Bloomberg says, “Food systems” is one of those abstractions that for years has been largely confined to academic and policy-making circles, but in the time of Covid-19 it’s renewed a very real debate around hunger and poverty.
What essentially is a $10 trillion complex web of people and processes that ensure food travels from farm to fork is undergoing its greatest scrutiny yet. How to transform it has been a subject of all three food-focused panels at this year’s virtual Davos confab.
You know something isn’t right when some 690 million people go hungry every day, healthy diets remain out of reach for billions — just as one-third of food goes wasted while obesity is on the rise. Then there is a huge environmental toll from food production and meeting future challenges of a growing global population and climate change. The pandemic further exacerbated the vulnerabilities, said David Beasley, the head of World Food Programme.
So what can be done? The list of solutions includes harnessing climate-smart agriculture, using digital tools to boost efficiency and transparency, transforming diets and promoting consumer awareness. Trade-offs will occur and tailored approaches will be needed, the OECD said in a policy review this week.