Rising Ultra-Processed Food Consumption Deepens Africa’s Biodiversity, Climate and Pollution Crises

Factsheets 1-5 available here.

In this 6th factsheet in the series on ultra-processed food (UPF) in Africa, we briefly discuss how UPF is impacting ecological health and functioning, and driving the interconnected biodiversity, climate, and pollution crises on the continent.

Over the last two decades, food systems have undergone massive transformations. It is well documented that increasingly globalised food supply chains are one of the leading threats to the health and functioning of ecological systems. Increased production and consumption of UPF have played a massive role in driving the industrial and technological change across the agri-food industry, including the expansion and growing market and political power of transnational food and beverage corporations, to meet the ever-expanding global sourcing and production networks. UPF’s high availability, affordability and accessibility, hyper-palatability, extended shelf life, and intense marketing, drive their overconsumption, increasing their impacts on human health and the health of the planet.

The UPF food supply chain requires large amounts of energy and land, causing substantial greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution. This cuts across the industrial production, processing, packaging, and distribution at all stages concerning the preparation of the many ingredients used exclusively for UPF.

Research on the environmental impacts of UPF production, consumption, and disposal in Africa is sorely lacking. In general, research has focused on the effects of the commodity crops used for their production, such as vegetable oils and refined sugar. Environmental considerations of foods and diets must include the overall impact of UPF from farm to fork, including all stages of farming, processing, packaging, and distribution.