These projects are using food to get audiences to care about climate change

No topic is more universal than food, and few are being equally impacted by climate change. This makes food an attractive field to invite audiences to learn about the realities of global warming without fanning the flames of political polarisation.

Reuters Institute researchers found that only half of their survey’s respondents in eight countries get news about climate change regularly, and an average of 22% actively avoid this kind of news. The same report suggests a focus on solutions may help reduce this figure. But climate stories tend to be dry, technical or leave people with a sense of hopelessness. So, can food coverage help bridge that gap?

These ingredients are the basis of three projects from Indonesia, South Africa and the United States aiming to use food as the hook to report on different aspects of climate change. I spoke with the people behind them to learn more about their work.

Food justice

For the Daily Maverick, a South African digital news site, the What’s Eating Us podcast hosted by journalist Zukiswa Pikoli is an extension of its reporting on food justice – the idea that everyone has the right to access healthy food reliably produced in ways that are fair to people and the environment. 

Food justice as a topic is broad and can be technical and dry, says Pikoli. A different format and distribution can make reporting on the subject “more sexy and appealing to a new audience”, who might be interested in the topic but prefer a more conversational style and to “passively” consume audio.

“It’s finding different avenues for the subject matter to proliferate and to get the information out there in a way that doesn’t intimidate people,” says Pikoli, who hopes the podcast will help people think more deeply about the food choices they make. “We’re trying to say that the issue of food is not just something for academic or intellectual spaces. Sometimes we are disconnected from the food we digest. It just arrives, but you don’t know the process, the people involved, from farming to packaging, to get it to you.”

Episodes include how schools in the city of Tshwane use food gardens as part of the curriculum and to boost pupils’ nutrition, and a deep dive into the life of a young female farmer in KwaZulu-Natal.

“The people who produce food are often the most food insecure, because they do not have the means to afford the healthy, fresh food that they produce to sell to other people,” explains Pikuli. The podcast explores this aspect of food justice as well as “the cultural significance” of food production, how people gather around food within cultures and “how that has been slowly stripped away and superimposed with fast food”.

The Daily Maverick had previously produced webinars on food justice with expert guests, and a podcast felt like a natural extension of that work, says Pikuli. Each season took three to four months to produce, from the planning and interviewing stage to post-production.

The first season in 2022 introduced listeners to researchers, experts and activists – the people and perspectives driving the food justice movement. The second series released this year focuses on those “at the coalface” of food production or food justice work, with ambient, on-location sound adding a more authentic feel to the storytelling. This series, in particular, has brought in more of the impact of climate change on food systems. 

For an episode on small-scale fishers, for example, Pikuli visited fishing villages and markets in Kosi Bay. Conservation efforts and commercial fishing operations have changed and restricted their access to the sea, impeding their ability to fish in the way they have for generations and, in some cases, displacing them as they seek alternative ways to sustain themselves.

“While you're trying to do a good thing with conversation, [consider,] what is the human impact?” says Pikuli. “You only find out when you go out and speak to people.”

The team hopes What’s Eating Us and its broader food justice work will push industry and policymakers to discuss or make progress on issues such as a proposed increase to the country’s sugar tax and clearer food labelling. Recent deaths from food poisoning, including pesticide poisoning, have been big news in South Africa. The team also wants to interrogate how the climate crisis has contributed to food safety issues in future episodes.

Pikuli also wants to reach individuals who are interested in the nutritional choices they make.: “[a]n audience that may not have a direct interest in food justice issues, but there's certain topics that resonate with them, particularly emotive things like how this is impacting my child and [what contributes to] malnutrition and obesity.”

A meatless newsletter

When it comes to connections between food systems and the climate crisis, the meat and livestock industries play a significant role. Livestock production accounts for an estimated 11.1-19.6% of global carbon emissions and uses 35.5% of the world’s habitable land. Yet, according to a study of media between 2020 and 2022, less than 0.5% of stories about climate change by leading news outlets in the US, UK and Europe mention meat or livestock.

US newsroom Vox not only has a reporter dedicated to this beat – Kenny Torella – but also offers readers a more personal way to engage with the environmental impacts of meat production through the newsletter Meat/Less. Subscribers receive a limited series of five emails sent weekly, each offering an in-depth exploration of one issue, from how to make habits stick to the environmental aspect of eating less meat.

Meat/Less gives readers practical advice on how to incorporate more plant-based foods into their diets, while bringing in associated policy and ethical issues. “There were and are a lot of series and guides on how to eat less meat, but many focus solely on cooking and recipes for the food itself,” explains Torella. “I wanted a way to guide people that’s anchored in their motivations to change, whether it’s health or animal welfare, as opposed to assuming they’ve made the decision [to eat less meat] and are going to stick with it.”

