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food systems
In the Year of Climate Finance, We Need to See Billions Flow Towards Transforming Our Food Systems
A growing coalition of philanthropic organizations, under the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, is committing to scale up funding for agroecological food systems to address intersecting challenges across climate, food and nature.
Jun 23, 2024
This year climate finance is all the talk. As the UN Climate Conference in Bonn wraps up and the stage is set for COP29 later this year, expectations are high for governments to agree on a new climate finance package that will tackle the worsening climate and ecological crises.
In many countries, food production is the climate frontline. Nearly 95% of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) include adaptation and mitigation actions in the agriculture sector yet fail to address the full food system.
It only takes one climate disaster—a drought, flood or heatwave—for entire villages to spiral into debt, poverty and hunger, impacting regional food systems and economies.
Responding to the climate and nature crises, will require a transformation of food systems backed by a rapid redirection of funds to flip agriculture from being part of the problem to offering solutions. Last year, 25 philanthropies—coordinated by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food—called for a tenfold increase in funding towards agroecological and regenerative approaches. Philanthropy, multilateral and bilateral organizations and governments must scale and align funding to catalyze a transition to 50% regenerative and agroecological systems by 2040 and to ensure all agriculture and food systems are transitioning by 2050. Read the full report.
Right now, industrialized food systems account for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions and at least 15% of fossil fuel use. This broken system—the ‘true cost’ of food production—comes at a staggering $12 trillion a year, according to the FAOlast year. It manifests in hefty medical bills and the degradation of our soil, air, water, and biodiversity.
In this decisive decade, the way we grow, consume and package our food cannot be ignored or siloed in an all-hands-on-deck effort to meet our climate and biodiversity goals.
Moving away from a fossil-fuel based food system will not be cheap. It requires unlocking $250-430 billion per year, but this is in fact cheaper— than what is currently spent each year on harmful agricultural subsidies ($635 billion each year) and a fraction of the true cost of current food production.
Right now, investments into agroecology and regenerative approaches by the philanthropic, public, and the private sectors is estimated to be just $44 billion per year.
As representatives of leading philanthropy we are committed to scaling up funding into agroecological and regenerative approaches as a means to leverage existing policies that address the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. By embracing agroecology, communities have better control over the food they produce to future-proof their livelihoods and to make decisions to strengthen food sovereignty based on locally-tested solutions and knowledge.
There is a political appetite to make this transition and intergrate agroecological approaches into policy.
For example, the Tanzania government has worked with national civil society organizations to develop a National Ecological Organic Agriculture Strategy and implementation plan. Similar agroecology strategies are being developed in other Eastern African countries, like Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Priority actions include making agroecological and bio-inputs available, ensuring avenues for knowledge exchange and skills-sharing among farmers, expanding market access for food producers, mainstreaming village land use planning, fostering investments across the value chain, and supporting coordination, capacity building and governance at all levels.
And they’re not alone. In the Andes, smallholder farmers are stewarding thousands of varieties of native potatoes, preserving their cultural heritage, supporting their livelihoods and providing food for domestic consumption while also growing new markets in collaboration with researchers, civil society experts and other food system actors. Mountains are unique ecosystems, many of which are biodiversity hotspots and home to Indigenous Peoples. Mountain ecosystems are generally forgotten in national and international discussions, but are critical to biodiversity and resilience, especially in the face of climate change. The Andes are also not an island—they are critical for the existence of the Amazon and in turn the Amazon has a dramatic influence on the climate of the Andes, highlighting the interconnectedness that very often is broken by industrial agriculture. Support for Indigenous and agroecological approaches is vital to sustain the important contributions made by smallholder farmers in building thriving and sustainable local and regional food economies.
In this decisive decade, the way we grow, consume and package our food cannot be ignored or siloed in an all-hands-on-deck effort to meet our climate and biodiversity goals. It’s a race against time and we urgently need to see the money—in the tens of billions of dollars—move towards real solutions, particularly where policies are ready to be turned into action.
We are calling on governments, the private sector and other philanthropic partners to join us in this initiative and commit to scaling up their investments so communities, Indigenous Peoples and the health and the future of all living beings and the planet are at the center of our financial decisions.
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I Loved a Sheep and I Also Loved Lamb Chops. Until I Realized the Two Were Not Compatible
We can build a more peaceful and healthy world right now, so let’s start eating for the future we want today.
