Move to sustainable food systems could bring $10tn benefits a year, study finds

The study suggested directing financial incentives towards smallholders who could turn farms into carbon sinks with more space for wildlife. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

A shift towards a more sustainable global food system could create up to $10tn (£7.9tn) of benefits a year, improve human health and ease the climate crisis, according to the most comprehensive economic study of its type.

It found that existing food systems destroyed more value than they created due to hidden environmental and medical costs, in effect, borrowing from the future to take profits today.