The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) has called for “data-driven” action to make food systems more sustainable by 2030.
This follows the publication, on December 19, of a research paper titled The state of food systems worldwide in the countdown to 2030, which, according to the FAO, provides the “first science-based monitoring to guide decision-makers as they seek wholesale transformation of the global agriculture and food system”.
The paper was published by the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative (FSCI), a joint international body which monitors global food systems, of which the FAO is a member and co-chair.
According to the FAO, transformation of global food systems is necessary to reduce the environmental impact of food production, and mitigate the impact of climate change on them.
“The overarching objective is that all people – especially the most vulnerable – have equitable access to healthy diets through sustainable and resilient agriculture,” the FAO said.
The purpose of the FSCI is to fill the gap in data required to drive decisions, which policymakers often lack.
The FSCI has developed an “indicator framework” composed of 50 indicators that monitor agriculture and food systems at a global level. The data from this monitoring is repurposed, rather than time-consuming new research being carried out.
Using this baseline data, the FSCI will track agriculture and food systems annually until 2030, updating its monitoring framework when new indicators or better data emerges.
Commenting on the work of the FSCI, Lawrence Haddad, executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (another of the FSCI’s members and co-chairs), said: “The first annual countdown report shows that no single region has all the answers.
“Europe and North America do well on undernutrition but poorly on indicators of unhealthy diets. In contrast, Africa and South Asia do relatively well on some environmental indicators but poorly on indicators of livelihoods. This data shows very clearly that every region has significant room for improvement,” Haddad added.
Jose Rosero Moncayo, director of the statistics division for the FAO, said: “We are at the beginning of the process and there are still gaps in the data that we need to fill to ensure we are effectively monitoring progress across all dimensions of agriculture and food systems.
“Filling those data gaps is a top priority for ourselves, and the global science and policy communities concerned about the future of agriculture,” Moncayo added.