References: The True Cost of Food

This page contains numerous articles addressing and outlining the “True” cost of food.

Please note: These articles have been updated through January 2026.

Ashoka. True Cost Of Food: What We Measure, Matters. Forbes. Published December 2, 2021.

  • We focus on five core values: (Good Food Purchasing Program) local economies, health, valued workforce, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability.

GIST Impact Report, 2023. “Natural Farming Through a Wide-Angle Lens: True Cost Accounting Study of Community Managed Natural Farming in Andhra Pradesh, India.” GIST Impact, Switzerland and India.

  • Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) is the largest transition to agroecology in the world, with 630,000 farmers already addressing multiple development challenges: rural livelihoods, access to nutritious food, biodiversity loss, climate change, water scarcity, and pollution
  • First of its kind to assess the true costs and benefits of natural farming against other counterfactual farming methods by measuring all major economic, social, and health impacts.
  • Economic Impacts:
    • Crop diversity was higher on APCNF farms: an average 4 crops compared to 2.1 on counterfactual farms
    • Yields of prime crops, paddy rice, maize, millet, finger millet, and red gram, increased by an average 11% in APCNF villages.
    • APCNF farmers saw an average 49% net increase in income. This was largely the result of a 44% (average) reduction in input costs, primarily fertilizers and pesticides.
    • Labour intensity on APCNF farms was 21% higher than comparison farms.
  • APCNF led to increased social capital in villages. Social capital includes: information sharing, mutuality, collective action, trust and support, community cohesion, and risk reduction.
  • Increasing the social capital created a “virtuous cycle” of increased economic gains, which in turn led to greater trust, cohesion, and reciprocity.
  • Women significantly influenced social capital; particularly knowledge sharing, community cohesion, and trust and support.

Held L. Can Accounting for the True Cost of Food Change the Global Food System? Civil Eats. Published August 26, 2021.

  • They are evaluating the enormous price tags not calculated in the cost of cheap food, including cleaning up aquatic dead zones caused by the overreliance on nitrogen in the Corn Belt and the diet-related illnesses that are linked to the production of highly processed foods, costs that are often shouldered by government agencies and taxpayers.
  • It is significant, and we can’t get to [stopping warming at] 1.5° without really addressing food systems, not just land use. We need that full-system approach, and we need to make the connection between human health and climate, which is expressed through food really squarely.

Jekums A, Eigenraam M, Obst C, Sharma K, McLeod R. True Cost Accounting: Implementation Guidance and Inventory. Global Alliance For The Future Of Food. Published July 9, 2025.

  • True Cost Accounting (TCA) provides a framework to capture the full environmental, social, health, and economic costs and benefits of food systems.

    The report emphasizes the need to move beyond yield-focused measures and include hidden costs such as soil erosion, habitat loss, water pollution, and diet-related illness.

    It also highlights positive contributions like carbon sequestration, pollination, resilience to disasters, and community well-being, showing how TCA can guide more sustainable and equitable decisions.

Jerusha Klemperer. The True Cost of Cheap Chicken. FoodPrint. Published February 16, 2022.

  • Cheap chicken often masks serious costs borne by the environment, farmers, and the animals themselves, as the production system frequently relies on practices that externalize or hide harmful impacts.
  • Industrial chicken farming has been linked with animal welfare issues, such as chickens living in overcrowded, ammonia-filled barns where their living conditions are poor.
  • There are financial concerns, too, including allegations of price-fixing in the poultry industry, which suggest that consumers may not be getting fair prices even for mass-produced poultry.

Morgane Batkai. Stop Food Waste Day 2025 Kick-Off. Food Tank. Published September 7, 2021.

  • The Rockefeller Foundation’s report finds that the true cost of food in the U.S. is nearly $3.2 trillion per year, which is about three times what consumers currently spend on food because the figure includes societal and environmental externalities.
  • One of the largest hidden costs stems from healthcare: the government spends approximately $1.145 trillion annually on diet-related diseases, food insecurity, and health impacts from pollution.
  • The report emphasizes that these costs disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities who experience higher rates of diet-related illness and greater exposure to environmental pollutants.

Mozaffarian D, Rogoff KS, Ludwig DS. The real cost of food: can taxes and subsidies improve public health? JAMA. 2014 Sep 3;312(9):889-90. doi: 10.1001/jama.2014.8232. PMID: 25182094; PMCID: PMC6129188.

  • Food pricing strategies including taxation and subsidies hold special promise as effective and market-friendly mechanisms for influencing dietary behavior.
  • Higher quality diets typically cost more than lower quality diets – on average, about $1.50 more per person per day6 – providing a short-term financial disincentive to eat healthfully. Existing empirical evidence suggests that a combined tax and subsidy ranging from 10 to 30% would have a meaningful influence on dietary choices.5
  • The purpose of taxes and subsidies would be to improve overall dietary patterns, not reduce total calories. Emerging evidence suggests that a primary emphasis on diet quality may be effective in the long-term prevention of obesity.8 Moreover, independent of body weight, diet quality has substantial influence on risk of chronic diseases.9

The Rockefeller Foundation. True Cost of Food Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System.; 2021.

  • In our framework for estimating the true cost of food in the U.S., we identified five areas impacted by food production and consumption: Environment, Biodiversity, Livelihoods, Economy, and Human Health
  • While nutrition programs and benefits—both public and private—have often been viewed as expensive, looking at them through a true cost lens reveals that they are in fact wise investments for strengthening our country’s economy. It is also clear, as outlined later in this report, that communities of color bear the bulk of these costs and any efforts to address them must take the unique systemic barriers in place into account
  • Secondary impacts in this issue area that were not analyzed include increased migration due to climate change, the risks of increased exposure to viruses due to deforestation, soil health, the likelihood of biodiversity collapse, impacts of food waste, and future food insecurity
  • The unaccounted costs of the food system on the environment and biodiversity add up to almost $900 billion per year. These costs are largely attributable to two areas: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity costs
  • Executive Summary of the Report here: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/True-Cost-of-Food-Report-Executive-Summary-Final.pdf

The Rockefeller Foundation. True Cost of Food: School Meals Case Study. The Rockefeller Foundation. Published March 13, 2024.

  • The U.S. school meal programs (National School Lunch Program & School Breakfast Program) cost $18.7 billion/year to operate, but generate nearly $40 billion/year in human health & economic equity benefits.
  • On average, every dollar invested in school meals yields more than $2 in social return when broader impacts, like health, educational outcomes, and economic stability, are considered.
  • School meals are critically important: they provide nutrition for about 30 million children and their families, often supplying the healthiest food children consume on a given day.
  • A large share of school meals’ benefits go toward supporting low-income, food-insecure households, for example, 84% of such households with school-age children access free or reduced-price lunches.
  • Great short video here on the true cost of food: from Rockefeller Foundation – 1:30 seconds and explores all the costs – Great for showing in class.
  • Press release helpful too:  https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/true-cost-of-food-measuring-what-matters-to-transform-the-u-s-food-system/
    • The report examines 14 key metrics across the impact areas of human health, environment, biodiversity, livelihoods, and more to quantify the true cost of food. The biggest unaccounted costs are negative impacts on human health, working conditions, the depletion of natural resources, worsening climate change, and biodiversity loss. Cross-cutting all of these impact areas, communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of the costs.