What opportunities are there post redevelop food system? What are lessons leamt from the pandemic current foodles system
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Answer:
How to reimagine our food systems for a post-COVID world
Acres of ready-to-pick romaine lettuce are plowed into the ground due to the loss of the restaurant market during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Holtville, California, U.S., April 15, 2020
A Californian farmer ploughs lettuce back into the ground, April 2020
Image: REUTERS/Mike Blake
09 Jun 2020
Sara Farley
Managing Director, Food Initiative, Rockefeller Foundation
Sara Scherr
President and Chief Executive Officer, EcoAgriculture Partners
The pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses in our global food system.
We must take this opportunity to rethink the way we produce, distribute and eat food in order to help build a healthier and more sustainable world.
Here are three actions to kickstart the change process.
The COVID-19 crisis is a ‘stress test’ for our global food systems – and they are failing. Today we see farmers dumping milk and ploughing crops back into their fields, even as stores empty and the need for food assistance surges. We see export restrictions and price hikes as experts predict dramatic increases in malnutrition globally. These failures demand that we ask not only how to repair this damage, but how to fundamentally reimagine food systems to make them more nourishing, resilient and sustainable.
For decades, thinking and strategies around food have developed in silos, with little coordination between communities working on nutrition, agriculture, food, environment, water, health, climate, employment, trade or transport. This has generated serious problems – from policies that provide cheap calories but lead to high rates of diet-related diseases, to market innovations that prioritize efficiency above all and production systems that contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss.
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The pandemic has shown that sectors that seem distinct do not operate independently. Though still being investigated, COVID-19 likely originated in wild animals sold in open food markets. The virus easily jumped to humans because farmers had cleared and settled large areas of natural habitat, increasing interactions of wildlife with people, including as food. Sanitary standards at markets were poorly regulated, while rapid transport between densely populated cities spread the virus globally. Now whether infected people become seriously ill or die depends on their underlying health and nutrition, as well as their access to healthcare, sanitation and adequate housing. Indeed, COVID-19 is a story of multiple systems impacting each other, triggering a host of unintended consequences impossible to understand, let alone manage, without looking at them together.
Reimagining and re-designing our food systems
Understanding the connections between these seemingly distinct domains is crucial to emerge stronger from the pandemic. Systems thinking – a way of understanding how interdependent structures interact in a dynamic system – can help.
Taking a systems view allows us to tackle complex questions, such as: How can food systems help eliminate diet-related disease? How can we ensure abundant harvests while sustaining natural habitats and healthy ecosystems? How can farmers adapt to and help fight climate change? How can marginalized consumers, workers and producers be empowered? How can we reduce vulnerabilities to future shocks?
Next year, world leaders and experts will convene for the Food Systems Summit of 2021, called for by the United Nations Secretary General, to articulate and adopt an actionable, integrated plan for food systems transformation. Looking ahead to the summit, we need to bring siloed communities together to redesign how we produce, process, distribute, regulate, legislate, research, cook and eat food.
This is ambitious, but we must be bold and think big. Drawing on systems thinking, we propose three initial actions to reimagine and redesign our food systems:
Image: Rockefeller Foundation and EcoAgriculture Partners
1. Re-think supply chains for a diverse and healthy diet. Food choices matter. If all humans shifted their diets to include more fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, fish and whole grains, we would see substantial reductions in diet-related disease, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke – many of which increase the risk of serious illness from COVID-19. Yet the global food system isn’t built for diverse, healthy diets: 80% of the world’s food supply is grain and grain-fed livestock, while fruit, vegetables, pulses and fish are expensive and much less accessible.
We must redesign supply chains with nutrition and human health in mind. We can begin by supporting local food systems with shorter, fairer and cleaner supply chains that address local prior configuring national and global trade to promote diversity and reduce supplyo