To address pressing and rising global food insecurity, food policies have focused on increasing food supply across the EU. This has been achieved with methods such as industrial agriculture. There is a strong trade-off between methods used to address global food insecurity, increasing food supply, and environmental action (PIK, 2022). Global food insecurity is not caused by a shortage in food supply (PIK, 2022). The global food system produces enough food to adequately feed 10 billion people, 2.2 billion more than currently required (EEA 2021). The primary reason for global food insecurity is the structure of the food system (PIK, 2022).
We have compiled four transformative solutions with research insights into sustainable food systems below.
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“Globally, the food sector is responsible for around 20% of lifestyle-related GHG emissions, while agriculture takes up 15%” (UNEP, 2020)
Transformative Solution #1
Sustainable agriculture
- Industrial agriculture, associated with large-scale, intensive production of crops and livestock involving monocultures, industrial chemicals, and genetically modified crops, is the primary mode of food production in Europe.
- Evidence points to serious consequences for persistent food insecurity and environmental problems in case of a “business as usual scenario” in industrial agriculture. For example, industrial chemicals lead to an overuse of nitrogen and phosphorous loading which is causing a crisis level of soil depletion (Hickel, 2018). On present trajectories, soils will globally only support 60 more years of harvest (Hickel, 2018).
Transformative Solution #2
Dietary Shifts
- Livestock, and in particular meat and dairy industries, make up 58% of GHGs emissions from the food sector. In contrast to these high emissions, livestock only account for 18% of the global calory intake (Heinrich Böll Stiftung 2021).
- Europeans consume more animal products than the nutritional recommendations of the World Health Organization (EEA 2018). This has health-related consequences such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer (EEA 2018). Eating less meat and dairy products has important health benefits for European citizens.
Transformative Solution #3
Food Distribution
- There is enough food to adequately feed 10 billion people, 2.2 billion more than currently required (UNEP 2022).
- Around 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021, primarily in the Global South (FAO et al. 2022).
- More than one third of food that gets produced each year gets wasted, primarily in the Global North (Cox and Downing 2007). Food waste and loss account for US$ 990 billion globally each year (UNEP, 2022).
Transformative Solution #4
Global Just Transition
- Current European agricultural subsidies create an unfair advantage to the subsidised farming systems in Europe at the expense of the Global South’s producers (CIDSE 2020).
- Land grabbing disposes land from small farmers in the Global South opening them up for use by investors in the Global North. To this day, 133 million acres of land is disposed from the Global South to the Global North in the form of land grabbing (Hickel 2017).