UN food agency warns of hidden health-related costs in EU’s food systems

Health-related costs account for a significant part of the hidden costs of the EU agri-food system, an official of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told Euractiv while presenting the results of the UN agency’s latest report on the matter.

“When people think about the hidden costs of agrifood systems, they very often think about the environmental costs,” FAO senior economist Andrea Cattaneo said.

However, a report led by Cattaneo and published on Monday (6 November) found that, in Europe alone, 82% of the hidden costs in agri-food systems are due to unhealthy diets which lead to lower labour productivity.

The consequences of unhealthy diets include public and private costs for coping with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases.

“Health costs are quite high in Europe because they are calculated based on days lost of labour,” said Andrea. “With relatively high salaries, this has a higher impact in terms of dollars,” he added.

The report was hailed by civil society organisations such as the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), which have always stressed that unhealthy diets take a heavy toll on health and well-being.

“For the first time, this FAO report puts numbers on the huge cost [of unhealthy diets] for our economies,” Camille Perrin, BEUC senior policy officer, told Euractiv.

According to her, supporting policies that make the healthy choice the easy and affordable one for consumers “should thus be a no-brainer”.

Both the Farm to Fork strategy and the EU’s Beating Cancer plan, two flagship European Commission initiatives, provided initiatives to facilitate the promotion of healthy diets.

However, one of the main provisions originally scheduled by the EU executive, the reform of the framework on information to make it easier for them to choose healthy food products, was repeatedly postponed and will not see the light in this legislative mandate.

In its report, the FAO acknowledged that food marketing, labelling and certification are “vital” to influence consumers’ behaviour.

A 2020 survey by BEUC found that over half of EU consumers are influenced by environmental concerns and two-thirds are willing to change their eating habits accordingly but lack information to do so.

Increase in hidden costs will be on health side

The FAO expects the global hidden costs in 2023 to reach $13.2 trillion. The figure for 2016 was nearly $12.2 trillion, which means an increase of a trillion over a period of seven years.

According to Cattaneo, the bulk of the increase in terms of quantified damages will be on the health side.

“It is essentially about putting in place [environmental and health] objectives,” he said, adding that “while making sure that the food costs don’t increase, especially for the more vulnerable parts of the population”.

The FAO report encourages policymakers to use “price incentives or disincentives to stimulate the production of sustainable and nutritious foods”.

“If improving public health and people’s wellbeing is not strong enough a driver for policymakers,” BEUC’s Perrin said, “hopefully the economic case for healthy diets will convince them to act”.

The FAO report warns as well that the current issue with unhealthy diets “should not steer attention away from the environmental and social hidden costs”.

Environmental damage in Europe, including greenhouse gas (GHG) and nitrogen emissions, blue water use, and ecosystem degradation, is estimated at 500 billion dollars.

However, the real cost is almost certainly higher, as factors such as pesticide exposure and land degradation were not included in the research, the report reads.

Slovakia, Hungary and Poland are the EU countries with the highest quantified hidden costs relative to the value of their agrifood production, the report reads.

[Edited by Gerardo Fortuna/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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