L5- (D2) The Global Food System

During this session, we will discuss two articles. You need to read these in advance and consider the following questions:

  • Why are diets and crops becoming homogeneous globally?

  • What health and environmental problems arise?

  • What changes to diets might help address these?

  • What barriers are there to implementing those changes?

Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems, Walter Willet et al., 2019

  • Food systems are important for human health and environmental sustainability

  • Currently producing enough calories, but 820 million people are malnourished and more at risk of diseases

  • Are pushing environmental systems to their limits

  • Food production is among the largest drivers of global environmental change by contributing to climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater use, interference with the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and land-system change

Aim->

  • Bringing different fields together to make global scientific targets on healthy diets and sustainable food production, used to meet SDG and Paris Agreement targets

  • Making a healthy reference diet

Results->

  • Global average is less than the reference and overeating unhealthy foods is increasing

  • Global adoption of the reference diet would provide major health benefits and lower mortality

  • Win-win diets that benefit environment and human health can be achieved locally and scaled up and are consistent with cultures 

  • Need global efforts to collectively change diets 

  • Numerous changes and global efforts are needed to achieve the goal of 10 billion by 2050 e.g. need a Great Food Transformation

  • The food system is more than the environment and so has multiple stakeholders

  • Looking at other global efforts of change they realise that:

    • no single actor/breakthrough is likely to catalyse the system change

    • science and evidence is needed

    • soft and hard policies are needed

  • Five strategies for the Great Food Transformation, based on evidence:

    • International and national commitment e.g. investment in public health information, improved coordination between departments

    • Reorient agricultural priorities from producing lots of food to producing healthy food

    • Sustainably intensify food production e.g. improvements in the use of fertilisers and water, recycling phosphorus

    • Strong, coordinated governance of land and oceans e.g. Half Earth strategy, 0 expansion of agricultural land, sustainable aquaculture

    • Halve the food losses and waste e.g. need technological solutions for this

Conclusion->

  • Opportunity exists but clear scientific targets are necessary


An optimal diet for planet and people, 2021

The commission above suggested a planetary health diet (PHD). This article combines multiple areas and people’s voices to ask whether the PHD is realistic, where there are mistakes/gaps and the future. 

Making planetary health diet realistic for Africa

  • the issue with increasing consumption of plant-based foods by 50% proposed by the PHD is that many African communities rely on animal food sources and fill their micro deficiencies from animals e.g. iron 

  • need to have a ‘universal food access’ framework’ as suggested in the UN food systems summit 2021- state instituted food banks, school feeding programs 

An economic lens on food systems transformation

  • The PHD did not take into account the affordability- studies have estimated that healthy diets, including the PHD, are unaffordable to at least 1.58 billion people and are more expensive than a nutritionally adequate diet

  • The FSEC combines global food and land-modeling exercises that identify sustainable food system pathways with an economic and policy analysis to propose concrete food system interventions such as taxes, subsidies, or regulations. 

  • Successful adoption of an inclusive PHD will require policy bundles that actively address synergies and trade-offs between different health, environmental, and economic objectives. 

  • behavioral aspects such as acceptability of policies or desirability of diets need to be discussed.

Soil health for planetary health

  • Increase in agricultural intensity means fertilisers have had a net negative impact on soils

  • Need a green revolution that is soil centric- less wasteful, less resource-intensive, producing more from less

Two missing parts of the PHD puzzle

  • Q-> the provision of biodiversity from agricultural production? need targets that reflect how many and what type of animals are needed to maintain and enhance biodiversity- should focus on these animals

  • Q-> reorganising farming and food systems to being more sustainable and increasing consumer empowerment to choose sustainable foods? local efforts needed

Human-centred design for sustainable eating

  • Can influence people’s food decisions e.g. packaging designs- being smaller, having messages.

  • This will help but it is mainly down to people's motivations e.g. finances

  • Co-design that includes consumers is needed to promote the shift to sustainable food

From global to local and a personal sustainable diet

  • Lots of effort is needed to reach out to the masses the importance of balanced diets 

  • Need to consider region-specific prices of this switch

  • Need to consider region-specific environmental constraints in producing foods

  • Need to consider cultures, age, gender, agricultural practices

Linking nexus planning and sustainable food systems

  • The PHD doesn’t consider the agriculture-environment-health nexus and so has limited applicability for the Global South

  • Need to develop interventions that consider broader systemic issues e.g. promoting the growth of under-utilised indigenous crops in South Africa

Healthy and affordable for who?

  • needs more consideration of the nutritional, demographic and economic conditions of poorer countries 

  • richer countries are dominated by older people- health risks, and poorer countries are dominated by younger people- nutritional deficiencies 

  • The PHD is unaffordable for at least 1.5billion people

Global dietary shift to protect people and planet

  • food systems are challenged by climate change and biodiversity losses

  • PHD is necessary but needs to consider local contexts and geographic realities of food-consumption patterns, food affordability and dietary requirements 

  • 3 billion people are currently unable to access healthy diets

  • A radical transformation of food systems is needed with multi-sectoral and trans-disciplinary teams


Why are diets and crops becoming homogeneous globally?

  • Even if you have more diversity, certain ones are easier to trade, high yield crops

  • Spreading out different cultures

  • Trade policies changing

  • Monocultures are easier to farm, monopolised seed suppliers- mutli-national companies choosing specific crops, drive the markets, deal Turkey government made with seed companies, farmers don't own the right to the seed they grow

  • Disjointed eating and growing-> higher economic effects

  • Population growth

  • driver-> trade, population growth- demand, population growth encouraging trade

  • Colonialism effect on land use and agricultural practices having repercussions today-> driving monocultures

  • effect-> monoculture

What health and environmental problems arise?

  • Rise of western diets

  • Less resistant crops

  • GHG emissions, soil erosion

  • Unhealthy diets

  • Diseases-> pests/diseases target crops, pesticides, genetically modified

  • Land-use change

  • Stats 

What changes to diets might help address these?

  • Less overconsumption

  • Shift in diets-> more plant-based, less red meat, less sugar- empty calories- no nutrients just energy

  • ‘Increase plant-based food consumption by over 50% while reducing red meat and sugar intake by more than 50%

  • Soil centric solutions

An issue with this is putting the issue on the consumer, affordability, need diverse agriculture- will be expensive, the rest is subsidised by global markets, only the rich can afford leafy green vegetables

How applicable is this and how much pushback has there been and by who?