The production of food contributes to climate change in many ways:

 "The clearing of forest areas, the draining of bog soils or the plowing of carbon-rich meadow soils allows CO₂ and the extremely climate-damaging nitrous oxide (N₂O) to escape. The use of fertilizer produces even more of these greenhouse gases and methane on top of that. Ruminants such as cows, sheep and goats also emit methane, which is produced in their digestive system, and the greenhouse gas also escapes from wet rice fields. In addition, there is the CO₂ from fossil fuels that are used in food production, from diesel for the tractor to the energy consumption of the sausage factory.

The scientists have continued various current trends for their account and made assumptions: With increasing prosperity, even more meat and dairy products are consumed, the world population continues to grow, food waste remains constant, the productivity of agriculture continues to increase. Based on these assumptions, for the years 2020 to 2100 they arrive at a warming caused by the various long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gases, which corresponds to that of 1,356 billion tons of CO₂. That is about as much as will currently be emitted outside the food sector in almost 30 years.

However, things can also turn out quite differently: If people were to eat healthier food, consume less animal products, halve food waste, operate more efficiently, increase yields even more, or even all of this together, according to the researchers, agricultural emissions could fall significantly until towards climate neutrality and beyond - in this case the food sector would even absorb more CO₂ than it produces.

"If the EU wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, as planned, emissions from the agricultural sector must also decrease significantly," says Clemens Scheer from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). However, he doubts whether the latest reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will achieve this goal, because at the moment the vast majority of agricultural subsidies are distributed across the board per cultivated area, regardless of what the farmer does or leaves there. "In order to ensure efficient climate protection, flat-rate area premiums should be replaced by payments for climate-effective environmental requirements, so-called eco-schemes," says Scheer."

We mainly cultivate the best land in Lithuania with huge fossil fuel-consuming tractors and combines. We sow grain for export. We grow on the basis of fossil fuel-based fertilizers and other chemicals. As a result, the best lands in Lithuania have lost their workers, who could be trained to create eco-schemes. The money goes to buy apartments in Vilnius and expensive SUVs. There is no money, no knowledge, no brains with the ability to invest into eco-schemes.