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Food and nutrition security depends on a transition to healthy sustainable food systems

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” – World Food Summit, 1996

Food and nutrition security is influenced by factors impacting food availability and supply. These include geo-political unrest, climate change and extreme weather events, the relative unaffordability of nutritious foods and growing socio-economic inequalities.1

One of the greatest challenges of our time is how to nourish a growing global population within planetary boundaries. We have the solutions to do this, now we need political motivation to implement them.

Malnutrition continues to worsen in all countries, and global hunger is rising after a decade in decline

Malnutrition is increasing in almost every country in the world. The triple burden of malnutrition – underweight, overweight, and micronutrient deficiencies – is present in the global North and the Global South, making this an issue all political leaders must care about and act to address.2 3 After more than a decade of decline in global hunger, this trend is reversing.

Today, approximately 735 million people suffer from hunger – 122 million more than before the COVID-19 pandemic.4

An estimated 2 billion adults are currently living with overweight, and this number is projected to rise without intervention.5

Producing more food is not enough to deliver food and nutrition security

Malnutrition is worsening in almost every country, and the environmental and social impacts of our food system are also increasing. Current solutions to ‘produce more food’ will not be sufficient to deliver food and nutrition security.

We must prioritize the use of our land to grow food for direct human consumption, and urgently address waste.

We already produce enough food to feed a population of up to 10 billion by 2050.6 But 30-40% of food globally is lost or wasted,7 8 40% of global cropland is used to produce feed for livestock, and 13% to grow biofuels.9

Unavoidable waste as well as agricultural by-products and side streams can be turned into food for people by using it as substrate in the creation of fermented or precision fermented foods and to produce microbial and fungal biomass.10

Transitioning to healthy diets will be needed to deliver food and nutrition security within planetary boundaries

Increasing adoption of healthy diets – predominantly composed of fruit, vegetables, legumes and wholegrains, with minimal amounts of foods high in unhealthy fats, salt and sugar – will deliver benefits for people, planet and animals.

In many Global North countries, rebalancing protein consumption towards plant-based sources, and increasing fiber intake, are key priorities to increase population adherence to national dietary guidelines.11 12

In Global South countries, there is a need to identify sustainably produced protein sources to meet population nutritional needs.

Global adoption of healthy diets would reduce food system emissions by 48% – putting 1.5 degrees in reach – prevent 19-24% of total deaths globally, and free up enough land to feed 10 billion people within planetary boundaries.13 14 15

The average EU citizen consumes twice as much meat as the global average.16 This means that two-thirds of all cereals in the EU are used for animal feed, rather than being eaten directly by people as a good source of dietary fiber.17

CASE STUDY

Transitioning to healthy diets will deliver multiple benefits:

  • Reducing undernourishment 18
  • Improving land and resource use efficiency,
  • Increasing supply chain resilience in the face of global shocks and stresses.

Even modest reductions in meat production can deliver big benefits.

A 13% cut in the EU’s meat production – equivalent to one meat free day a week – would have offset grain shortages arising from geo-political unrest in Eastern Europe, reducing food insecurity in the Global South and alleviating food price increases.19

Diversifying food production and consumption is a vital strategy for climate adaptation and food and nutrition security

Our food system lacks diversity, making it vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events.

75% of the food we eat comes from just five animal and 12 plant species – and yet there are more than 6,000 plant species that could be used for food.20

Increasing diversity is important to increase resilience – different species, varieties and breeds have unique characteristics making them more or less resilient to variations in rainfall, temperature or crop diseases.21

Crop yields are expected to decline by 3-12% by 2050 and up to 25% by the end of the century if global warming further increases.22

Increasing legume consumption will improve nutrition and environmental outcomes. They are rich in fiber and micronutrients, and restore soil health through nitrogen-fixation.23

Currently only 2% of agricultural land in the EU is used to produce legumes, and consumption is below health recommendations in many EU countries.24 25

CASE STUDY

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of undernourishment in the world – 22% of the population, more than 260 million people, is undernourished.26 This region is also vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on food security.

Case studies from this region demonstrate the importance of agrobiodiversity for climate-resilient food production. In combination with crop rotations and intercropping, it can improve soil fertility and water-use efficiency. These strategies also reduce the risk of crop failure and improve yields even in hot and dry years, ensuring more stable farm incomes and improving food and nutrition security.27

An initiative led by the Ministry of Agriculture in Mali gave farmers improved access to a variety of local seed species with different
traits and growing cycles – including millet, sorghum, fonio and cowpea, jute mallow and leaf amaranth.28

This resulted in improved seed and food security and climate change adaptation, and informed Mali’s agricultural development policy, which is now focused on diversification.

The Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) has made 650 new varieties of bean available across African nations.

More than five million households across 10 countries have seen a 30% increase in their income as a result. Farmers who grow, eat and sell its beans are 6% more likely to be food secure and 6% less likely to be poor.29 30

Policy Recommendations

In order to ensure global food and nutrition security, countries need to enable citizens to adopt healthy sustainable diets. This requires coherent policies across countries and regions.

  • Account for healthy sustainable diets in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Only two NDCs currently mention healthy sustainable diets, despite scientific evidence consistently demonstrating the need for diet shift to meet climate targets.31 NDCs must account for national diets to provide a full picture of a country’s impacts.
  • Focus subsidies on healthy, sustainably produced food. According to recent estimates in the State of Food and Agriculture report, the hidden social, environmental and health costs of the food system equate to 10% of global GDP.32 87% of agricultural support is price distorting and environmentally and socially harmful according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations (UN).33 Subsidies need to be assessed and redeployed so they incentivize the production of healthy sustainable food including plant-based proteins.
  • Dedicate more climate-financing to food. Only 3% of climate finance currently goes to food, despite the food system accounting for a third of global emissions.34 Given the urgency of transforming our food system to achieve a 1.5 degree aligned future, more climate finance should be dedicated to food, including research and development of climate-smart crops and plant-based foods.
  • Update Food-based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) in line with the latest science on sustainable diets. Adherence to current dietary guidelines will only deliver a limited reduction in environmental impacts, in some cases it may lead to an increase.35 Guidelines need to be updated to account for sustainability as well as nutrition. Governments should also implement evidence-based policies to increase population adherence to FBDGs, given current consumption patterns are not in line with

References

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  4. FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (2013): The triple burden of malnutrition in Europe and Central Asia: a multivariate analysis. Policy Studies on Rural Transition No. 2013-7. Available at: https://www.fao.org/3/CA1810EN/ca1810en.pdf [Accessed: 16.11.2023]
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