Five emails of around 1,000 to 1,500 words each felt like enough room to explore the topic and not overwhelm readers, adds Torella. The newsletter is aimed at those already considering reducing their meat intake and people who “have an idea that something is wrong in our meat system, but they either don’t know or don’t want to know.” US research suggests people want to consume less meat, but economic data shows otherwise, explains Torella, and giving readers who feel “unease” with the system more information and guidance felt like an opportunity for Vox.

“With the right story and framing, it can attract a large audience, because it's an issue that everyone is involved in, but that they don't hear about much. When they can hear about it from us, hopefully it piques their interest,” he says.

Based on reader feedback, the newsletter recently relaunched to include more cooking and recipe tips, bringing in more overtly lifestyle content. A new, twice-monthly newsletter that’s home to all of Vox’s coverage of factory farming and the meat industry, Processing Meat, has also been launched. Both newsletters are an opportunity to bring reporting on an “undercovered industry” to a wider audience, says Torella, who wrote all of Meat/Less’ content. 

“There are more opportunities in general to do coverage around climate and food,” he says. “A lot of that should be focused on the meat industry, because they are responsible for the majority of emissions, yet produce a minority of the calories.

“That story has been told a lot, but there are different ways into it, and the average consumer may not understand that fact of our food system.”

The story of Indigenous ingredients

Demand for palm oil, often used as a cheap product for cooking, cosmetics and fuel, has led to the “wholesale destruction” of peatlands and rainforest in Indonesia, according to Greenpeace. Research released by the environmental group in 2007 suggests that 1.8 billion tonnes (Gt) or 4% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are released by the degradation and burning of Indonesia’s peatlands, much of which is converted to palm oil plantations.

This report and a workshop challenging newsrooms to deliver climate journalism in out-of-the-box ways inspired Indonesian national radio news agency KBR to develop Planet Plate, a podcast, recipe hub and community dedicated to preserving Indonesia’s food diversity. 

“The public has some awareness of the climate crisis, but may feel the issue is far away. They might not know how or where to take action,” says KBR programme and podcast manager Malika. “Food is relatable, and we can immediately connect the dots between the climate crisis and the food that we eat.”

Each recipe and ingredient featured tells a story linked to the climate crisis and its impact on food in Indonesia, for example, how Indigenous carbohydrates like sago or gembili could be sustainable alternatives to rice. In Indonesia, people’s dependence on rice is a problem, says Malika: “There’s a saying that you don’t feel full if you don’t eat rice (...), but the price of rice is getting higher and we continue importing rice from other countries [to meet demand]. We have other sources of food, but have not been introduced to this variety.”

The ingredients and recipes featured so far include milkfish, whose habitat is under threat, and the Pelawan mushroom, which is on the brink of extinction. They were selected for their compelling stories to represent two parts of a menu - appetisers and main course - and reflect food diversity across the country and region.

“It’s a different tone. Sometimes, climate crisis stories tend to be sad or discouraging. We want to give some hope. Food diversity is starting small, but changing habits is not easy,” says Malika, who says she did not cook before producing Planet Plate but has started making some of the featured recipes.

Audio is a crucial part of Planet Plate as it “ignites people’s imagination”, says the team, who say it’s the first Indonesian cookery podcast. The sounds captured are reminiscent of people’s home kitchens, with the added benefit of a conversation about how this recipe connects to climate change. The video tutorial brings together a food expert and a climate expert to offer context on the ingredients and processes being used.

Preserving other sources of food and trying them out could offer some mitigation to the impact of the climate crisis in Indonesia, but requires a shift in cultural and political mindsets. KBR has 100 stations in its network across 34 provinces, and while a wide, general public audience is a target, reaching policymakers is important too. A regulation to preserve local ingredients already exists, but the issue needs wider discussion and promotion, says Malika: “When the government sees there's a demand from the public, then this might trigger the government to make more changes.”

The strongest audience feedback so far has come through the Planet Plate Cooking Challenge, a contest asking the audience to create sagu recipes and share the story behind them. In two weeks, the challenge received more than 50 submissions and lots of positive comments on Planet Plate. In the future, the team wants to continue working with local community groups to build Planet Plate into “a catalogue of unique, local recipes with stories”.

“We want to record as many local recipes as possible and to change the situation little by little by asking people to cook them more,” says KBR’s editor-in-chief Citra Dyah Prastuti. “We don’t want these local recipes to go extinct, including the ingredients they are using.”

“It’s beyond producing content or a podcast, it’s about reaching a new kind of audience and how we serve that audience better,” she adds. “What else should we do to push forward the awareness of food diversity, the change of habit, the inspiring steps to tackle the climate crisis? We have to do it again and again.”