“Four Betters”: FAO calls for multi-pronged transformation of agri-food systems

26 Feb 2021 --- Better nutrition, production, environment and life could guide a holistic redesign of the world’s agri-food systems. Qu Dongyu, the director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), argues that the synergies of these four factors could make outsized contributions to achieving global pledges such as ending hunger by 2030. 

At a keynote lecture at Italy’s historic Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, he also called for more of a “system thinking” approach in a broad spectrum of areas, including policies, business models and even culture.

“Agri-food systems are the world’s largest economic system, measured in terms of employment, livelihoods and planetary impact,” says Qu. 

Four billion people are employed directly or indirectly in food systems, in which poverty and hunger are nonetheless endemic.

Overcoming inertia
Qu argues that transforming food systems is among the most powerful ways to change course and make progress towards all 17 SDGs and “build back better” from COVID-19. 

However, one of the biggest challenges in transforming food systems is inertia, as highlighted by the FAO’s senior economist David Dawe, who spoke to NutritionInsight on video earlier this week. 

“All of us get comfortable doing things a certain way,” he remarks. “A lot of progress has been made in Asia and the Pacific over the past few decades.” 

“Poverty, stunting and malnourishment have all dramatically declined, so why change? However, even these large gains have not eliminated the problems, and it’s getting harder and harder to make progress.”FAO director-general Qu Dongyu (top left) gave a keynote lecture at the Lincei, which once counted Galileo as a member.

Current systems fall short
With as many as 690 million people currently chronically undernourished, today’s agri-food systems are “not delivering.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic is also projected to plunge more than 100 million additional people into chronic undernourishment. Additionally, one in five children are stunted; three billion people cannot afford healthy diets; and one in ten people are affected by unsafe food supplies. 

Qu also points to the scale of global food loss and waste and the fact that 80 percent of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas and work in agriculture.

The Four Betters
The Four Betters frame Qu’s strategic approach to transforming food systems.

Better nutrition means ending hunger, promoting nutritious foods and increasing access to healthy diets, which can be buoyed by tackling food loss and waste and making sure that markets and trade are accessible and open.

Better production requires ensuring efficient, sustainable consumption and production patterns. Also important are inclusive food and agriculture supply chains at local, regional and global levels. Digital agriculture, attention to small-scale producers and green innovation are all key parts of the path forward.

Better environment involves protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as promoting a good environment for farming systems.

Additionally, climate change can be combated through reduction, reutilization, recycling and residual management approaches. 

Conserving biodiversity, including agrobiodiversity and dietary diversity, is a critical spur to action on this front.

Better life can be achieved by reducing inequalities, while promoting inclusive economic growth. This includes overcoming disparities between urban and rural communities, the rich and poor, and men and women.

The FAO Investment Center
In a bid to help nurture more efficient and equitable agri-food systems, FAO members have been injecting significantly more resources into the FAO Investment Center. 

The center offers a range of investment support services helping countries to create long-term investment policies and plans, to design and implement investment projects with financing partners, and to generate knowledge and build capacities related to investment.

The resources will enable it to expand, provide more in-depth investment support to countries and strengthen its collaboration with international and national financial institutions and other development partners. 

Over the coming years, the center will continue to work with international financial institutions and banks on ways to strengthen the resilience of the agri-food systems.A woman walks back to her home from the fields in DRC’s restive North Kivu province (Source: OCHA/Ivo Brandau).

“We will also continue to enable and promote the use of new data sources and climate-sensitive technologies – like geospatial data, digital applications and drones – to create better investment planning, risk management and lower interest rates for farmers,” says Mohamed Manssouri, director of the FAO Investment Center.

Three killed in World Food Program attack
This week also saw a major blow to global efforts to address undernutrition with an attack on the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) convoy in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR). 

Three people were killed: the Italian ambassador to the DCR, an Italian embassy official and a WFP staff member. A number of other passengers traveling in the joint field mission were also injured.

The delegation was traveling from Goma to visit a WFP school feeding program in Rutshuru when the incident took place.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although a number of armed groups are active in the region. 

By Katherine Durrell