Transforming agriculture and food systems to nourish people and to nurture the planet

Achieving sustainable development means shifting away from high-input and resource-intensive farming and food systems, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said.

Addressing ministers, government, private sector and civil society representatives attending the biennial meeting of FAO’s Committee on Agriculture (COAG, 1-5 October), the Director-General noted how current farming practices have contributed to deforestation, water scarcity, soil depletion and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Today, it is fundamental to produce food in a way that preserves the environment and biodiversity,” Graziano da Silva said, adding: “We have to implement sustainable practices that provide healthy and nutritious food, ecosystem services and climate-change resilience.”

To do so requires reducing the use of pesticides and chemicals, increasing crop diversification, and improving land conservation practices, amongst other measures, the FAO Director-General stressed.

He pointed to the inefficiency of current food systems in eradicating hunger, despite the fact that enough food is being produced to feed the entire global population, and underscored how hundreds of millions of people still do not have the income to buy the food they need, or the means to produce it themselves.

Many of the world’s more than 820 million chronically undernourished people are family farmers living in developing countries’ poor rural areas and who most need support to improve their livelihoods and build resilience, especially in relation to the impacts of conflicts and climate change, Graziano da Silva said. “Changes are necessary to ensure that our ambition of nourishing people while nurturing the planet becomes a reality,” he added.

Innovation, which is important for revitalizing rural areas and to make agriculture more attractive to young people, underpins these efforts, the Director-General said. “If we fail to create opportunities for poor rural people to thrive, especially women and youth, we will also fail to build a safer and more peaceful world,” he added.

To tackle this situation, FAO and partners have invested heavily in the development of the Agricultural Integrated Survey Programme (AGRISurvey), which is currently being implemented in 10 countries, with the support of USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The objective is to extend AGRIsurvey implementation to other 19 countries by 2021, and to 50 countries by 2030 through a joint initiative with the World Bank and other partners.

Original source: FAO
Published on 1 October 2018