How can we fix food systems that are “broken” by choice?

An optimal diet for planet and people

Currently, unhealthy food environments are a major influence on food and beverage choices and nutritional status throughout Europe. Improving population diets for both public health and environmental sustainability requires a comprehensive response from multiple stakeholders, including governments, private sector organisations, non-government organisations, and consumers. Amongst these groups, companies across the food industry have been highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations as having an important role in addressing obesity and chronic diseases (NCDs) as well as unsustainable food systems. The need for broad-based action has led to an increased focus on increasing the accountability of several sectors in the food industry for taking action to address the problem, including through rigorous monitoring and benchmarking of their commitments and performance against independent targets. The INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action Support) developed the Business Impact Assessment on population nutrition and obesity (BIA-Obesity) and the Business Impact Assessment on sustainability (BIA-Sustainability) to assess the commitments and practices of several food industry sectors (packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages, quick service restaurants, supermarkets, caterers) in relation to both obesity prevention and sustainable food systems. The tools consist of a range of indicators across 6 action areas for BIA-Obesity (corporate nutrition strategy, product reformulation, product labeling, product and brand promotion, product accessibility and relationships with other organizations) and 11 action areas for BIA-Sustainability (packaging, energy use, emissions, water and discharge, biodiversity, climate change adaptation, food loss and waste, environmental compliance, relationships with other organisations, corporate sustainability strategy and reducing ruminant-based products). In addition, methods have been developed to assess the corporate political activities as well as the market structure and dynamics of several food industries. Corporate political activities of the food industry across sectors are generally assessed using a range of publicly available data sourced from the industry itself, governments, the media and other sources. The workshop will discuss the latest findings on the commitments, practices, market structure and dynamics and corporate political activities of the food industry in relation to both obesity prevention and sustainable food systems across food industry sectors in Europe, as well as the next steps, both in terms of innovations in methodologies, different target sectors as well as in terms of using the results for better holding to account these actors in order to address obesity as well as unsustainable food systems in Europe. Key messages • Monitoring and benchmarking the commitments and practices of the food industry across sectors is key to increase accountability for action. • Substantial changes to the structural and regulatory conditions of corporate food systems are needed to improve population and planetary health.

Young people are often identified as “the leaders of tomorrow”. In recent years, however, this mantra has slowly been replaced by a growing emphasis on the role of youth communities as critical agents of change, “leaders of today” who are already contributing to the sustainable development of their economies and societies. This holds particularly true for the challenge of food system sustainability, given that increases in agricultural productivity and broader rural transformation critically require skills and knowledge that rural youth are more likely to possess over older adults. Accordingly, this chapter analyzes the interplay between existing youth-led contributions to implement Sustainable Development Goal 2 (‘No Hunger’) and the challenges imposed upon young people by unsustainable agricultural practices and food systems. First, the chapter examines the negative impacts that unsustainable food systems have on rural youth, including in terms of rural outmigration, youth unemployment and rural poverty. Secondly, the chapter focuses on young people’s actual contributions to sustainable food system transformations, as well as on the importance of addressing the barriers facing young farmers and entrepreneurs in their countries and communities.

Since early 2020 a plethora of events, discussions and publications, from a wide variety of global organisations and individuals have championed mental health (Murray et al 1996, Jenkins 2019, Patel et al 2018 & WHO 2021a). Although not entirely as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the pandemic has certainly contributed significantly to raising mental health issues across the world. What the pandemic demonstrated is the world needs to face global mental health challenges appropriately, which in turn reinforces global health. Key organisations and individuals such as the United Nations (UN) and UN Secretary General for mental health, played a major role in responding to the mental health challenges specifically resulting from Covid-19. This is demonstrated by the production of the UN Policy Briefing in May (UN 2020a)and with it an accompanying statement (UN 2020b). The statement essentially emphasized that all Governments must place mental health services central in any response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It also stressed "when the pandemic is brought under control, grief, anxiety and depression will continue to affect people and communities". In effect, mental health must be a central component of ongoing care.

It is a perilous time to be a farmer. Across the world, 2015 broke records for unseasonal, unprecedented, and unexpected weather. The combination of El Nino and climate change produced conditions with devastating effects for the agriculture sector around the globe. This article examines the impacts of unseasonal weather on farmers around the world, in losses to yield quality and quantity but also in economic, physical and psychological effects for farmers coping with the “new normal” in weather. It considers regional differences in farmers’ susceptibility to unseasonal weather, and presents the implications of the lack of resiliency of the major crop producers for the future of food security, and by extension, political stability. Finally, it looks at how the international community is addressing this situation, concluding with practical and achievable means for farmers and cooperatives to start to build resiliency to climate change today.

