Consumer and industry awareness about the need for a more sustainable food supply chain has been on the rise, but outside of professional circles, the debate is generally very much focused on either climate change, carbon footprint reduction, ethics or biodiversity.
All of these are undoubtedly very important issues that need to be addressed post-haste, but outside of these topics are several other risk factors that unfortunately receive far less attention despite potentially also having severe impacts for the entire food supply if left unchecked.
In line with Sustainable September, here are three of the most urgent, yet underestimated, sustainability-related risks looming over the world’s agri-food industry.
Seafood sustainability: Is species prioritisation too skewed?
The world has no shortage of sustainability schemes targeting ocean health and seafood supply, but over the years it has become increasingly clear that the investments poured into these are heavily influenced by consumer purchases and commercial viability, not overall marine biodiversity.
Basing these programmes on commercial viability is of course not wrong — consumers have a disproportionate penchant to purchase from among the world’s ‘big five’ species: Salmon, tuna, shrimp, pollock and tilapia, which makes concentrating major sustainability efforts on these species the most impactful.
However, this has been the case for many years and over such a long term it has become apparent that not only are other types of seafood falling behind in terms of support and sector organisation, but data is also painfully scarce making future initiatives and AI-driven analysis challenging.
For instance, over 90% of global commercial salmon catch and 50% of global commercial tuna catch is certified sustainable with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), with many forms of traceability programme running in these sectors — but in stark contrast, such certification and traceability is almost non-existent for squid or fish species like catfish.
Many of these initiatives are driven by the industry, which in turn adds to the issue of commercial dependence. For instance, tuna giant Thai Union is well-known for its global sustainability strategy SeaChange 2030 which has, among others, very detailed plans for the tuna and shrimp the firm uses in its products, but plans for other items like shellfish are less clearly laid out.
This aggressive management in select species has had positive effects on the supply of big five species, but without a more comprehensive overall look at seafood sustainability, gaps in ocean health considerations could cause not only marine biodiversity to suffer but also many fisheries in producer markets.
“Regions like Asia and Africa are majority contributors to global seafood production, but still face significant deficiencies in effective management and data collection. These in turn hinder the implementation of broad-scale sustainability measures,” said Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) Senior Scientist Pedro Veiga.
“We see that there is still a need for increased efforts in protecting marine biodiversity, ensuring the inclusion of small-scale fishers, improving fisheries policy and management and promoting regenerative aquaculture.”
The mycotoxin conundrum: A reviving risk rising with a vengeance
Up on land, mycotoxins — an age-old nemesis of grain crops everywhere — is making a re-emergence, fuelled by uncontrollable factors such as climate change.
Mycotoxins are natural toxins produced by fungi and mold, known to be virtually indestructible due to extraordinary resistance to both chemicals and heat.
Fungi are naturally optimised for growth in hot and humid conditions, which are unfortunately being exacerbated all over the world due to climate change and extreme weather events, in turn increasing fungal activity and mycotoxin spread everywhere.
This exposure is not limited to tropical countries either: A recent European Environment Agency (EEA) report revealed that approximately 25% of crops in the region exceed EU regulatory limits for mycotoxins, and up to 80% of contamination can occur at levels above detectable limits.
“Mycotoxins are absorbed by plants during growth or after harvest and can remain in food even after washing, cooking or processing. This is because some are resistant to heat and typical food preparation methods,” the EEA stated.
“Although people usually discard visibly mouldy food, the fungi that produce mycotoxins are not always visible, making it challenging to remove them once contamination has occurred.”
This is not yet including mycotoxins in plants eaten by livestock, which then transfers to the meat entering human diets. Mycotoxins are known to disrupt hormones, weaken the immune system, damage the liver and kidneys and act as carcinogens.
“There are currently no mitigation strategies or solutions available to really abolish the risk of mycotoxins completely,” said University Putra Malaysia toxicologist Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nik Iskandar Putra Samsudin.
Other data from reports including the 2025 World Mycotoxin Survey have shown over 80% of tested feed and crop samples simultaneously containing multiple mycotoxins, which further compounds the challenge by moving this from a single-toxin contamination to complex co-contamination, making it even more difficult to identify and solve.
The best way to prevent eating food containing mycotoxins currently is to prevent the growth of mold entirely, as no standard process dan destroy them once the toxins are formed — this includes cool and dry storage, thorough inspection of whole grains and nuts, and sticking to products still within their best-by or expiration dates.
Productivity: Where will food come from if there is no one to tend to crops?
Many current discussions surrounding food security and food supply focus on how to produce more food or enough food to feed a booming human population by the middle of this century.
But if we shift focus fully onto the human element of the equation, there is a glaring burgeoning issue that is still on the rise, especially in the markets producing the most agrifood crops, and that is the issue of labour and productivity linked closely to malnutrition.
Many companies in every global region talk about improving product portfolios in order to move consumers away from current unhealthy diets high in salt, fat and/or sugar, as well as to provide extra accessible nutrition to consumers who need it. But is this enough?
“We are seeing a multitude of social hidden costs associated with [productivity losses] due to protein-energy malnutrition and poverty in agrifood workers, as well as health hidden costs from productivity losses due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) resulting from unhealthy dietary patterns,” the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.
“Specifically, health hidden costs range between $8tn to $10tn (adjusted for 2020 purchasing power parity), whereas social hidden costs are estimated at $566bn. This is concentrated in low- and lower-middle-income countries, which are also the primary agrifood producer markets.”
These ‘hidden costs’ are an indicator of national productivity, and go far beyond just the issue of ‘not enough food’ — taking the burden of public health and disease for each market into account, the major cause of diet-related productivity lost was found to be diets low in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, followed by diets high in sodium, processed meat and red meat.
This is not yet even taking into account consumers living in poverty who are unable to contribute to national productivity due to an overall lack of nutrition.
Of course, there is always an argument to be made about using robotics and technology to improve the productivity gap humans might leave.
But the fact is that the mass commercialisation of such tech still a long way off and malnutrition, whether overnutrition, undernutrition or micronutrition deficiencies, are all stripping workforce productivity faster that tech can catch up, so this is a very real risk that needs much more concentrated attention put on it before it is too late.
