WORLD FOOD DAY 2021
Society
A new momentum in
transforming agri-food systems in the march to ending hunger
By
QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations
This year’s World Food Day finds us at a
critical moment. The COVID-19 pandemic remains a global challenge, causing
untold losses and hardship. The impacts of the climate crisis are all around
us. Crops have gone up in flames. Homes have been washed away. Lives and
livelihoods have been thrown into turmoil due to conflict and other humanitarian
emergencies. Global food security challenges have not been this severe for
years.
Yet in the midst of this all, there is
an encouraging new momentum and energy building as we strive to overhaul the
ways in which our food is produced, stored, distributed and consumed. We have
started confronting the problems and making the structures more fit for
purpose.
Last month’s UN Food Systems Summit
convened by the UN Secretary-General, AntónioGuterres, mapped out the broad outlines
of how the world needs to move forward to transform agri-food systems.
The closing maxim of the gathering
was: “From New York back to Rome,” where the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) and sister UN food agencies are based.
We at FAO have already rolled up our
sleeves and got down to the practical tasks of leading the implementation and
driving the transformation.
A groundbreaking World Food Forum was successfully
convened here in the Italian capital early this month, powered by the global
youth, and youth representatives at FAO and our sister agencies, focused on
harnessing the creativity and resilience of our younger generations. They have
the most at stake. They will be the ones living with the direct consequences of
the climate crisis and malfunctioning agri-food systems. At the same time, the
1.8 billion young people in the world today between the ages of 10 and 24, of
which nearly 90 percent are living in developing countries, provide an unlimited
potential to tap.
We have already started to leverage
that into widespread awareness, holistic solutions and concrete youth-lead
actions for change. Of course the young aren’t the only ones who need to worry
about our agri-food systems not being fit for purpose, and on how to make them
more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
Even before COVID-19 shone a spotlight
on the vulnerability of the world’s agri-food systems, hundreds of millions of
people worldwide were afflicted by hunger - and that number has increased in
the last year up to 811 million. Despite the world producing sufficient food to
feed all of us. This is unimaginable and unacceptable.
At the same time, 14 percent of the
food we produce is lost, and 17 percent is wasted. Combine this with other
stressors — such as pests and diseases, natural disasters, loss of biodiversity
and habitat destruction, and conflict —
and you can see the magnitude of the challenge we face in meeting the world’s
growing food needs, while simultaneously reducing the environmental and climate
impact of our agri-food systems.
FAO, as the leading agency working on
food and agriculture, has developed a toolbox which we are confident can enable
us to make an impact on many of these complex systemic problems.
We have a clear sense of where we are
going, framed in the objectives: Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better
Environment and a Better Life. And our work is underpinned by a new Strategic Framework
2022-2031 for the next ten years that defines the concrete actions and inputs
needed to make the Four Betters a reality, and leave no one behind.
FAO estimates that as much as $40 to
$50 billion in annual investments on targeted interventions are needed to end
hunger by 2030. There are plenty of low-cost, high-impact projects that can
help hundreds of millions of people better meet their food needs.
For instance, targeted interventions
on Research and Development to make farming more technologically advanced,
innovation in digital agriculture, and improve literacy rates among women can
go a long way to reducing hunger.But there are also other essential elements
such as better data, governance and institutions, that need to be added to the
equation.
In addition, our approach can only be
effective if it’s rooted in working together with governments, and key partners,
as they forge their own national pathways towards transformation in line with
their specific conditions and needs.
We also need to realize that
scientists and bureaucrats and even food producers and distributors will never
be able to bring about all these desperately needed changes on their own.
The transformation can and must start
with pragmatic and concrete action by ordinary consumers and the choices we
make. The decisions we make everyday on the foods we consume, where we buy
them, how they are packaged, how much food we throw away – all these have an
impact on our agri-food systems and the future of this planet.
All of us have the potential to be
food heroes. Our actions are our future. The process of transforming our
agri-food systems - and making an impact on global hunger, healthy diets, environmental
damage and waste - starts with you and me.
But it doesn’t end with you and me.
The old adage goes: “We are what we eat.” It also holds true that how our
children and grandchildren develop will also be influenced by what we eat. Hope
is in their hands to carry on. Let us learn together, work together and
contribute together.