Global Interlinkages in Food Trade Systems

Project Information

GIFTS

Grant agreement ID: 101029457

DOI

10.3030/101029457

Project closed

EC signature date 9 March 2021

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 31 August 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 160 932,48

EU contribution

€ 160 932,48

Coordinated by

ASOCIACION BC3 BASQUE CENTRE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE - KLIMA ALDAKETA IKERGAI
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GIFTS (Global Interlinkages in Food Trade Systems)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In recent decades, global trade in food and agricultural products has surged, increasing food availability but making countries more dependent on imports and reducing their self-sufficiency. This trade also spreads environmental impacts through supply chains, shifting agricultural production pressures from consuming to producing countries. The complex global food supply chains make it difficult to measure the environmental footprints of our food choices. To address this, the GIFTS project developed a Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) database to analyse global food trade and its environmental impacts, with a focus on land use and climate change. Using FAOSTAT data, this MRIO database tracks agri-food products from production to consumption, accounting for factors like calorie and protein content, harvested areas, and greenhouse gas emissions. The findings show a global increase in imported feedstock, leading to higher cropland and carbon footprints of food consumption over time.

GIFTS MRIO framework is a powerful tool for refining environmental footprint assessments, offering detailed insights into the origin, processing, and trade of 640 products across 181 countries. This transparency helps supply chain actors identify environmental hotspots and develop more sustainable sourcing strategies. It also enables consumer countries to better understand the environmental footprint of their dietary patterns and establish policies to promote more sustainable food consumption from farm to fork. Overall, the MRIO database provides valuable data to inform policies and promote international cooperation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing sustainability in global food supply chains.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The GIFTS project developed a physical Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) database using FAOSTAT data. This MRIO tracks production, consumption, and trade (in tonnes) for 640 products across 181 countries from 2013 to 2020. A key achievement of the project is the completion of the MRIO database along with environmental extensions to estimate greenhouse gas emissions, and land, protein, and calorie footprints of agri-food products. The MRIO database is built on the Supply and Utilization Accounts (SUAs), which encompass data on supply and demand for agri-food products in tonnes, including those used for processing. Additional data were used to fully map flows of co-products and derivatives across sectors, ensuring that total supply matches intermediate and final demand in the SUAs. Bilateral trade data was also used to trace import and export flows, ensuring consistency of data between trading partners.

A major contribution made by GIFTS through its secondment in FAO has been to develop a module that links feed demand in the SUAs to the specific animal production sectors in the MRIO table. This is based on average feed rations per animal head from FAO's model GLEAM, which consider optimal energy requirements and the diversity of livestock systems per country. Feed items like crops and by-products were categorized and matched with those in the SUAs. The process calculates the share of each feed category relative to total demand, taking into account livestock numbers over time. The total feed demand is distributed among animal groups and linked to the animal-derived products, ensuring the full representation of meat and dairy supply chains in the MRIO database. Finally, environmental extensions were implemented, including data on cropland areas, caloric and protein content, and greenhouse gas emissions linked to crop and livestock production. These cover life cycle emission sources, such as fertilizer application, crop residue burning, manure management and application, paddy rice production, and enteric fermentation.

The methodology for the construction of the framework will be submitted in the form of a scientific publication, highlighting applications to measure import dependencies and environmental footprints of food consumption. The results analyse trends of environmental impacts and trade-offs between food and feed consumption, providing insights into key drivers, products, and trading partners involved. The publication will be accompanied with the release of the dataset through an Open Access and trusted repository, to ensure that it is available to the research community and the general public for further reuse. The construction of the MRIO database, preliminary results and applications have been presented in multiple events and workshops, including the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance Partnership, the Policy Pitch Competition at the MSCA Conference 2023, initiatives to promote the role of Women in Science, and the international conference LCA Foods 2024. The MRIO model is being enhanced for policy-relevant applications in collaboration with FAO, including the assessment of feed footprints or the links between agricultural land expansion and deforestation.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

GIFTS develops a Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) database for the assessment of global agri-food supply chains and their environmental impacts, with a focus on land use and climate change. The project benefited from direct collaboration with partners at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), leading to the finalization of the database. MRIO models mainly consist of time series of production, imports, exports and final consumption of products across countries; used to assess interconnections between sectors in the global economy. GIFTS significantly enhances existing MRIO and physical trade analysis models by offering a more detailed tracing of agri-food product flows than previously available. This improvement benefits environmental footprint assessments by quantifying the impacts associated with each trade flow for 640 products across 181 countries, minimizing inaccuracies that arise from aggregating products into broader categories. The results can be used to measure import dependencies and resource and environmental footprints of food consumption in 2013-2020.

The GIFTS MRIO framework enhances supply chain transparency by identifying the origins and types of food consumed in destination countries annually, providing a science-based approach to attribute responsibility for the environmental impacts. The project's outcomes can help supply chain actors build more resilient and sustainable agri-food systems by addressing trade dependencies and drivers of agricultural land expansion. This supports countries in meeting their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land). In the EU, GIFTS provides crucial evidence for initiatives like the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, to reduce the environmental footprint of food systems, and the EU Deforestation Regulation, which monitors deforestation risks linked to agricultural imports. GIFTS can also be extended to measure other environmental impacts, such as water scarcity and biodiversity loss; while improving life cycle assessments of food products and diets by accurately tracing the origins and types of feedstocks consumed. Collaboration with FAO will continue beyond GIFTS, involving multiple divisions to ensure data validation, updates, and policy-relevant applications with national and regional stakeholders.

Methodological framework

Photo in FAO terrace (secondment)

Photo Policy Pitch MSCA Conference Award

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Photo meeting in FAO (secondment)

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