In his first foreign speech since leaving office, former President Obama said agriculture is the second-largest source of greenhouse gases and it is feeling the effect of global warming. “We’ve already seen shrinking yields and rising food prices,” Obama said at the Seeds and Chips conference in Milan, according to the New York Times.
Higher food prices are a burden for the world’s poor, said Obama, and food shortages are driving people from their homes. The former president argued for the benefits of the Paris agreement on climate change, which focused on the energy sector. “We are actually seeing a continuing increase in emissions coming out of the agriculture sector…and a lot of that has to do with the changing diets around the world,” he said. When incomes rise, people worldwide want richer and more varied diets, often including more meat.
Obama said most people do not think of food as a pollution source, reported the Times. “Because food is so close to us and is part of our family and is part of what we do every single day, people, I think, are more resistant to the idea of government or bureaucrats telling them what to eat, how to eat and how to grow.”