{"id":10812,"date":"2020-08-26T09:46:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T06:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=10812"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:13","slug":"how-our-food-choices-cut-into-forests-and-put-us-closer-to-viruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/08\/26\/how-our-food-choices-cut-into-forests-and-put-us-closer-to-viruses\/","title":{"rendered":"How Our Food Choices Cut into Forests and Put Us Closer to Viruses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10980-020-01012-w\">simplification of ecological systems<\/a>, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths of monocultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From cattle farming to oil palm plantations, industrial agriculture remains the greatest&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/psmag.com\/environment\/whats-driving-global-deforestation\">driver of deforestation<\/a>, particularly in the tropics. And as agricultural activities expand and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.gfs.2019.07.002\">intensify<\/a>, ecosystems lose&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/news\/story\/en\/item\/1180463\/icode\/\">plants, wildlife and other biodiversity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.doi.org\/10.1126\/science.aau3445\">The permanent transformation<\/a>&nbsp;of forested landscapes for commodity crops currently drives more than a quarter of all global deforestation. This includes soy, palm oil, beef cattle, coffee, cocoa, sugar and other key ingredients of our increasingly simplified and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/food\/2020\/feb\/13\/how-ultra-processed-food-took-over-your-shopping-basket-brazil-carlos-monteiro\">highly processed<\/a>&nbsp;diets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The erosion of the forest frontier has also increased our exposure to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ipbes.net\/covid19stimulus\">infectious diseases<\/a>, such as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-017-14727-9\">Ebola<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.ecolecon.2018.08.005\">malaria<\/a>&nbsp;and other&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41586-020-2562-8\">zoonotic diseases<\/a>. Spillover&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177%2F0030727020931122\">incidents would be far less prevalent<\/a>&nbsp;without human encroachment into the forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We need to examine our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cifor.org\/publications\/pdf_files\/articles\/ABahar2001.pdf\">global food system<\/a>: Is it doing its job, or is it contributing to forest destruction and\u00a0biodiversity loss\u00a0\u2014 and putting human life at risk? <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-our-food-choices-cut-into-forests-and-put-us-closer-to-viruses-144472\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}