Food systems are essential to economic activity because they provide the energy that we need to live and work. United Nations agencies like UNEP, collectively, suggest rebuilding of economies after the COVID-19 crisis while transforming the global food system and make it resilient to future shocks, ensuring environmentally sustainable and healthy nutrition for all. Cracks in the global food system’s facade have long been apparent, resulting in 2020 as a year of reckoning.
Agriculture and Food
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World is the flagship report jointly prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO to inform on progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 nor to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Decades-long decline in hunger in the world has ended. Hunger and food insecurity continue to be challenges, in addition to obesity and malnutrition. These are some of the concerns reflected in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020: Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets, launching today in a virtual event at 10am EDT. This FAO flagship publication provides new estimates and projections of what the world may look like in 2030 if trends of the last decade continue, including some of the impacts of this global pandemic on food security and nutrition.
Since COVID-19 hit Afghanistan, it has posed a dreadful dilemma for the Afghan nomads, the Kuchis, get sick or go hungry. IFAD tells the experience of the Kuchis, who normally make a living by herding sheep, goats and camels around the country. Under lockdown, that lifestyle has become very difficult to maintain. For most people, the lockdown measures greatly reduce their exposure to the virus. But for the Kuchis, they pose the danger of blocking their usual trade of livestock and dairy products – and without trade, they have no income and face a shortage of food.
Guadalupe Moller lives in Turco, a small community in rural western Bolivia, near the Chilean border. She’d spent most of her life in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, but four years ago she moved back to Turco, where her family’s roots are. Now, at 61 years old – and thanks to an IFAD-supported project implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development and Lands – she’s begun a whole new life in the land of her ancestors. She produces charque – crushed and salt-dried llama meat.
FAO profiles the Panamanian coffee farmers who did not give up, despite the difficulties that the pandemic poses. Instead they chose to go ahead and keep caring for the plant seedlings.
The Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho is a place of stark beauty; deep canyons, majestic highlands, vertiginous hillsides, alpine grasslands, sun and sky. But, land degradation and climate change have upended traditional agricultural practicesand small-scale farmers struggle to survive. With the support of the UNDP and funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Lesotho is building innovative incentive programmes.
Georgia has received Geographical indication labels for Sulguni, a salty, soft cheese made from fresh cow or buffalo milk, and other native delicacies.
Gastronomy is a cultural expression related to the natural and cultural diversity of the world. On June 18, we celebrate Sustainable Gastronomy Day and acknowledge that everyone plays a role in making sustainable choices for healthy diets and a food-secure future. As the COVID-19 pandemic is still unfolding across the globe, sustainable gastronomy - celebrating seasonal ingredients and local producers, preserving wildlife as well as our culinary traditions - is today more relevant than ever.
Transforming food and agriculture: Creating food security while fighting climate change
Two farmers in Ethiopia share their story on how looking after the land strengthens communities and helps biodiversity.
IFAD channels climate and environmental finance to smallholder farmers, helping them to reduce poverty, enhance biodiversity, increase yields and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
In the most remote areas of Angola, the wave of coronavirus infections that has swept the world has not yet reached deep into the villages and farming communities. A new joint campaign launched by FAO with the Ministry of Agriculture of Angola aims to keep it that way. In the country’s northern central region, a group of women farmers wear face masks and stand at least a metre apart. They are taking part in a training session on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Gilbert Houngbo, President of IFAD writes that "in most of Africa, people are more likely to die from starvation caused by the economic fallout from the pandemic than from the disease itself. An additional 23 million people are expected to be pushed into extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa this year alone. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that our current food production, processing and distribution systems are vulnerable." He says investing in small-scale farmers can help boost food security on the continent.