Externalities

After several years of pandemic-driven price spikes at the grocery store, retail food price inflation is slowing down. That’s good news for consumers, especially those in low-income households, who spend a proportionally larger share of their income on food. But there’s more to the cost of food than what we pay at the store. Producing, processing, transporting and marketing food creates costs all along the value chain. Many are borne by society as a whole or by communities and regions. For example, farm runoff is a top cause of algae blooms and dead zones in rivers, lakes and bays. And food waste takes up one-fourth of the space in U.S. landfills, where it rots, generating methane that warms Earth’s climate. Exploring these lesser-known costs is the first step toward reducing them. The key is a method called true cost accounting, which examines the economic, environmental, social and health impacts of food production and consumption to produce a broader p...