Thursday (5^th June) is the United Nations' World Environment Day (WED). The international day celebrates positive environmental action around the world – activities undertaken include efforts to raise awareness of environmental protection issues or show solidarity with others elsewhere on Earth, as well as more physical actions, such as tree-planting drives.

The findings of the latest IPCC report, released at the end of March, show that the effects of climate change on crops are worst than had been appreciated. Not only that, but the first effects are already being felt on agriculture. Oxfam has warned that an extra 50 million people around the world will be at risk of hunger by the middle of the century, as a result of human-driven climate change.

To mark Environment Day, which this year focuses on small island states, US-based food policy group Food Tank has urged 'farmers and eaters' to take action ahead of the forthcoming Milan Protocol. The Milan Expo next year will see global policy makers coming together to discuss ways of improving public health, creating sustainable agriculture and reducing food waste (the aim is to cut avoidable waste by 50 percent by 2020).

A major problem to be addressed in the Protocol is the trend for crops going to the livestock and transport industries, while people go hungry. The Protocol points out that, today, a third of all crop production is destined for animal feed or transport biofuels, despite the fact that hunger remains widespread. A billion people worldwide are classed as hungry, though we currently produce enough food to feed all of the 9 billion expected to inhabit the planet by 2050.

Sustainable food experts therefore believe that "The task [before us] is not to increase output, but to produce what we do produce (or even less) by means that are kinder to people, livestock, and wildlife; more sustainable; and more resilient."

The Milan Protocol aims to see agricultural reforms passed to rebalance the land used for biofuels and feed, and to reign in financial speculation on foodstuffs.  

Drawing attention to the UN’s designation of 2014 as the ‘Year of Family Farming' on Thursday, the Food Tank’s Danielle Nierenberg said family farmers around the world are key to achieving sustainable agriculture. Nierenberg said these farms, often smaller and more diverse, "are already cultivating sustainable practices that will help protect the planet’s resources." The Food Tank Director said, "Family farmers are more than food producers, they are stewards of biodiversity, climate change fighters, and entrepreneurs, boosting local economies. To help them do their multiple jobs better, we need to invest more in family farmers—small and large—around the world."

Some have gone further, and called for efforts from governments and donors to support agroecology research and practice. This discipline, they argue can bolster production in food insecure areas and could, if ‘mainstreamed’, reduce the negative environmental and social impacts of agriculture in the West.

Agroecology draws on crop and soil science, ecology and social sciences to create long-term environmentally and socially sustainable agro-ecosystems. Proponents of agroecology have called for a reframing of the debate on food as a democratic one, rather than a business-centred idea of ‘feeding the world’, more one of ‘helping people to feed themselves’, and asking ourselves what sort of food system we want.  

Olivier de Schutter, UN rapporteur on the Right to Food, who delivered his final report to the Human Rights Council in March, said there is a need for radical democratic shift in agricultural policy around the globe. He said "Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don't open markets for chemical products or improved seeds," and so cannot be relied upon to deliver answers to the crises of food insecurity and environmental degradation that face us.