Researchers from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CAIST) found that technology fixes for the world’s food problems could have unintentional and disastrous consequences on the environment.

The team said that the world’s urgency to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needs to be slowed in order to avoid dangerous consequences. SDGs were created in 2015 as part of an expansion on 2000’s Millenium Development Goals. Leaders need to understand that there are no quick fixes when it comes to ending poverty, hunger and conserving biological diversity. There is a need to understand all the indirect impacts of their interventions before they put them in place.

A farmer in Beora, a small community in Rupandehi District of Nepal. Source: Neil Palmer / International Center for Tropical Agriculture

The current symptoms of the world’s ailing food system include; unsustainable farming practices, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and the waste or loss of about 30% of all food produced. Currently, two billion people are unhealthy because of their diets and eight million people died in 2019 due to dietary risk factors. The way that the world’s food system is currently operating is unhealthy and unsustainable.

Researchers identified some options currently being considered to remedy the world’s food problems. One option was using cereals to replenish nitrogen in soils, called nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation decreases the overuse of chemical fertilizers and the unsustainable impacts that it has on the environment, like water pollution. This method could reduce the prices of already overconsumed food and lead to an increase in non-communicable diseases (NDCs), like diabetes. They also looked at personalized nutrition tech. It was found that this tech could significantly reduce NDCs by tailoring diets to the user’s genetic profile and metabolism. The cost of personalization of nutrition would generate high volumes of sensitive personal data. Finally, the team studied how automation and robotics could increase reach and precision agriculture. This would reduce food prices, stabilize the food supply and reduce overuse of fertilizers and water, all of which would benefit the environment. But robots would also reduce the need for unskilled labor, further threatening the livelihoods of smaller farmers and drive mitigation to haphazardly growing megacities.

Researchers said that technology is needed to create a sustainable food system, but it is important to remember that “win-win” situations do not always exist. The team calculated the potential direct effects of different technology on the food system and their indirect effects on SDGs.

The results showed that most technology will have neutral or varying degrees of positive impacts across most SDGs. When looking at tech’s effect on decent work and economic growth, reduced inequality and peace, justice and strong institutions — all kinds of SDGs — the results were mixed.

Some SDGs are not currently trending in the right direction. Hunger was increasing before COVID-19, and now the pandemic has only made malnourishment worse. The rapid action needed and the temptation to adopt quick-fix actions with unknown negative impacts may be greater than ever.

This study was published in Lancet Planetary Health.