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By Steven Finn<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no question that our global food system is in a state of disruption right now, and that disruption is incredibly painful.<\/p>\n
In the developed world, we may be beyond the shock of initial stockouts of many food items due to immediate panic buying, but supply chains have been severely impacted, and producers have limited the breadth of product offerings in the short term to cope.\u00a0 But one need only look at the hunger numbers to see the very serious impact of Covid-19 to date.\u00a0 We know that over 800 million global citizens are hungry (and as FAO notes in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World<\/em> report<\/a>, that number has been rising annually since 2015 after years of progress) \u2013 and further, Covid has the potential to exacerbate existing drivers and roughly double the 135 million citizens suffering from acute hunger (see the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises<\/em>, link here<\/a>).<\/p>\n So we\u2019re a long way from the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger (SDG 2<\/a>), and with less than ten years until 2030, we are regressing on the hunger front.<\/p>\n At the same time, the speed with which organizations have studied the immediate impacts of Covid-19 on the food system, planned for changing conditions, adapted operations, and pivoted in new directions has been incredibly impressive.\u00a0 How can we further harness this wave of action?<\/p>\n One theme that has been clear from the start of the pandemic is the opportunity<\/em> in disruption:\u00a0 every crisis brings opportunity.\u00a0 Winston Churchill famously stated \u201cNever let a good crisis go to waste.\u201d\u00a0 And when we think about food, which is essential for our survival, and the food system, which brings our food to us and at the same time is such a critical driver of planetary health \u2013 the notion of \u201copportunity\u201d for change seems much less of a choice, and much more of a requirement<\/em>.<\/p>\n Back in April in an Earth Day session with Sara Roversi and the Future Food Institute<\/a>, I mentioned that we were focused on words like rebuild, and re-set, restore, redesign, rethink, reconnect, reimagine, and regenerative.\u00a0 We\u2019re hearing those words a lot, and they evoke the notion of positive change.<\/p>\n Those last two are especially critical; it has been heartening to see the focus on reimagining a regenerative food system.\u00a0 And it is essential that our reimagination focus also has an action<\/em> focus.<\/p>\n Earlier in June, the EAT Forum<\/a> partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation in a session entitled Reimagining Food Systems: Driving Action for a Post-Covid World<\/em>, video link here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The session featured some excellent contributions from individuals such as Massimo Bottura (renowned chef and founder of Food For Soul<\/a>), Dr. Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation<\/a>, and Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone<\/a> \u2013 and they are a source of inspiration for the needed action focus.<\/p>\n In a talk revealing his recent emotional journey through the crisis, for example, Massimo Bottura noted that the pandemic has revealed the fragile nature of our food system, pointing out that we all have a \u201cnew responsibility to rebuild with beauty, light, color, and dignity.\u201d\u00a0 He indicated the need for urgency, noting that \u201cthere is no time for tears\u201d \u2013 and issued a call to action with an equity focus, stating that \u201cwe can create a world where anger is no more, we can reduce food waste, but first we need to make room for everyone at the table, there are no more excuses.\u201d\u00a0 He also noted that while we can crunch numbers, make charts, measure, and count \u2013 at the end of the day \u201cnutrition is not mathematical, it\u2019s emotional.\u201d\u00a0 That comment struck me as particularly poignant given the state of the global hunger numbers.<\/p>\n Next, Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv Shah noted that Covid has created a period of unprecedented crisis for the global food system, exposing its vulnerabilities and injustices, and leading to increased food waste and<\/em> increased hunger.\u00a0 He emphasized the \u201cfragile and inequitable\u201d nature of today\u2019s food system, reminding us that even for those getting a sufficient number of calories our food system is driving cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes.<\/p>\n Shah pointed to the opportunity \u2013 and need \u2013 to make our food system \u201cmore equitable, more nourishing, and more sustainable for a planet that is in crisis.