Strategies to achieve a Great Food Transformation

In a report titled Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems, the EAT-Lancet Commission has identified a set of actions to meet the scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production, allowing for a transition of the global food system within the safe operating space.
 

 
The report outlines five strategies to achieve the proposed Great Food Transformation. These include:

1. Seeking international and national commitment to shift toward health diets
   

   The scientific targets provided by the Commission can enable the necessary shift towards increased consumption of plant-based foods and substantial reductions in animal source foods, in most geographical contexts.This concerted commitment can be achieved by making healthy foods more available, accessible and affordable in place of unhealthier alternatives, improving information and food marketing, investing in public health information and sustainability education, implementing food-based dietary guidelines, and using health care services to deliver dietary advice and interventions.

2. Reorienting agricultural priorities from producing high quantities of food to producing healthy food
   Agriculture and fisheries must not only produce enough calories to feed a growing global population but must also produce a diversity of foods that nurture human health and support environmental sustainability. Alongside dietary shifts, agricultural and marine policies must be reoriented toward a variety of nutritious foods that enhance biodiversity rather than increase volumes of a few crops, mostly used for animal feed. Livestock production needs to be considered in specific contexts. Even miniscule increases in the consumption of red meat or dairy foods can render the achievement of a global sustainable food production system unachievable.
3. Sustainably intensifying food production to increase high-quality output
   The current global food system requires a new agricultural revolution that is based on sustainable intensification and driven by sustainability and system innovation.This would entail at least a 75% reduction of yield gaps on current cropland, radical improvements in fertilizer and water use efficiency, recycling of phosphorus, redistribution of global use of nitrogen and phosphorus, implementing climate mitigation options including changes in crop and feed management, and enhancing biodiversity within agricultural systems. In addition, to achieve negative emissions globally as per the Paris Agreement, the global food system must become a net carbon sink from 2040 and onward.
4. Strong and coordinated governance of land and oceans

   This implies feeding humanity on existing agricultural land i.e. by implementing a zero-expansion policy of new agricultural land into natural ecosystems and species-rich forests, aiming management policies at restoring and reforesting degraded land, establishing international land use governance mechanisms, and adopting a “Half Earth” strategy for biodiversity conservation (i.e. conserve at least 80% of preindustrial species richness by protecting the remaining 50% of Earth as intact ecosystems). Moreover, there is a need to improve the management of the world’s oceans to ensure that fisheries do not negatively impact ecosystems, fish stocks are utilized responsibly, and global aquaculture production is expanded sustainably.

5. At least halve food losses and waste, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals

   Substantially reducing food losses at the production side and food waste at the consumption side is essential for the global food system to stay within a safe operating space. Both technological solutions applied along the food supply chain and implementation of public policies are required in order to achieve an overall 50% reduction in global food loss and waste as per the targets of the SDGs. Actions include improving post-harvest infrastructure, food transport, processing and packing, increasing collaboration along the supply chain, training and equipping producers, and educating consumers.

   The health of the people and Plant Earth is heavily shaped by the ways in which food is produced, what is consumed, and how much is lost or wasted. The Commission shows that feeding 10 billion people a healthy diet within safe planetary boundaries for food production by 2050 is both possible and necessary. Thus, the global adoption of healthy diets, produced using sustainable food systems can safeguard our planet and improve the health of billions.

 
India Outbound
January 21, 2019
 

source https://indiaoutbound.org/strategies-to-achieve-a-great-food-transformation/