The potential of diversified agroecological systems to deliver healthy outcomes: Making the link between agriculture, food systems & health

Abstract

In 2014, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition recognized food system sustainability as a key condition to ensure adequate nutrition and access to healthy diets for all. Five years later, the evidence has never been more clear: despite a series of positive outcomes, our current food systems have increasingly generated severe environmental, social, and health-related costs. Many of the most severe health impacts of food systems can be traced back to the core practices of industrial food and farming systems (e.g. input-intensive agriculture; intensive livestock production; mass marketing of highly processed foods; deregulated global commodity chains). Yet alternatives exist.This article provides an overview of the key impacts generated by current food systems on human and environmental health, with an emphasis on their effects in the region of Europe and Central Asia. It then brings together evidence on how diversified agroecological systems can play a key role in meeting health and nutrition goals, while also addressing the environmental, social, and economic challenges created by current systems. Ultimately, the article sheds light on how to break away from the underlying drivers keeping current systems in place, and suggests how more diversified systems can effectively be promoted through systemic, multi-sector, and integrated policy approaches to ensure healthy diets for all.