Abstract
In this report, The Rockefeller Foundation presents the true cost of food in the U.S., which measures the costs of our food system today to our health, environment, and society. After publishing our July 2020 “Reset the Table” report, we spent the past several months working with experts and advocates across the field to model the impact of the U.S. food system. The result is a national analysis—a first—that can help us estimate the cost of our food more accurately, and thus, shift the incentive structure that perpetuates our unsustainable food system today.
Generated Summary
This report by The Rockefeller Foundation analyzes the true cost of food in the U.S., aiming to quantify the impacts of the food system on health, the environment, and society. The study employs a true cost accounting (TCA) framework, incorporating input from numerous food systems experts. It focuses on the production, processing, distribution, retail, and consumption stages of the supply chain, excluding food service and hospitality. The analysis identifies five key impact areas: Environment, Biodiversity, Livelihoods, Economy, and Human Health. The research highlights that the true cost of food is significantly higher than the current expenditure, underscoring the need for systemic transformation to create a more equitable, healthy, and resilient food system. The report builds on the “Reset the Table” report published in 2020 and provides a first-of-its-kind national analysis to estimate the true cost of food accurately and address the incentive structure that perpetuates an unsustainable food system today.
Key Findings & Statistics
- In 2019, American consumers spent an estimated $1.1 trillion on food.
- The true cost of the U.S. food system is at least three times as big—$3.2 trillion per year.
- The U.S. food system employs 10% of American workers.
- Accounting for rising healthcare costs, climate change, and biodiversity loss, the true cost of food is at least $3.2 trillion a year, more than three times the current expenditure on food.
- The total spent by U.S. consumers, businesses, and governmental entities on food and beverages in grocery stores and other retailers and on away-from-home meals and snacks is ~$1.1T
- Additional costs from quantitative metrics across 5 impact areas is ~$2.1T
- The current national expenditure on food is ~$1.1T
- Additional costs from quantitative metrics across 14 key metrics: Human Health: $1.1T, Environment: $350B, Biodiversity: $455B, Livelihoods: $134B, Economy: $21B
- Human health costs are approximately $1.1 trillion.
- Of the $1.1T attributed to Human Health, $604 billion is due to healthcare costs related to diet-related diseases, such hypertension, cancer, and diabetes.
- The unaccounted costs of the food system on the environment and biodiversity add up to almost $900 billion per year.
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions contribute approximately $300 billion in additional costs of the food system.
- Biodiversity costs contribute approximately $500 billion in additional costs of the food system. The largest driving cost is land use and land transformation. Cropland use adds close to $180 billion, while grazing land adds close to $160 billion in additional costs.
- Livelihoods: The unaccounted livelihood costs are approximately $100 billion of the true cost of food.
- Agriculture subsidies are approximately $20 billion a year.
- Black households have 2.4x the prevalence of food insecurity than White households.
- Air pollution exposure is 25% higher for Black Americans compared to the national average and 41% higher compared to White Americans.
- Obesity is 1.2x more prevalent in Black Americans than the national average.
- Rates of diagnosed diabetes are 1.7x higher in Latinx Americans than White Americans, and 1.5x higher in Black Americans than White Americans.
- Communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of the costs of the food system
- Median hourly wage for persons of color is 22% lower than for White Americans.
- Foreign-born Latinx workers experience 31% more lost workdays from injury compared to White workers.
- During the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 54 million Americans (one in six Americans), of which over 18 million are children, faced uncertainty around their next meal.
- The consolidation of meat processing led to 12 plants producing over 50% of beef and another 12 producing over 50% of pork.
- If diet-related disease prevalence rates were reduced to be comparable to countries such as Canada, healthcare costs could be reduced by close to $250 billion per year.
- If the U.S. can reduce agriculture-specific emissions to comply with the 1.5C pathway, then close to $100 billion could be reduced in additional environmental costs.
Other Important Findings
- The U.S. food system, while effective in providing food, has significant negative impacts on health, society, and the environment.
- The food system has optimized for production volume, safety from food-borne infectious illnesses, and inexpensive calories, with success measured largely along these metrics.
- True cost accounting can improve decision-making by providing a more comprehensive view of system costs and benefits.
- The benefits of the food system include affordable food, a variety of food choices, and support for local economies, including $1 billion in annual sales at farmers markets.
- In 2019, 22.2 million full- and part-time jobs were related to the agricultural and food sectors—10.9 percent of total U.S. employment.
- The study identifies five areas impacted by food production and consumption: Environment, Biodiversity, Livelihoods, Economy, and Human Health.
- The greatest driver of unaccounted-for costs is human health.
- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a significant global health threat, and food systems are estimated to contribute 22% to the burden of AMR.
- Communities of color bear disproportionate costs of the food system, particularly in health-related costs.
- The Covid-19 pandemic revealed the system’s lack of resilience, with supply chain disruptions and increased food insecurity.
- Fundamental shifts are needed across the food system, including expanding access to healthy food, addressing human health impacts, and accelerating the development of new tools to reduce GHGs.
Limitations Noted in the Document
- The analysis is not exhaustive, as it excludes certain costs due to data limitations or ethical considerations (e.g., mental health costs, animal suffering).
- The study focused only on primary impacts of the food system, not including downstream impacts.
- The methodology was designed to eliminate redundancy and isolate food-related impacts as strictly as possible.
- The monetization factors used in the study may have limitations.
- Assigning the monetization factors to different areas, including assessing the degree to which workers in the industry are underpaid or lack benefits requires an inherent value judgment.
- The study acknowledges a widespread underreporting of food worker data across the supply chain, including a lack of validated metrics, high-quality data, and codified definitions of impact.
Conclusion
The Rockefeller Foundation’s report underscores the urgent need to transform the U.S. food system by accounting for the true cost of food. The current system, prioritizing production volume and inexpensive calories, leads to substantial hidden costs related to health, the environment, and social inequities. The analysis reveals that the true cost of food, at $3.2 trillion annually, is significantly higher than the expenditure on food itself, and disproportionately burdens communities of color. Addressing these issues requires a holistic approach, including expanding access to healthy food, incentivizing sustainable practices, and fostering equity within the food system. The report emphasizes the potential for true cost accounting to guide decision-making across sectors, from government and corporations to consumers and advocates. By measuring what matters, the food system can be reshaped to prioritize the health of people, the planet, and society. The report concludes that a formal integration of a true cost accounting framework into decision-making processes in public policy, private and public investments, and systems design is needed. This will require additional research capacity, new investor frameworks, and a reassessment of scoring approaches for policy and legislation. Ultimately, successful food system transformation relies on understanding the full costs and benefits of the current system to drive systemic change and create a more sustainable and equitable future.