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Governments around the world have committed trillions of pounds to recover from the unprecedented impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, researchers have carried out the first global analysis of the long-term effects of different recovery plans on global health, the environment and the cost of food.
Findings from the study could inform the development of strategies to improve global health and food affordability and help limit the impacts of climate change.
A team led by the University of Edinburgh used a leading-edge computer model to assess the impacts that different Covid-19 recovery plans could have between 2019 and 2060.
Researchers modelled four post-pandemic scenarios and considered how the global food system would be affected by each of these.
Their findings show plans that include dietary shifts toward less meat and more fruit and vegetables could prevent 2,600 premature deaths per million people by 2060.
With the world’s population projected to be more than 10 billion by 2060, this could potentially avert 26 million deaths that year alone, the team says.
‘The Covid-19 recovery stimulus packages present an opportunity to reduce the impact of the food system on some of the most urgent global challenges, including diet-related diseases, the impact of the food system on the environment, and the affordability of food, especially for those on the lowest income. This analysis shows the dramatic benefit of increasing global cooperation and improving diets.’
AIMEN SATTAR
PhD student, University of Edinburgh’s Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems
Adopting low-meat diets would make food more affordable – especially in low-income countries, where 50% of the earnings needed to have enough food in 2019 would fall to around 10% by 2060.
Cutting meat consumption would also reduce agricultural land use and the need for irrigation and fertiliser, which can affect water quality and harm biodiversity, the teams says.
By contrast, recovery plans focused solely on restoring economic activity to pre-pandemic levels could lead to as many as 780 extra deaths per million in 2060 – almost eight million deaths that year alone, based on population projections.
These strategies would also increase land, irrigation and fertiliser use, and have less impact on making food more affordable, researchers say.
The study is published in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health. It was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council and the Scottish Government. The work also involved researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
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