"www.fao.org/about/meetings/sustainable-food-systems-nutrition-symposium
The International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition was jointly held by FAO and WHO in December 2016 to explore policies and programme options for shaping the food systems in ways that deliver foods for a healthy diet, focusing on concrete country experiences and challenges. This Symposium waas the first large-scale contribution under the UN Decade of Action for Nutrition 2016-2025. This presentation was part of Parallel session 1.1: Sustainable agriculture production and diversification for healthy diets"
3. Food systems are not adequately supporting
nutrition
Approximately…
• 800 million hungry
• 2 billion affected by hidden hunger
• 2 billion overweight or obese
4. Nutritious food shortage
• Given world food supplies, it is possible, in theory for all
people to consume sufficient calories, but it is impossible for
all to consume healthy diets.
6. Food Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Herforth, A. In: Sahn, D. (Ed.) The Fight Against Hunger and Malnutrition. Oxford University Press (2015). Data from FAOSTAT.
Dotted lines represent need
7. Food Affordability in rural Bangladesh
Slide Source: Howdy Bouis; Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Mar 2011
9. Supply side actions are critical
• Supply side policies influence what is produced in
agriculture, and how
• Currently, supply side policies are often not aligned
with the food needed to support healthy diets and
nutrition
10. Doesn’t production reflect consumer
demand?
• In a perfect market system, it should
• In reality:
– There are numerous supply-side barriers to
production, especially for perishable foods
– Public investment/support policies do not clearly
mirror demand
– Private companies influence both supply and
consumer demand
11. Supply side barriers
• Perishability
– Good transportation and strong market linkages are essential
for producers to risk investment in perishable foods
• Disease and pest resistance issues
• Access to quality seeds, land/water/forest
Low supply response; unmet demand for diverse nutritious foods
Public support needed for R&D, infrastructure, farmer organizations
“High value crops”
are higher value – so
why isn’t everyone
growing them?
12. Public investment priorities: More of the same
http://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts2014/#theme=food-security
No other food groups mentioned…
Food for 2050
13. Whose demand?
Food companies act as script-
writer and translator between
consumers and producers
Producers
Food
companies
Consumers
14. Homogenization of crop varieties
• Over the past 50 years:
– per capita food supplies have expanded in calories, protein, and
fat, with increased proportions from energy-dense foods
– National food supplies worldwide became more similar in
composition, correlated with an increased supply of a small
number of cereal and oil crops
• Nutritionally important diversity is eroding
Source: Khoury et al., 2014, PNAS
15. More of the same and the planet
• Increasing production and consumption of refined starches and
sugars, fats, oils and meats Biodiversity loss
– By 2050 these trends approx. 80% increase in agricultural greenhouse
gas emissions (Tilman and Clark 2014)
• Impossible to avoid 2°C increase if trends in meat consumption
continue (Hedenus et al. 2014)
– Sustaining trends depends heavily on abundant cheap staple grains and
unsustainable methods of animal production
17. In sum, nutritious non-staples are:
• Harder to grow and sell (lack of infrastructure, R&D)
– Will become even more challenging (climate change)
• Not supported by subsidies and other forms of public
support equivalent to staple crops and oilseeds
• Being displaced in diets by aggressive marketing of
ultra-processed foods that require low-cost staple crops
and oilseeds
Imbalanced diets, imbalanced support!
18. Supply side policies can do more
• to remove barriers to diversified production
• to incentivize production and consumption of nutritious
foods most lacking in diets around the world
• The focus needs to be on horticulture, legumes, and small-scale livestock
and fish – foods which are relatively unavailable and expensive, but
nutrient-rich – and vastly underutilized as sources of both food and
income.
19. Key Recommendations
• Facilitate production diversification, and increase production of
nutrient-dense crops and small-scale livestock (for example,
horticultural products, legumes, livestock and fish at a small scale,
underutilized crops, and biofortified crops)
• Improve processing, storage and preservation to retain nutritional
value, shelf-life, and food safety, to reduce seasonality of food insecurity
and post-harvest losses, and to make healthy foods convenient to
prepare.
