Transforming Food and Agriculture to achieve the SDGs

© UNICEF/UN0150238/Dejongh

The path to prosperity is clearly marked by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It requires transformative action, embracing the principles of sustainability and tackling the root causes of poverty and hunger to leave no one behind. As the prime connection between people and the planet, sustainable food and agriculture have great potential to address many of our challenges, serving up affordable, nutritious food, strengthening livelihoods, revitalising rural and urban landscapes, delivering inclusive national growth and driving positive change across the 2030 Agenda.

How can decision-makers turn that potential into reality? How can they select and prioritise resources to accelerate progress? This publication presents practical solutions through 20 interconnected actions, each describing approaches, policies and tools that contribute to multiple SDGs. They integrate the three dimensions of sustainable development, and require participation and partnerships among different actors. Identifying synergies, understanding trade-offs and outlining incentives, these 20 actions tackle the real issues that countries face in building a Zero Hunger world and brighter future for all.

Written with national policymakers and development actors primarily in mind, this guide presents a set of actions to speed up the transformation to sustainable food and agriculture that are based on evidence, experience, technical expertise and collective knowledge within FAO.

These actions embrace the 2030 Agenda’s vision of sustainable development in which food and agriculture, people’s livelihoods and the management of natural resources are addressed not separately but as one; a future where the focus is not solely on the end goal but also on the means used to achieve it; and a setting where public and private actors participate in legitimizing, engage in shaping and work towards achieving development solutions.

Food and agriculture stand today at a crossroads. Looking back, major improvements in agricultural productivity have been recorded over recent decades to satisfy the food demand of a growing global population. But progress has often come with social and environmental costs, including water scarcity, soil degradation, ecosystem stress, biodiversity loss, decreasing fish stocks and forest cover, and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The productive potential of our natural resources base has been damaged in many places around the globe, compromising the future fertility of the planet.

What are the 20 actions to achieve #ZeroHunger? 👉 Read new @FAO publication https://t.co/axvobIXI7m#HLPF #GlobalGoals pic.twitter.com/JZWJ7yTf7A

— FAO and the SDGs (@FAOSDGs) July 12, 2018

Today, 815 million people are hungry, and every third person is malnourished, reflecting a food system out of balance. Distress migration is at levels unprecedented for more than 70 years as the social cohesion and cultural traditions of rural populations are threatened by a combination of limited access to land and resources and rising numbers of crises, conflicts and disasters, many as a consequence of climate change.

Looking ahead, the path to inclusive prosperity is clearly marked by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Overcoming the complex challenges that the world faces requires transformative action, embracing the principles of sustainability and tackling the root causes of poverty and hunger to leave no one behind.

As the prime connection between people and the planet, food and agriculture can help achieve multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Properly nourished, children can learn, people can lead healthy and productive lives and societies can prosper. By nurturing our land and adopting sustainable agriculture, present and future generations will be able to feed a growing population. Agriculture, covering crops, livestock, aquaculture, fisheries and forests, is the world’s biggest employer, largest economic sector for many countries, while providing the main source of food and income for the extreme poor. Sustainable food and agriculture have great potential to revitalize the rural landscape, deliver inclusive growth to countries and drive positive change right across the 2030 Agenda.

• Read the report: English