polluting particles can block sunlight reaching leaves and damage the soils on which the plants depend. When taken up by plants, microplastics can block nutrient and water channels, induce unstable molecules that harm cells and release toxic chemicals, which can reduce the level of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll.   The researchers estimated that microplastics reduced the photosynthesis of terrestrial plants by about 12% and by about 7% in marine algae, which are at the base of the ocean food web. They then extrapolated this data to calculate the reduction in the growth of wheat, rice and maize and in the production of fish and seafood.   Asia was hardest hit by estimated crop losses, with reductions in all three of between 54m and 177m tonnes a year, about half the global losses. Wheat in Europe was also hit hard as was maize in the United States. Other regions, such as South America and Africa, grow less of these crops but have much less data on microplastic contamination.   In the oceans, where microplastics can coat algae, the loss of fish and seafood was estimated at between 1m and 24m tonnes a year, about 7% of the total and enough protein to feed tens of millions of people.   The scientists also used a second method to assess the impact of microplastics on food production, based on current data on microplastic pollution levels. It produced similar results, they said.   “Importantly, these adverse effects are highly likely to extend from food security to planetary health,” Zhong and his colleagues said. Reduced photosynthesis due to microplastics may be also cutting the amount of climate-heating CO2 taken from the atmosphere by the huge phytoplankton blooms in the Earth’s oceans and unbalancing other ecosystems.   The world’s nations failed to reach an agreement on a UN treaty to curb plastic pollution in December, but will restart the talks in August. The scientists said their study was “important and timely for the ongoing negotiations and the development of action plans and targets”.   Prof Richard Thompson, at the University of Plymouth said the new study added to the evidence pointing towards the need for action. “While the predictions may be refined as new data become available, it is clear … that we need to start towards solutions. Ensuring the treaty addresses microplastic pollution is of key importance,” he said.   http://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2423957122 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/10/microplastics-hinder-plant-photosynthesis-study-finds-threatening-millions-with-starvation http://insideclimatenews.org/news/27052025/todays-climate-plastic-pollution-seabird-health-ocean   Dec. 2024   IPBES: Tackle Together Five Interlinked Global Crises in Biodiversity, Water, Food, Health and Climate Change.   Environmental, social and economic crises – such as biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, health risks and climate change – are all interconnected. They interact, cascade and compound each other in ways that make separate efforts to address them ineffective and counterproductive.   Underlines the landmark new report launched by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health – known as the Nexus Report - offers decision-makers around the world the most ambitious scientific assessment ever undertaken of these complex interconnections and explores more than five dozen specific response options to maximize co-benefits across five ‘nexus elements’: biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change.   The report is the product of three years of work by 165 leading international experts from 57 countries from all regions of the world. It finds that existing actions to address these challenges fail to tackle the complexity of interlinked problems and result in inconsistent governance.   “We have to move decisions and actions beyond single-issue silos to better manage, govern and improve the impact of actions in one nexus element on other elements,” said Prof. Paula Harrison (United Kingdom), co-chair of the Assessment with Prof. Pamela McElwee (USA).   “Take for example the health challenge of schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia) – a parasitic disease that can cause life-long ill health and which affects more than 200 million people worldwide – especially in Africa.   Treated only as a health challenge – usually through medication – the problem often recurs as people are reinfected. An innovative project in rural Senegal took a different approach – reducing water pollution and removing invasive water plants to reduce the habitat for the snails that host the parasitic worms that carry the disease – resulting in a 32% reduction in infections in children, improved access to freshwater and new revenue for the local communities.”   “The best way to bridge single issue silos is through integrated and adaptive decision-making. ‘Nexus approaches’ offer policies and actions that are more coherent and coordinated – moving us towards the transformative change needed to meet our development and sustainability goals,” said Prof. McElwee.   The report states that biodiversity – the richness and variety of all life on Earth – is declining at every level from global to local, and across every region. These ongoing declines in nature, largely as a result of human activity, including climate change, have direct and dire impacts on food security and nutrition, water quality and availability, health and wellbeing outcomes, resilience to climate change and almost all of nature’s other contributions to people.   Building on previous IPBES reports, in particular the 2022 Values Assessment Report and the 2019 Global Assessment Report, which identified the most important direct drivers of biodiversity loss, including land- and sea-use change, unsustainable exploitation, invasive alien species and pollution, the Nexus Report further underscores how indirect socioeconomic drivers, such as increasing waste, overconsumption and population growth, intensify the direct drivers – worsening impacts on all parts of the nexus. The majority of 12 assessed indicators across these indirect drivers – such as GDP, population levels and overall food supply, have all increased or accelerated since 2001.   “Efforts of Governments and other stakeholders have often failed to take into account indirect drivers and their impact on interactions between nexus elements because they remain fragmented, with many institutions working in isolation – often resulting in conflicting objectives, inefficiencies and negative incentives, leading to unintended consequences,” said Prof. Harrison.   The report highlights that more than half of global gross domestic product – more than $50 trillion of annual economic activity around the world – is moderately to highly dependent on nature. “But current decision-making has prioritized short-term financial returns while ignoring costs to nature, and failed to hold actors to account for negative economic pressures on the natural world. It is estimated that the unaccounted-for costs of current approaches to economic activity – reflecting impacts on biodiversity, water, health and climate change, including from food production – are at least $10-25 trillion per year,” said Prof. McElwee.   The existence of such unaccounted-for costs, alongside direct public subsidies to economic activities that have negative impacts on biodiversity (approximately $1.7 trillion per year), enhances private financial incentives to invest in economic activities that cause direct damage to nature (approximately $5.3 trillion per year), in spite of growing evidence of biophysical risks to economic progress and financial stability.   Delaying the action needed to meet policy goals will also increase the costs of delivering it. Delayed action on biodiversity goals, for example, could as much as double costs – also increasing the probability of irreplaceable losses such as species extinctions. Delayed action on climate change adds at least $500 billion per year in additional costs for meeting policy targets.   “Another key message from the report is that the increasingly negative effects of intertwined global crises have very unequal impacts, disproportionately affecting some more than others,” said Prof. Harrison.   More than half of the world’s population is living in areas experiencing the highest impacts from declines in biodiversity, water availability and quality and food security, and increases in health risks and negative effects of climate change. These burdens especially affect developing countries, including small island developing states, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, as well as those in vulnerable situations in higher-income countries. 41% of people live in areas that saw extremely strong declines in biodiversity between 2000 and 2010, 9% in areas that have experienced very high health burdens and 5% in areas with high levels of malnutrition.   Some efforts – such as research and innovation, education and environmental regulations – have been partially successful in improving trends across nexus elements, but the report finds these are unlikely to succeed without addressing interlinkages more fully and tackling indirect drivers like trade and consumption. Decision-making that is more inclusive, with a particular focus on equity, can help ensure those most affected are included in solutions, in addition to larger economic and financial reforms.   If current “business as usual” trends in direct and indirect drivers of change continue, the outcomes will be extremely poor for biodiversity, water quality and human health – with worsening climate change and increasing challenges to meet global policy goals.   A focus on trying to maximize the outcomes for only one part of the nexus in isolation will likely result in negative outcomes for the other nexus elements.   For example, a ‘food first’ approach prioritizes food production with positive benefits on nutritional health, arising from unsustainable intensification of production and increased per capita consumption. This has negative impacts on biodiversity, water and climate change.   An exclusive focus on climate change can result in negative outcomes for biodiversity and food, reflecting competition for land. Weak environmental regulation, made worse by delays, results in worsening impacts for biodiversity, food, human health and climate change.   “Future scenarios do exist that have positive outcomes for people and nature by providing co- benefits across the nexus elements,” said Prof Harrison. “The future scenarios with the widest nexus benefits are those with actions that focus on sustainable production and consumption in combination with conserving and restoring ecosystems, reducing pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change.”   http://www.ipbes.net/nexus/media-release http://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/ipbes-nexus-report-integrated-solutions-to-address-interconnected-global-crises http://www.carbonbrief.org/ipbes-nexus-report-five-takeaways-for-biodiversity-food-water-health-and-climate/ http://www.iied.org/new-biodiversity-reports-wake-call-for-action http://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change/media-release http://ipbes.canto.de/v/IPBES11Media http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/new-global-report-on-transformative-change-for-biodiversity/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/12/transformative-change-will-save-a-planet-in-peril-ipbes/IPBES, Visit the related web page
	Only politics can end world hunger by Jennifer Clapp IPES Food   Feb. 2025   Massive political efforts are needed to tackle the causes of hunger – conflict, poverty, and inequality. Without confronting power, the harvest will never reach the hungry. IPES-Food statement on food access.   History has shown us again and again that, so long as inequality goes unchecked, no amount of technology can ensure people are well fed.   Today, we produce more food per person than ever before. Yet hunger and malnutrition persist in every corner of the globe – even, and increasingly, in some of its wealthiest countries.   The major drivers of food insecurity are well known: conflict, poverty, inequality, economic shocks, and escalating climate change. In other words, the causes of hunger are fundamentally political and economic.   The urgency of the hunger crisis has prompted 150 Nobel and World Food Price laureates to call for “moonshot” technological innovations to boost food production. However, they largely ignored hunger’s root causes – and the need to confront powerful actors and make courageous political choices.   