The work package (WP) investigates the environmental impact and economic functioning of whole food chains, from primary farm production to final food consumers.
The environmental analysis applies life cycle assessment (LCA) from cradle to grave to quantify water scarcity footprints, water-related impacts (for instance, eutrophication or ecotoxicity), and other environmental impacts (e.g., on climate change, land use or biodiversity). The analysis covers both current food products and promising novel technologies (e.g., vertical farming, cellular agriculture) in Finland. State-of-the-art methods are applied to take account of geographic and seasonal variations in water scarcity when calculating the impacts of imported foods and feeds. The approach combines existing impact data with new LCA studies where required. A key originality of the work is to calculate water-related impacts in today’s world as well as in 2050, using projected changes in water availability in Finland and its trading partners. The research will also use the planetary boundaries framework and principles of absolute sustainability assessment to determine sustainable boundaries of individual food items and whole diets investigated in WP3.
The economic analysis studies how changes in the water cycle driven by climate change is likely to affect agricultural productivity differently within and across countries, with attendant effects on relative prices, land use, the composition of agricultural production, and international trade in agri-food products. An econometric analysis estimates how Nordic agricultural trade will respond to climate-induced changes in water scarcity under alternative scenarios, using international trade data and country-level water footprint data. The results will generate insights into the role that international trade can play in fostering food security globally. The WP also builds a simulation model by extending existing computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to include water as an agricultural input. The approach permits the analysis of concrete policy measures to address water quality and quantity issues (e.g., taxes, subsidies, quotas) that are fundamentally local in nature but with global drivers and impacts. It also establishes the extent to which food export markets will open to the regions of water abundance.