Discussion: Food systems contribute to solving “the world’s most pressing challenges”
Corinna Hawkes Director of the FAO Division of Food Systems and Food Security said that a comprehensive and sustainable approach is needed that considers economic, social, and environmental factors, and that brings people together, to ensure food and sustainable lives for all.
He was speaking ahead of the UN Food Programme’s 2018 summit, which will consider the global agenda.
What is the agrifood program?
Corinna Hawkes: The system of agriculture is everything connected to food and agriculture. What we eat as well as the way food is sold, distributed and processed. It also includes how food is grown or harvested on land, in the ocean, and other non-food products, such as oil and seaweed. All these processes include a whole host of activities, investments, and decisions.
Corinna Hawkes, Director of the Food Programs and Food Security Division at FAO.
An encryption system pulls all of this together into a coherent system; for example, if we want to grow fruits and vegetables for people to eat healthily, we have to think not only about growing vegetables, but about how we deliver them to people.
Agrifood systems are also a place for solutions including for climate change, biodiversity loss, malnutrition, chronic diseases, food insecurity, poverty and to combat urban instability. Sustainable systems are the solution to the world’s most pressing challenges.
Why does the world need to change planning systems?
A fisherman in Ghana catches the morning fish.
Right now, the ability to provide those solutions is not there. A disordered system is a disease. The way it is designed and functions means it is weak, wearable and not durable.
So, the sadness and the challenge here, is that the power of the noise system to provide these solutions is lost until we change it to make it stronger.
Some of the major challenges include the way food is grown and manufactured contributing to climate change, which weakens the planning system.
What is an example of a major current challenge in noise systems?
One thing we have done is to bring a lot of variety out of the system which includes everything from what is on our plates all the way back to the farm. So, we need to restore that diversity.
In the last decades there has been a specialization in the production of a very important crop. This is a great idea from the perspective of productivity and efficiency; it lowers the price of food, it means you can trade food, and the lower the cost of production. It is important that these seeds are cultivated properly.
But what we have found is that reducing diversity greatly reduces the reproducibility of the system. And we have seen with recent crises how dependence on key producers also weakens resilience.
Diversity is also good for biodiversity and the environment, as well as food for consumers.
How can we overcome these problems?
In Senegal, new agricultural approaches are being developed to combat the effects of climate change.
There are many ways to transform agrifood systems. The most important way is to bring together all the programs which necessarily bring people together.
One of the main challenges is that different people are trying to fix biodiversity, food or food security, while others are trying to fix poverty and the lives of agricultural producers.
We need to come and work together in the system and find out how to provide these solutions. In this way we will begin to see that the agrifood system may seem to be a problem because it is weak, but it is really strong.
What positive actions have you developed now?
I am very happy about some of the initiatives that are taking place at the national, city and state levels. There is a lot of potential in cities big and small where local authorities and many stakeholders are taking real action.
They are improving market infrastructure so that people can access food, so that food is safe and loss and reduction.
So, we’re starting to see these important connections, and that’s happening in hundreds of cities around the world.
What can we expect from the upcoming UN Food Systems Conference +2 Marketing Season?
What I hope to see from the Treasury meeting two years after the UN Food Systems Conference is that governments and many other stakeholders will come together to honestly discuss the challenges and to share their successes and their challenges in making change.
I would like to see a sense of solidarity between governments and other partners who can agree that they will do better together if they share experiences and good practices to overcome challenges.
The best outcome of the meeting is that the momentum created will continue and that the commitment to change will not remain as a commitment but will lead to actions on the ground to really bring about change.