Jan 21, 2024
I have many friends who adore their pets and regularly post photos of them on social media. Sometimes these same friends also post photos of their barbecues, or rather barbecued animals. My hunter and fisher friends often post selfies with the animals they’ve killed. They hold a fish dangling from a hook and smile unselfconsciously as the fish suffocates. Or they crouch behind the not-yet-cold bear they’ve shot, beaming with pride, with their beloved companion hunting dog by their side.
Our relationship with animals is full of contradictions—contradictions I understand well. I grew up an animal lover in New York City, stopping on the street for every dog I saw, begging for a dog of my own as a child, sobbing during any movie where an animal suffered. In high school, I befriended a sheep at the children’s zoo in Central Park. I named him Wooly Baba and visited him every week. Whenever I’d arrive and call his name, he’d come running up to me and lift his head for a neck scratch. I loved that sheep.
I also loved lamb chops. In fact, lamb chops were my favorite food. But one day, I could no longer pretend that there was some essential difference between Wooly Baba and the lamb chop on my plate. I considered becoming a vegetarian, but the truth was I didn’t want to give up the foods I liked, so I told myself that because the animals on my plate were already dead, I might as well eat them. I didn’t yet understand the laws of supply and demand. I didn’t realize that our dollar is our vote that says: “Good job. Do it again.”
Eventually, I came to understand that my choices had consequences, and that when I allowed my desires to eclipse my values by eating animals, I was actively participating in the suffering of those I claimed to love. My transformation from omnivore to pescatarian to vegetarian to vegan spanned eight years. I was a slow learner. Or rather, I was slow to commit to living more deeply aligned with my values. It’s true that in the 1970s and 80s, there wasn’t a lot of information on the abuses that occurred in modern farming, and few people had heard the word "vegan." Back then, “substitutes” for meat, dairy, and eggs tasted pretty awful.
Eventually, I came to understand that my choices had consequences, and that when I allowed my desires to eclipse my values by eating animals, I was actively participating in the suffering of those I claimed to love.
How different it is now. Many, if not most, people know that there is rampant cruelty in animal agriculture. It takes little time to learn that soy milk has basically the same amount of protein as cow’s milk but without antibiotic residues, pus, and the toxins that get carried up the food chain, nor to discover the terrible abuse perpetrated on dairy cows in typical factory farms. Many have become aware that fisheries are collapsing one after another as we trawl the oceans and net everything in the path, including the dolphins and turtles we are more inclined to love. And whereas it was once challenging to be vegan, now it’s easy.
I’ve heard so many reasons for not choosing a vegan diet, among them:
“I could never give up cheese and ice cream.”
“You can’t get enough protein on a vegan diet.”
“I have the wrong blood type.”
“We are omnivores, and it’s natural to eat animals. Other animals do so, so why shouldn’t we?”
I understand. I’m a CrossFitter, well aware of the protein needs associated with weight-lifting and high-intensity exercise. But the reality is that It’s almost impossible to become protein-deficient on a healthy vegan diet that meets one’s caloric needs, even if one is an athlete.
I also love the taste of meat, cheese, and eggs and know first-hand that it can be hard to give up the foods one loves, even if many of the plant-based alternatives now taste identical to those foods.
I have the same blood type that a naturopath claimed necessitated meat in one’s diet, but because there is no scientific evidence to support this claim, I have happily continued with my vegan diet for nearly 35 years, along with tens of millions of other vegans, and together our health and longevity provide quite a lot of counter-evidence that the blood type claim is bunk.
And I, too, recognize that non-human omnivores eat animals and that my body can digest meat as well as plants. That doesn’t mean I need to cause unnecessary suffering and death to animals just to please my taste buds.
I believe that one day, the vast majority of us will not eat slaughtered animals or force animals to produce milk and eggs for us.
As a humane educator—someone who teaches about the interconnected issues of animal protection, human rights, and environmental sustainability—I know that most people resist dietary changes even after they’ve learned that their food choices cause immense suffering, not to mention environmental damage. Such resistance can fade when we pay attention to, and educate ourselves about, the consequences of our actions. When the inconsistencies between our values and actions become so stark; when the destruction animal agriculture is wreaking on the planet becomes so urgent; when delicious vegan options become so abundant; and when the desire to live more compassionately becomes so compelling, we can and do change.
I believe that one day, the vast majority of us will not eat slaughtered animals or force animals to produce milk and eggs for us. This day will come when enough people have shifted their diets, and food companies have shifted along with them, changing the food production system to meet the ever-growing demand for humane, sustainable, and equitably produced food. When this critical mass causes a systemic shift, the rest of the population will shift, too. We eat what we eat because that is what is served to us at our dinner tables as children, in school cafeterias, and in restaurants and convenience stores. If what’s served is different, we’ll naturally go along with our new and more humane diets.
