Global accountancy and consultancy firm PwC is not known for alarmism and is certainly not anti-capitalist. So it is perhaps alarming that it has added its voice to the rising chorus of concern about food production, the threat it poses to the global environment and our ability to feed a growing population.

PwC pulls no punches in a just-published report titled "The sustainable food revolution: future-proofing the world's food supply".

"The world is facing a food crisis," it says.

"This crisis is immediate, but also long-term. Shortages caused by the war in Ukraine have amplified ... challenges to the sustainability of global food production based on population growth, climate change and increased reliance on resource-intensive farming. Food companies need to brace themselves for change."

Such assertions make the political right and some in big business see red, but the report's authors insist they are not planting leftist seeds. "It is not mere ideology to assert that global food production and distribution must change. It is a simple matter of facts and figures..."

And the facts and figures are pretty stark.

"According to the UN, if the global population continues its current growth trend and reaches 9.6 billion people by 2050, it will take three planet Earths to support current food consumption patterns. That means that long before 2050, the current system will either break down or will have to undergo radical change."

The meat industry

The report notes that agriculture accounts for 26% of the global greenhouse gas emissions linked to...