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The ‘toxic cocktail’ of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate and conflict has slowed progress on nutrition. Where long-standing budgets for nutrition have been constrained in these times, broad stakeholder engagement and non-traditional approaches to nutrition financing are needed.
Basic and applied research too often remain divided in agriculture. With stagnating and, in some cases, declining research funding, the innovation we need in agriculture for food systems transformation calls for greater connection and communication between the two.
The UN Food Systems Summit brought together a breadth of civil society, scientists, industry and policymakers. Its legacy requires ongoing efforts for innovation, inclusivity and trust, and accountability to ensure high-level commitments are honoured.
Current market prices do not fully capture the impacts of food, leading to inefficiencies and propagating unsustainable behaviour. True cost accounting offers an opportunity to change that, but will only deliver on its promise if understood as part of a set of tools.
Increasingly globalized food systems increase risk for the spread of infectious disease in animals and zoonotic transmission to humans. Greater international harmonization for measures and governance in the area of biosecurity for infectious disease is needed.
The Food Allergy Safety, Treatment, Education and Research Act signed by United States President Joe Biden in April, and Natasha’s Law, which will be enforced from October in the United Kingdom, highlight incomplete knowledge within society on how to manage food allergy in a fail-safe way.
Technological innovation is an important contributor to food security and sustainability. But traditional knowledge and behavioural change are vital to solve today’s food crisis.
Nutrition is a relatively young and evolving science. Political will to reform food systems can be shown by shepherding nutritional science towards population priorities and preventing its commodification.
COVID-19 has provided valuable insights into the role of logical-scientific communication during a crisis. Narrative communication may be better suited for other public and planetary health challenges, including those that pertain to food systems — and story-telling could be an effective agent for change.
The multidimensional problems of food require integrated solutions. Yet, there is a lack of clarity on the operationalization of systems thinking in research. This is a major challenge for those working towards the Food Systems Summit.
Food systems must be transformed urgently, hunger is on the rise and the targets of SDG2 are off track. But we are moving briskly to pivotal summits in 2021 and World Food Day has a powerful message of hope and solidarity: ‘Grow, Nourish, Sustain. Together’.
Citizen-centred innovations offer an opportunity to transform food systems by shifting power concentration and restoring autonomy in the individual’s relationship with food.
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 requires coordinated efforts between the public and private sectors to improve agricultural productivity. Reduced funding experienced by public sector crop breeding programmes in recent years could jeopardize these efforts.
Wet markets have come under scrutiny amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Calls to ban them may seem like a straightforward component of preventing further pandemics, but controlling zoonotic infections requires a much wider approach.
Prices that better reflect the environmental costs of food can promote more sustainable production and consumption practices. The research community has a role to play in constructing the framework for the implementation of true cost.
East Africa is experiencing the worst desert locust outbreak in decades. Climate events have facilitated breeding of the swarming pest across the region, and with a surge in the locust population expected in coming weeks urgent action is needed to avert a humanitarian crisis.
The global food system needs a radical overhaul to sustainably feed 10 billion people by 2050. Nature Food calls on scientists from the many disciplines of food to contribute their knowledge and experience to a collective dialogue on food system transformation.
