Seven Steps to Feed a Planet

“There is no room for delay on integrated, strategic policy action that confronts the difficult trade-offs facing the global food system and sets a new course toward long-term sustainability.”

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, established to identify policy changes and actions needed to achieve food security in the context of a changing climate, released its final report at the Planet Under Pressure conference last week. Striving to break down sectoral silos and build linkages between policy processes, the commission set out to demonstrate the interconnected nature of sustainable agriculture, food security, and climate change. Agriculture’s sensitivity to climatic shifts – more extreme weather events, heightened variability in rainfall, temperature increases – provokes the urgent call to action made early on in the report.

“if there is a delay in serious commitment and action, hunger will continue to prevail and probably intensify, and environmental damage could be irreparable, compromising the world’s capacity to produce food in the future.”

The set of seven recommendations presented by the Commission align with a landscape approach, reflecting the cross-sectoral, multi-stakeholder, and interdisciplinary nature of the challenges and solutions:

1. Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies
2. Significantly raise the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade
3. Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing GhG emissions and other negative environmental impacts of agriculture
4. Develop specific programmes and policies to assist populations and sectors that are most vulnerable to climate changes and food insecurity
5. Reshape food access and consumption patterns to ensure basic nutritional needs are met and to foster healthy and sustainable eating patterns worldwide
6. Reduce loss and waste in food systems, targeting infrastructure, farming practices, processing, distribution and household habits
7. Create comprehensive, shared, integrated information systems that encompass human and ecological dimensions