The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and respected sustainable agriculture research group Bioversity International have called for immediate action to promote more sustainable diets around the world.

The two groups have long worked to shift the agricultural paradigm towards greater sustainability, and have called on policy makers to include environmental protection and social justice as integral considerations in decisions around food, rather than viewing agriculture as a purely financial enterprise. This week the organisations have released a book, Sustainable Diets and Biodiversity, which makes recommendations for achieving greater sustainability in global agriculture

Barbara Burlingame, Principal Officer of FAO’s Nutrition and Consumer Protection Division commented, “Regardless of the many successes of agriculture in the last three decades, it is clear that food systems, and diets, are not sustainable. While over 900 million people in the world suffer from hunger, even more – about 1.5 billion – are overweight or obese, and an estimated two billion suffer from micronutrient malnutrition including vitamin A, iron, or iodine deficiency,”

The problem of feeding the world’s growing population has so far been seen largely in terms of providing sufficient quantities of food; however, the adverse effects of the drive to do so are now becoming apparent. The pace of biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, water stress and now adverse health effects linked to unsustainable dietary patterns in many richer countries are causing massive strain on the Earth’s resources, national food policies and the healthy function of a range of ecosystems vital for human survival.

FAO said that, as a result, there is an “urgent [need] to address the quality of agriculture and food systems.” As well as the problems associated with a lack of access to food, the massive social and financial costs of “Poor diets, [which] are linked to marked increases in non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases across the world” are being felt in Europe and North America in particular.

Heavy footprints

According to the two respected research and policy organisations, “High-input industrial agriculture and long-distance transport have made refined carbohydrates and fats affordable and available across the globe, leading to an overall simplification of diets and reliance on a limited number of energy-rich foods.” The two claim that, although this has served to provide more or less affordable food to millions of people, many such foodstuffs lack nutritional quality and carry heavy carbon and water footprints. 

Furthermore, they warn such “energy-dense” foods also carry the cost of a reduced diversity and cultural connection in relation to food; from an agricultural perspective this change has a range of implications, including reductions in resilience to climate change, regional food security and independence of farmers from a small number of oligarchic transnational businesses.

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Currently just three major staples crops – maize, wheat and rice – provide 60 percent of the dietary energy from plant origin globally, while, with rising incomes in developing economies, huge numbers of people are abandoning traditional plant-based foods in favour of diets rich in meat, dairy products, fats and sugar. This too, has worrying implications; according to the Worldwatch Institute, 48 percent of the world’s grain is directly consumed by humans. Around a third (35 per cent) becomes livestock feed and 17 percent, is used to make ethanol and other fuels. However, the percentage of grain used for biofuel and animal feed is growing, and there are concerns that the competition could lead to price rises.

FAO and Bioversity also argue that modern diets and food production methods play a significant role in shrinking plant and animal genetic diversity, with 17,291 species out of  47,677 assessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature described as threatened with extinction.

Moves towards greater variety and sustainable production

Emile Frison, of Rome-based Bioversity International, explained the thought behind the new book. He said, “There is an urgent need to change the paradigm of agricultural production in order to integrate the dimension of nutritional quality in our decisions as to what to produce and where. This requires us to move beyond the major staples and to look at the many hundreds and thousands of Neglected and Underutilised plant and animal species that mean the difference between an unsustainable and a sustainable diet.”

He used the example of Kenya, where Bioversity have successfully helped reinstate a number of leafy green vegetables until recently considered as poor people’s food into local diets and markets. Promotion of the traditional plants, including African night shade, cowpea and pumpkin leaves, spider plant and vine spinach, has increased demand both within households and in the market. Smallholder farmers are also benefiting from the change. 

In India, healthy cereals such as foxtail and finger millet have been reintroduced in areas where they had been abandoned due to government policies promoting cassava production for starch. Efforts are also underway to promote native Andean cereals such as quinoa and amaranth at the international level. The United Nations has declared 2013 to be the International Year of Quinoa.

FAO’s Barbara Burlingame concluded that world food systems must undergo “radical transformations” towards a more efficient use of resources and greater efficiency and equity in the consumption of food. She said, “Sustainable diets can address the consumption of foods with lower water and carbon footprints, promote the use of food biodiversity, including traditional and local foods, with their many nutritionally rich species and varieties. They can also contribute to the transition to nutrition-sensitive and climate-smart agriculture and nutrition-driven food systems.”

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