Next month the UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Summit will launch bold new actions to deliver progress on all 17 SDGs, each of which relies to some degree on healthier, more sustainable and equitable food systems.
As world leaders prepare, and as the Pre-Summit meeting concluded in Rome this week, I took some time to revisit and reflect on the last year’s IFIAD conference – Covid-19 & Sustainable Food Systems – Transforming food systems in times of crises. Through it, we sought to learn from the Covid-19 crisis by examining the weaknesses (and strengths) it exposed in our food networks.
And as the world also moves towards the COP26 in Glasgow this November, contemplating the lessons we pulled from the depths of the Covid-19 crisis and applying them to Climate Change – arguably one of the biggest crises humanity will ever face – seemed pertinent and necessary.
My own MSc CCAFS research project is centered in buttressing our agricultural systems against the onslaught of climate change by ‘Climate Proofing’ our crops. My focus has been Tropical Forage Legumes which are critical for agricultural efficiency and resilience, particularly for small scale producers in developing countries.
Below is an excerpt of my thoughts from last year after the MSc CCAFS cohort attended the online IFIAD conference. I found much of what was relevant then remains entirely relevant to my own research goals now, particularly as my project and Masters course nears its completion.
‘Covid-19 highlighted the connectivity between sectors. A health crisis which demanded a political response whose affects cascaded down the economic and social building blocks of modern society, simultaneously exposing the fundamental inequalities and inherent strengths in each. We should expect the resilience of global food systems, when faced with the many challenges of climate change, to depend on a similarly multi-sectorial response. In this context, Covid-19 provided a unique opportunity to “Build-Back Better”.
Global food systems are underpinned by agriculture and trade. Agricultural resilience, particularly for developing nations, will require greater recognition, protection and empowerment of small-scale producers. This in turn will require systematic policy changes in land tenure, gender equality and the recognition of indigenous people. In terms of trade, the EU/Africa partnership was examined as a model of successful international trade. It particularly illustrates the importance of private enterprise (which showed enormous innovation in the face of Covid-19) in domestic productivity. Digital communication was central to this and we should aim to expand its role in future networking.
However, just as in agriculture, the recognition and protection of human rights is paramount. This will require systematic changes in data protection policies. Within the public sector, we should seek to align local and national governance towards common objectives. At the local level, a greater recognition of the value of civil society is needed. At the national level, the expansion of social and income protection, in all its forms, will be central to maintaining the equality at the heart of any resilient society.‘