Q&A with Gunhild Stordalen: Feeding the world and protecting the planet with healthy and sustainable diets

There is a growing understanding at global level on the importance of preserving Indigenous Peoples' food and knowledge systems. Those not only play a determinant role in the food security and well-being of the 476 million of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. They can also provide some of the answers for the transformation towards more sustainable food systems across the world.Indigenous Peoples’ food systems share unique and common characteristics of sustainability and resilience. In particular, they are based on both food generation (e.g. fishing, hunting, gathering) and food production (e.g. shifting cultivation, herding), and are rooted in unique worldviews, values and knowledge systems. Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems are carried from one generation to another thanks to specific ways of learning embodied in their languages. Whilst a right-based approach (UNDRIP, FPIC) is a pre-condition to design effective policies aiming to support Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, there is primarily the need to also better understand those. In 2015, FAO Members endorsed the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication aligned with those international legal frameworks.In this context, Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems pioneers new ways in which knowledge is created. It brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts to generate evidence and bridge the gap of knowledge between scientific and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems.Since its official endorsement in 2020, the Global-Hub has published several technical papers, inviting to rethink the hierarchies of knowledge, and support global policy processes that may affect Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems.Recently, FAO PSUI and the Global-Hub have deepened their work on marine and freshwater-based food systems. In 2021, FAO worked with Massey university, Alliance of BI-CIAT, and the Melanesians people of Baniata to profile to profile their food system in Solomon Islands. It resulted in an increased understanding on the challenges faced by this community despite the outstanding biodiversity available for their food and nutrition.In 2023, FAO hosted the II Session of the UN Global Indigenous Youth Forum, that brought together 186 Indigenous Youth from the seven socio-cultural regions. The resulting Rome Declaration on Safeguarding Seven Generations in Times of Food, Social and Ecological Crisis provides 49 policy recommendations distributed around 7 main thematic areas. The 20 Indigenous Youth from the Pacific delegation emphasized on the need to preserve their food and knowledge systems in the context of increasing impacts of climate change. Finally, in 2023, the Global-Hub created a Pacific Research Group dedicated to the better understanding and preservation of Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems in the region.

This article analyzes the development and organization of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), which is being convened by UN Secretary General António Guterres in late 2021. Although few people will dispute that global food systems need transformation, it has become clear that the Summit is instead an effort by a powerful alliance of multinational corporations, philanthropies, and export-oriented countries to subvert multilateral institutions of food governance and capture the global narrative of “food systems transformation.” This article places the upcoming Summit in the context of previous world food summits and analyzes concerns that have been voiced by many within civil society. It elaborates how the current structure and forms of participant recruitment and public engagement lack basic transparency and accountability, fail to address significant conflicts of interest, and ignore human rights. As the COVID-19 pandemic illuminates the structural vulnerabilities of the neoliberal model of food systems and the consequences of climate change for food production, a high-level commitment to equitable and sustainable food systems is needed now more than ever. However, the authors suggest that the UNFSS instead seems to follow a trajectory in which efforts to govern global food systems in the public interest has been subverted to maintain colonial and corporate forms of control.

Future of food: Innovating towards sustainable healthy diets

Inclusive diets within planetary boundaries

Food systems in Eastern Equatoria State, South Sudan, are in dire crisis because of multiple shocks and stressors, persisting conflict and violence, climate change, and natural resource deterioration. However, building upon South Sudan’s National Food Systems Dialogue ample opportunities exist to build food systems resilience in EE through strengthening the capacity of people to produce and access nutritious and culturally acceptable food over time and space in the face of natural and/or man-made shocks and stressors. This report provides a rationale for building food systems resilience in South Sudan by introducing its concept and operationalisation (part 1 of this report), presenting the main findings of the food systems resilience dialogue that took place in EE State (part 2), and introducing the main pathways identified to build food systems resilience in the State (part 3). Food systems approaches are increasingly seen as a way forward to develop sustainable food systems in protracted food crisis as highlighted by the UN Food Systems Summit, the Global Network Against Food Crises and the Fighting Food Crises along the Nexus Coalition. It is therefore most opportune to act now by investing in an urgently needed transformation towards equitable, inclusive, and sustainable food systems for improved outcomes, in particular food and nutrition security in protracted food crises contexts. For South Sudan this means, in line with the outcomes of its National Food Systems Dialogue, to address four strategic challenges to transform the country’s food systems: 1) strengthening the resilience of food systems in face of current and future shocks and stressors; 2) developing food systems that contribute to social cohesion and peace; 3) ensuring that food systems are based on sustainable use and management of natural resources and produce healthier diets, and; 4) promoting sustainable food supply systems through inclusive value chains and agribusinesses with an eye on youth employment. Governance of food systems takes place at multiple levels and scales but transformation of local food systems will only succeed if communities, civil society organisations, small producers, farmers, and indigenous groups – with their local knowledge, and lived-in experiences – can shape how food is governed. The EE’s Food Systems Resilience Dialogue & Pathway Development (FoSReD-PaD) provides an approach to strengthen local governance of food systems for improved food systems resilience and outcomes. The State-Level Dialogue envisaged a total of nine pathways which together form a roadmap to transform EE’s food systems to become more resilient; better serve the needs of all stakeholders (in particular smallholder farmers/agri-pastoralists and herders); and improve food and nutrition outcomes for all.

