A study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows the nation's top newspapers have largely overlooked the food system as one of the more important contributors to global climate change.

The two-year study, available online in advance of publication in Public Health Nutrition, analyzed coverage by 16 of the nation's largest-circulation newspapers. According to the study, the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from food production and agriculture was mentioned in only 2.4 percent of climate change articles. In contrast, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2007 that 31 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and forestry (with much of the latter representing deforestation for food production).

The study also found that 0.5 percent of climate change articles made any mention of the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and meat production. In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reported that livestock production alone accounted for nearly 18 percent of world anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, a greater contribution than from transportation. Top impacts of the food system on climate include cattle emissions of methane (a highly potent greenhouse gas) and loss of trapped carbon from soil and plants following land clearing for crops or pasture.

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