Food is misallocated   To focus almost exclusively on promoting agricultural technologies to ramp up food production would be to repeat the mistakes of the past.   The Green Revolution of the 1960s brought impressive advances in crop yields (at considerable environmental cost). But it failed to eliminate hunger, because it didn’t address inequality.   Take Iowa, home to some of the most industrialized food production on the planet. Amid its high-tech corn and soy farms, 11% of the state’s population, and one in six of its children, struggle to access food.   The world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone. Yet it is shamefully misallocated. Selling food to poor people at affordable prices simply isn’t as profitable for giant food corporations.   They make far more by exporting it for animal feed (a wildly inefficient way to nourish people), blending it into biofuels for cars, or turning it into industrial products and ultra-processed foods. To make matters worse, a third of all food is simply wasted.   Meanwhile, as the laureates remind us, shamefully, over 700 million people (9% of the world’s population) remain chronically undernourished, and a staggering 2.3 billion people – over one in four – cannot access an adequate diet.   Confronting inequality   Measures to address world hunger must start with its known causes and proven policies. Brazil’s Without Hunger program, for example, has seen dramatic 85% reductions in severe hunger in just 18 months, through financial assistance, school meals, and minimum wage policies.   Our politicians must confront and reverse gross inequities in wealth, power, and access to land. Hunger disproportionately affects the poorest and most marginalized, not because food is scarce, but because people lack the purchasing power to access it, or resources to produce it for themselves. Redistribution policies aren’t optional, they’re essential.   Governments must put a stop to the use of hunger as a weapon of war. The worst hunger hotspots are conflict zones, as seen in Gaza and Sudan, where violence drives famine.   Too many governments have looked the other way on starvation tactics – promoting emergency aid to pick up the pieces, instead of taking action to end the conflicts driving hunger.   Stronger antitrust and competition policies are vital to curb extreme corporate concentration in global food chains – from seeds and agrochemicals to grain trading, meat packing and retail – which allows firms to fix prices and wield outsized political influence.   Governments must break the stranglehold of inequitable trade rules and export patterns that trap the poorest regions in dependency on food imports, leaving them vulnerable to shocks. Instead, supporting local and territorial markets is critical to build resilience to economic and supply chain disruptions. These markets provide livelihoods and help ensure diverse, nutritious foods reach those who need them.   The role of agroecology   Mitigating and adapting to climate change requires massive investments in transformative approaches that promote resilience and sustainability in food systems.   Agroecology is a key solution proven to sequester carbon, build resilience to climate shocks, and reduce dependence on expensive and environmentally damaging synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. More research should explore its full potential.   And we must adopt plant-rich, local and seasonal diets, ramp up measures to tackle food waste, and reconsider using food crops for biofuels. This means pushing back against Big Meat and biofuel lobbies, while investing in climate-resilient food systems.   This is not to say that technology has no role – all hands need to be on deck. The innovations most worth pursuing are those that genuinely support more equitable and sustainable food systems, and not corporate profits. But unless scientific efforts are matched by policies that confront power and prioritize equity over profit, then hunger is likely to stay.   The solutions to hunger are neither new nor beyond reach – what’s missing is the political will to address its root causes. Hunger persists because we allow injustice to endure. If we are serious about ending it, we need bold political action, not just scientific breakthroughs.   * Jennifer Clapp is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability, and Member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, University of Waterloo.   http://ipes-food.org/only-politics-can-end-world-hunger/ http://ipes-food.org/the-global-food-crisis-in-the-age-of-catastrophe/ http://ipes-food.org/land-grabs-squeeze-rural-poor-worldwide/ http://ipes-food.org/land-squeeze-the-battle-underfoot-for-africas-soils/ http://ipes-food.org/report/land-squeeze/ http://www.landcoalition.org/en/uneven-ground/shocking-state-land-inequality-world/   Jan. 2025   The right to food, finance and national action plans - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri   In the report, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council pursuant to Council resolution 43/11, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, provides a way to develop national right-to-food action plans within existing budgets that can transform food systems and progressively realize the right to food. In the light of the global debt crisis, high inflation and high food prices, many countries are faced with the impossible choice of either feeding people or servicing debt.   Using public funds to ensure that people have access to adequate food can cause a Government to fall into arrears, worsening financial shocks; servicing debt instead leads to more hunger and malnutrition. This means that the current international system of finance resolutely impedes the ability of Governments to meet their obligations with regard to the right to food. In the report, the Special Rapporteur suggests how significant improvements in food systems – and the conditions for transformation – could be achieved by redesigning public budgets.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5848-right-food-finance-and-national-action-plans-report-special http://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/58/48 Visit the related web page
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