Food systems in Western Bahr el Ghazal (WBeG) State, South Sudan, are in dire crisis because of multiple shocks and stressors, persisting conflict and violence, climate change, and natural resource deterioration. However, building upon South Sudan’s National Food Systems Dialogue, ample opportunities exist to build food systems resilience in WBeG through strengthening the capacity of people to produce and access nutritious and culturally acceptable food over time and space in the face of natural and/or man-made shocks and stressors. This report provides a rationale for building food systems resilience in South Sudan by introducing its concept and operationalisation (part 1 of this report), presenting the main findings of the food systems resilience dialogue that took place in WBeG State (part 2), and introducing the main pathways identified to build food systems resilience in the State (part 3). Food systems approaches are increasingly seen as a way forward to develop sustainable food systems in protracted food crisis as highlighted by the UN Food Systems Summit, the Global Network Against Food Crises and the Fighting Food Crises along the Nexus Coalition. It is therefore most opportune to act now by investing in an urgently needed transformation towards equitable, inclusive, and sustainable food systems for improved outcomes, in particular food and nutrition security in protracted food crisis contexts. For South Sudan this means, in line with the outcomes of its National Food Systems Dialogue, addressing four strategic challenges to transform the country’s food systems: 1) strengthening the resilience of food systems in face of current and future shocks and stressors; 2) developing food systems that contribute to social cohesion and peace; 3) ensuring that food systems are based on sustainable use and management of natural resources and produce healthier diets, and; 4) promoting sustainable food supply systems through inclusive value chains and agribusinesses with an eye on youth employment. Governance of food systems takes place at multiple levels and scales but transformation of local food systems will only succeed if communities, civil society organisations, small producers, farmers, and indigenous groups – with their local knowledge, and lived-in experiences – can shape how food is governed. WBeG’s Food Systems Resilience Dialogue & Pathway Development (FoSReD-PaD) provides an approach to strengthen local governance of food systems for improved food systems resilience and outcomes. The State-level Dialogue envisaged a total of nine pathways which together form a roadmap to transform WBeG’s food systems to become more resilient; better serve the needs of all stakeholders (in particular smallholder farmers/agri-pastoralists and herders); and improve food and nutrition outcomes for all.

Higher education institutions can play an essential role in preparing students to participate in movements for just and sustainable food systems change. For the past two decades, many United States land-grant universities (LGUs) have developed food systems education (FSE) courses. This study examined the extent to which FSE courses employ four capacities deemed crucial by the FSE literature: multidimensional approaches, interdisciplinarity, centering equity, and training students to take action in food systems. The syllabi of 171 undergraduate courses at 20 LGUs were obtained by contacting instructors, and their course descriptions and learning outcomes were analyzed. This subset of LGUs were identified from the membership list of the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (MCURC), a nationwide network of colleges using campus dining halls and classrooms as living laboratories for food systems change. Most course descriptions and learning outcomes exhibited multidimensional approaches and interdisciplinarity. However, many failed to incorporate teaching content and practices that help students critically examine equity and social justice issues in food systems, or engage in transformative change. LGUs have both the resources and urgent responsibility to empower students to be part of movements to transform unjust, unsustainable food systems. The findings of this study, and an accompanying open-access syllabus website, aim to accelerate the development of FSE curricula that prepare students to change food systems.

This compendium of reflections on a wide range of issues should feed a constructive dialogue on how best to pool efforts and address effectively the ‘wicked problem’ (Conklin 2005) of childhood stunting. Development agencies and the nutrition community are challenged to translate the existing high-level political and financial commitments into effective synergistic actions coordinated among multiple actors to reduce the global burden of stunting. Through this supplement and other initiatives the Healthy Growth Project hopes to make positive contributions to meeting that challenge. (Excerpt)

Future Trends and the Pace of Change: Are We Ready?: The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an undeniable case for change. Life, work and organizations will never be “back to normal.” This opens up massive opportunities to raise our awareness of future trends and to elevate our profession, build resilience, increase our influence and visibility, and infuse futuristic competencies into our