The climate, soil and hunger crises are deeply linked to the unsustainable model by which we produce our food, which has effects on our health and that of the planet. On the occasion of World Food Day, the editorial by Navdanya International.
The celebration of World Food Day this year falls shortly after the publication of a concerning report on the state of our planet by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Ipcc). The authors note that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, by 2040 the atmosphere will have warmed by up to 1.5 degrees above what are considered pre-industrial era levels. The risks associated with this phenomenon are numerous: coastal flooding, intensification of drought, increased wildfires, further food shortages and rising poverty.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also mentioned in the report in relation to climate change. Goal number 13 calls for urgent action to address climate change and its effects, such as increasing resilience and adaptive capacity to climate. They are also cited in the goals related to poverty, hunger, cities and education. It is indeed necessary to control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions across all relevant sectors, including energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management sectors. Without forgetting to work towards the conservation and enhancement of biomass, forests, seas and oceans, as well as other terrestrial, coastal and marine resources.
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The report also states that rising temperatures would mean an intensification of the use of technologies created to remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. The effectiveness of such techniques has not, however, been demonstrated at large scale, and some of them may entail significant risks for sustainable development. The solution to the climate crisis therefore cannot be short-term and conceived within the same ideological paradigm that created the problem, clumsily intervening to patch up the damage. Beyond this, despite the clear indications from the United Nations and the Paris Agreement, local and national policies very often move in the opposite direction.
The soil crisis, the climate crisis, the ecosystem crisis, forced migration, hunger, pollution, the agrarian crisis, the fragmentation of territories and communities, the health and food crisis are all deeply interconnected and rooted in the extractivist paradigm and in the way our food is produced and distributed today, as Navdanya International highlighted in the report Terra Viva. We have transformed the biosphere by eliminating 70 per cent of grassland, 50 per cent of savannah, 45 per cent of temperate deciduous forest, and 27 per cent of tropical forest, all to make way for industrial agriculture, which contributes between 24 and 33 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
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The dominant technological and economic model, based on fossil fuels, does not take into account the finite nature of resources and is devastating the planet, severing the Earth from its cycles of renewal and the laws of ecological returns. The essential characteristic of this paradigm is to see ourselves and life not as part of the whole, but as separate and isolated. Indeed, there are three illusory perceptions of separation that prevent the transformation of the way we perceive and understand soil and land, food and work, the economy and democracy. The first is that human beings are separate from the Earth; the second is that the creation of wealth in the market is separate from the contribution of others (nature, workers, women, previous generations); and the third is that actions are separate from consequences and rights are separate from responsibilities.
The same linear and mechanistic approach, which radically refuses to address global crises in a systemic and multisectoral way, is evident in the way the connections between agri-food systems and our health are still approached today. As highlighted in the "Food for Health" manifesto by Navdanya International, agriculture and industrial processing are at the root of two issues essential to our health. The first concerns the loss of biodiversity and therefore of nutrient diversity in our diets. The second concerns the health cost we pay as a result of the toxic substances and contaminants present in food.
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In order to achieve higher yields, industrial agriculture introduces toxic substances into the soil, water and air that in one way or another enter the food chain and threaten human health. The industrial processing of food entails, finally, a further process of impoverishment. Diets based on poor-quality, low-nutritional-value foods can in fact cause a long series of chronic diseases. These are diseases often considered to be lifestyle-related, but which are in reality caused by inadequate food systems.
On World Food Day, reflection is imperative on the part of all actors in the food and health system. An alternative approach to food security that is effective does exist, and it is based on biodiversity, combines quantity and quality, and maximises the health benefits for both the planet and people. It replaces destructive trends with policies, practices and knowledge that instead ensure renewal — understood as a rediscovered resilience of natural food systems — systems that work in harmony with nature, are grounded in food sovereignty and in returning seeds to the hands of farmers, respect environmental impacts, and help prevent global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions produced by industrial agriculture and long-distance trade.
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The right to health can become effective only if the right to good nutrition is also recognised and respected. Transforming our food systems is crucial not only to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, but also to ensuring the health of people and the planet.