Agriculture and food systems

Intro

There is growing recognition of the imperative to transform global and national food systems to nourish people and planet alike, providing healthy diets that are accessible, affordable and desirable to all, in a sustainable manner.

Worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of undernourished people worldwide increased from 8 per cent in 2019 to 9.8 per cent in 2021. In 2020, nearly 3.1 billion people were not able to afford a healthy diet, and in 2021 some 828 million people faced hunger.¹³

Additional challenges facing global food systems today include:

• An estimated 14 per cent of food is lost during production, storage, transport, processing and distribution, with an additional 17 per cent wasted downstream.¹⁴
• As the world population grows to an estimated 8.6 billion by 2031, mainly in developing regions, global food consumption is expected to increase by 1.4 per cent over the decade.¹⁵
• Food systems account for an estimated 30 to 34 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with around 71 per cent of this originating from agriculture and land userelated activities. This means that increases in food production under the status quo would cripple the chance of meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.¹⁶
• The agriculture and nutrition agendas are closely linked: agriculture and nutrition need to work hand in hand to affect food production and consumption of healthy diets needed for healthy and active lives. 

Why

Why the sector needs to get involved

• Malnutrition derives from not having enough food at home, not receiving proper care, lacking access to good healthcare, and living in an unhealthy environment. Prioritizing actions to support the availability, accessibility, affordability and desirability of nutritious food as part of healthy diets through sustainable agricultural food production and transformations within the food systems, will contribute to improving nutrition outcomes, and improved nutrition outcomes will contribute to the 2030 Agenda, a healthier workforce for the agricultural sector, and enhanced productivity and profitability for the sector.

Key asks

• Support the implementation of national food systems pathways which prioritise eliminating hunger and malnutrition and include targeted actionable, nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive actions.
• Invest in the long-term stability and effectiveness of food systems by supporting primary food producers in producing nutritious foods in a sustainable way.
• Facilitate access to credit, technology and innovation for local food system actors including women and youth to support job growth and business across the food system and along food value chains that improve accessibility and affordability of nutritious food.
• Promote production of a wide range of nutrient-rich climate resilient crops, including through biofortification of staple foods, to enhance food security and nutrition of farmers and consumers.
• Support and incentivise household level, local level, and national level, production of nutritious, affordable, adequate, and culturally acceptable food.
• Conduct community-level agricultural training to increase agricultural productivity of nutritious food, improve market access for producers of nutritious food, and improve health and nutrition awareness in the food system.
• Provide households with nutrition-sensitive information on food production, food storage and preparation, hygiene, and diet.