\u201d\u00a0 Referencing the benefits of the Green Revolution in preventing millions from starving decades ago, he called for collaboration in a \u201crenewed revolution\u201d to change the way that we produce and consume food to not only address the immediate crisis, but to benefit human health and planetary health.\u00a0 His call for action was clear, and spot on.<\/p>\n Last, Danone CEO Emmanuel Faber gave a heartfelt, forward-thinking perspective from the business community on the need for change to the food system.\u00a0 Faber began by citing the human impact of the pandemic \u2013 and the vulnerability we are experiencing as a result of the suddenly-exposed fragility of the global food system.\u00a0 He immediately noted pressure on companies to revive operations in the quest to return to peak GDP levels at any cost — i.e. without regard for social and environmental externalities.\u00a0 Impressively, Faber indicated that he feels such a short term focus would be a \u201chuge mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Faber reminded us that humanity has suddenly been confronted by the fact that our ways of living (and particularly our business operations) have ignored the fact that we rely on Nature to live and thrive. \u00a0This gets at the heart of the need for business to focus on creating shared societal value<\/em> \u2013 factoring in impacts of operations on society, the environment, and future generations to create value for all<\/em> stakeholders rather than simply focusing on profit maximization for a limited<\/em> number of shareholders.\u00a0 Business can no longer externalize social and environmental costs, and global consumers should reinforce that expectation.<\/p>\n Faber correctly challenged us to look at the pandemic as the powerful signal of the need for change that it is, suggesting that we imagine that we were back in 2005, with the opportunity to determine the actions we would need to take to avoid the situation that we are in today.\u00a0 And he reminded us that the fundamental point of any resilient system \u201cis to preserve its non-renewable resources and not pressurize its renewable resources beyond their regeneration ability.\u201d\u00a0 Citing Agriculture\u2019s massive environmental footprint, Faber called for a more plant-based food system with regenerative practices and market mechanisms to monetize carbon sinking,\u00a0 He also cited the risk of biodiversity loss and excessive reliance on a small number of crops and limited genetic diversity among animal stocks.<\/p>\n Significantly, Faber noted that there is a \u201cbig time\u201d need to reimagine our food systems, and for change that properly prices externalities into business operations.\u00a0 He reminded us that \u201cmaximum intensity, zero-diversity Agriculture is a factor of pandemics\u201d\u2014 a theme we must continue to emphasize to drive change (and which I covered in a previous post<\/a>).\u00a0 He expressed his hope that the current generation would no longer take food for granted, and also called for education of consumers to reduce food waste for the benefit of natural ecosystems.\u00a0 He further posited that the value of global brands will be based on their power to serve humanity, while calling for collective action to drive the many needed changes to the food system.<\/p>\n In rapid succession, these three talks by Bottura, Shah, and Faber indicated many of the shortcomings of our current food system (exacerbated by Covid), while emphasizing the importance of 1) reimagining a new, resilient, regenerative system (one that benefits human and planetary health) and 2) taking the necessary actions to achieve it.<\/p>\n There is enormous positive momentum behind reimagining a regenerative food system.\u00a0 Let\u2019s ensure we couple it with an action focus, for inaction means regression.<\/p>\n As Covid has demonstrated, we have a great opportunity before us — to fix the food system, reverse the uptick and sharply reduce hunger, improve nutrition and human health, reduce biodiversity loss and deforestation, reduce food waste, reduce emissions, and much more — all of which will advance the SDGs.<\/p>\n And at the end of the day, we really have no choice but to create a regenerative food system.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s guest post is from Steven Finn, who teaches a class on food waste for the Gastronomy Program. Steven Finn is Vice President for Food Waste Prevention at Leanpath, Inc. and Co-founder and Managing Director for ResponsEcology, Inc. MET ML626, Addressing Food Waste for a Sustainable Food System, will be offered in the spring 2021 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2776,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,10,12,13,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2776"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9707"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9715,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9707\/revisions\/9715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/gastronomyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}