The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), German brand Knorr and Adam Drewnowski, director of The Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington have released a report titled “Future 50 Foods”. With the goal of enabling healthy diets and sustainable food production, the report lists 50 foods in order to provide people with more food choices, rather than impose restrictions about what not to eat.
These Future 50 Foods have been selected on the basis of their high nutritional value, relatively lower environmental impact, accessibility, affordability, acceptability and flavour. Each food on the list has a different story to tell. Some of them have higher yields than other similar crops. Others are tolerant of challenging environmental and weather conditions. Most contain significant quantities of critical nutrients.
The criteria of selection have been modelled after the Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) definition of sustainable diets i.e. “those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources(2010, Sustainable Diets and Biodiversity).
The report highlights the global dependence on a limited range of foods that negatively impacts human and planetary health. 12 plant and 5 animal species are responsible for 75% of the global food supply. In the entire human diet, rice, wheat and maize comprise nearly 60% of the calories obtained from plants. This dietary monotony leads to an exclusion of multiple sources of valuable nutrition and while people might be consuming sufficient calories, they are definitely not consuming enough minerals and vitamins.
A major factor causing dietary monotony is the decline in agrobiodiversity, or the diversity of plants and animals that are used in agriculture, thereby increasing dependence on a limited pool of crop species. This has not only lessened the resilience of the food systems worldwide, but also the breadth of the food consumed. Moreover, vulnerabilities to diseases, pests and climate change have increased. Global trends are testimony to this.
For instance, since 1900, 75% of the genetic plant diversity in agriculture has been lost. Thailand used to cultivate 16,000 varieties of rice at one point, which has reduced to 37 varieties. In the last century, the United States has lost 80% of its pea, tomato and cabbage varieties. This can be attributed to commercial farming practices that are unsustainable in the long-run.
The reduction in crop diversity has led to a loss of food sovereignty and food security. Food sovereignty entails (i) the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food, which is produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods (ii) the right to define their own food and agricultural systems.
Intensive methods are used to farm a narrow range of crops. Monoculture farming entails the repeated harvesting of a single crop that depletes the soil of its nutrients, leaving it vulnerable to the build-up of pathogens and pests. These farming practices severely impact the planet’s fragile natural ecosystems. Food security is further threatened by an over-reliance on animal-based foods and inappropriate usage of fertilisers and pesticides, which leach into the water systems and damage wildlife.
Most species cannot thrive in such biologically degraded landscapes. 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to agriculture, of which 60% is caused by animal agriculture. The production of eggs, meat and dairy consumes more land and water, as compared to plant production. It also causes more pollution with the discharge of liquid waste into water bodies.
According to Peter Gregory, Research Advisor, Crops For the Future, “diversified diets not only improve human health but benefit the environment through diversified production systems that encourage wildlife and more sustainable use of resources.”
Image and information sourced from report.
India Outbound
March 1, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/what-does-dietary-diversity-entail/
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