• Expand market access for vulnerable groups, particularly for
marketing nutritious foods
20. Food security
• when all people, at all times, have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe, nutritious foods to meet dietary
needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life
(FAO, 1996).
21. Accountability
• Monitor availability and access to diverse, and nutritious foods.
– Not just calorie supply, or supply of a few crops
• Our targets need to match our goals.
22. We face a nutritious food shortage: Given world food
supplies, it is impossible for all to consume healthy diets.
• “More of the same” is unsustainable for human and environmental health.
• Policies need to support diversified production for healthy diets and
sustainability.
Hinweis der Redaktion
basic food situation underlies malnutrition in all its forms, and the fact that approximately half the planet is poorly nourished, manifested in an estimated 2 billion suffering from nutrient deficiencies and another 2 billion suffering from overweight and obesity, in addition to diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
The components of a diverse diet, including vegetables, fruits, pulses, and sustainably produced animal source foods, are not available in sufficient quantities or affordable to all.
Dietary risks are the number one cause of deaths and DALYs globally
Same in “developing countries” as a whole
Why are we talking about the supply side?
Will go through each of these points briefly
Photo: Croptrust.org
There is unmet demand for fruits, vegetables, legumes, in some places traditional foods.
“High value crops” are higher value – so why isn’t everyone growing them?
Little investment in infrastructure and information for better-functioning perishable value chains
“There is very little investment in transport systems, cold storage systems, and in information systems that allow for a better functioning of markets for perishable products such as fruits, vegetables, livestock products, etc.”
“Smallholder farmers find these costs to be extremely daunting when thinking about making the transition from a focus on staple crops to moving to high value production systems (Pingali et al. 2005). Agriculture policies of Developing Countries need to be responsive to the changing demands placed on food systems and to actively support the process of diversification away from staple grains.”
The focus of investments is largely still on the same track that started in the Green revolution era.
These are projections based on past trends.
But where have these trends gotten us? More of the same will yield more of the same. We have a public health crisis, whereby obesity and NCDs are rising and low fruit and veg are the top causes of mortality. Why are these still our priorities?
These trends reflect past public investment priorities, which were very successful in increasing production of these particular foods.
But also, these past trends are fueled in part by demand that is not directly from consumers.
Why should supply side policies fuel these trends?
demand is not even from people directly but from companies that are intermediaries.
Can it truly be said that production is responding to what consumers demand? When there is a big middleman – food processing industry, which spends a lot to shift consumer demand, and which also shapes production systems in major ways to produce the things it is selling.
Accentuates imbalanced consumption trends supported by imbalanced public sector investments as well
Time: May 15, 1950
Nestle to Sail Amazon Rivers to Reach Emerging-Market Consumers http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17
In the last several decades, a homogenization of crops and crop varieties has caused nutritionally important diversity in the food systems to erode. While calories have become more available worldwide, low-diversity diets and nutrient deficiencies persist, and obesity and non-communicable diseases have grown rapidly in all regions.
Partly due to public investment in R&D that is highly skewed toward only a small number of crops, but also combined with that, private companies have concocted foods from those cheap sources of energy, And market them widely.
Speaking of climate change -
In case we need more reason to act to support production of healthy foods missing in diets, particularly fruits, vegetables and legumes, climate change models predict it will become more difficult to grow them
Reduction in fruit and veg availability leading to additional half-million est climate-related deaths (turquoise bar)
If the last point continues, demand really will decline.
Most lacking in diets around the world - public health crisis
Imbalanced diets, imbalanced support
Meet unmet demand
Need a fundamental shift in policy support for agriculture toward sustainability
Crops and animal production systems that support human and environmental health
More of the same:
Major contributor to climate change, biodiversity loss
Reduces adaptive capacity to climate change
Just a reminder that this addresses food security.
Accountability for food security and the nutritional well-being and health of all people involves an examination what is produced compared to consumers’ needs and sustainability, and how these can be more closely aligned.
Supply of nutritious foods for all needs to be a priority for action.