The United Nations has revealed a significant new tally of the affect the world’s meals system has on our well being and the planet. According to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the whole hidden prices of the world’s meals system add as much as $12.7 trillion {dollars}—roughly 10 p.c of world GDP.

The report analyzed the prices to well being, society, and the surroundings embedded within the present meals system. The largest affect in financial phrases is on well being: Globally, 73 p.c of all of the hidden prices accounted for by the FAO had been related to diets that led to weight problems or non-communicable ailments like diabetes and coronary heart illness. The subsequent largest affect in financial phrases was to the surroundings, accounting for greater than 20 p.c of quantified hidden prices.

“We know that the agrifood system faces a number of challenges,” says David Laborde, director of the FAO’s Agrifood Economics Division. “And with this report, we can put a price tag on these problems.”

The hidden prices of meals techniques change dramatically from nation to nation. In low-income international locations, virtually half of the hidden prices relate to poverty and could also be partly attributable to farmers not having the ability to develop sufficient meals or not being paid a good value for his or her merchandise. In these international locations, the hidden prices of meals quantity to a median of 27 p.c of GDP, in contrast with simply 8 p.c in high-income international locations. The FAO’s figures use 2020 buying energy parity {dollars}—a method of evaluating residing requirements throughout international locations with very totally different incomes and costs.

These hidden prices might be interconnected. Laborde provided the instance of cacao—the important thing ingredient in chocolate. Cacao is generally grown in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the place farmers are sometimes paid a pittance for their crops. That cacao is generally eaten by individuals in high-income international locations, significantly in Europe, and normally within the type of sugar-laden chocolate bars. If individuals in Europe ate rather less chocolate however paid extra for a fairer and higher-quality product, that would assist cut back well being impacts in Europe whereas directing extra money towards farmers in West Africa, Laborde says.

These cross-border worth calculations can get fiendishly difficult, says Jack Bobo, director of the University of Nottingham’s Food Systems Institute. Take the EU’s Farm-to -Fork Strategy, which goals to—amongst different issues—be sure that 1 / 4 of Europe’s farmland is natural and cut back fertilizer use by no less than 20 p.c by 2030. Hitting these objectives will most likely cut back environmental hidden prices in Europe, but it surely’s seemingly it would additionally find yourself lowering the overall productivity of European farms. This might imply European international locations must import extra meals from international locations like Brazil, which might incentivize deforestation and add as much as extra environmental hidden prices there.