How wonderful it would be to speed this change and not wait and look back regretfully wondering why we held on so tenaciously to cruel systems, petting our dog while feasting on bacon; filling our bird feeders while chowing down on chicken wings. We can build a more peaceful and healthy world right now, so let’s start eating for the future we want today. A more compassionate world is just a meal away.
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Global Food Justice Movement Warns Against Corporate Takeover of UN Food Summit
"Don't appoint the goat as gardener, a peasant proverb says," one advocate said of inviting agricultural companies to weigh in on issues of global food security.
Jul 19, 2023
World leaders will
gather in Rome next week for the United Nations Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment, but local producers, Indigenous people, and the world's largest global food justice movements are sounding the alarm that the U.N. process favors the industrial agriculture status quo over true transformation.
The various groups, who claim to represent millions worldwide and gather under the banner of the People's Autonomous Response to the U.N. Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), say their primary concern is that large corporations and their proxies will unduly influence the U.N.'s new and contested approach to food security.
"Don't appoint the goat as gardener, a peasant proverb says," Patti Naylor of the National Family Farm Coalition said in a statement Monday. "The corporate ag, food, and data giants don't care about democratic governance in the U.N.—they just use it for their profits. Like the goat, corporations will eat the salad and the roses, if you don't stop them."
"The intention of the summit organizers is to sell us the corporate and industrial project as transformation."
The world's food system is in crisis. In 2022, acute food insecurity impacted around 258 million people, the People's Autonomous Response said in a declaration issued July 12. That was an increase from 193 million people in 2021 and 155 million people in 2020. A U.N. report published the same day found that a combination of the climate crisis, war, and the Covid-19 pandemic had forced an additional more than 100 million people into hunger since 2019.
The U.N. is therefore not on track to meet its sustainable development goal of ending hunger by 2030. The People's Autonomous Response believe they have a solution rooted in food sovereignty, centering frontline communities,, agroecology, encouraging biodiversity, territorial markets, and an economy based on solidarity.
"The evidence is overwhelming—the solutions devised by small-scale food producers and Indigenous peoples not only feed the world but also advance gender, social, economic justice, youth empowerment, workers' rights, and real resilience to crises," Shalmali Guttal of Focus on the Global South said in a statement. "Why are policymakers not listening to them and providing them with adequate support?"
One example of this lack of listening, the People's Autonomous Response says, was the UNFSS in September 2021. The summit raised alarms in part because it moved from a multilateral approach—with member states coming to an international agreement at the end of the talks—with a "multistakeholderism" approach that opponents argue allows private interests and large corporations a disproportionate influence on decision making. They worried at the time that the summit would muscle out the already existing Committee on World Food Security (CFS) that uses multilateral and human rights-based decision making.
During the summit, the voices of wealthy nations, companies, and large, corporate-linked nonprofits were raised over other member states, particularly from the Global South, the People's Autonomous Response said. At the same time, the summit failed to take into account some of the root causes of the global food crisis: Covid-19 pandemic, industrial agriculture, and the influence of large corporations on global food systems.
"The UNFSS has not only overlooked our rights and the structural causes of the crises…The intention of the summit organizers is to sell us the corporate and industrial project as transformation," said Saúl Vicente from the International Indian Treaty Council.
The original summit inspired a massive countermobilization, with more than 9,000 people speaking out against a pre-summit in July 2021 and more than 700 organizations and over 300 activists and academics endorsing a declaration to the summit in September.
"In these times of growing hunger and multiple crises, it is more urgent than ever that governments and the U.N. listen to us."
Despite all this, global food justice activists are concerned that the coming stocktaking moment, which will run from July 24 to 26, is "poised to repeat the failures of the FSS itself, further advancing industrial food systems, and opening the door of the U.N. to even greater influence by large private companies and their networks, without a corporate accountability framework in place."
In particular, they worry that member states will lend the process undeserved legitimacy by attending and sharing their plans for improving their food systems.
The People's Autonomous Response argues that world leaders should turn away from corporate-backed proposals for addressing food insecurity and heed the knowledge of people working on and in the ground.
"In these times of growing hunger and multiple crises, it is more urgent than ever that governments and the U.N. listen to us," Perla Álvarez from La Vía Campesina said in a statement. "We call on you: Change direction, and support our demands and efforts for a food sovereign future based on human rights and the principles of agroecology, care, justice, diversity, solidarity, and accountability."
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