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The future of food safety

Transforming knowledge into action for people, economies and the environment












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    Book (stand-alone)
    Technical book
    Thinking about the future of food safety
    A foresight report
    2022
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    Agrifood systems are undergoing a transformation with the aim to provide safer, more affordable, and healthier diets for all, produced in a sustainable manner while delivering just and equitable livelihoods: a key to achieving the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, this transformation needs to be executed in the global context of major challenges facing the food and agriculture sectors, with drivers such as climate change, population growth, urbanization, and natural resources depletion compounding these challenges.Food safety is a keystone to agrifood systems and all food safety actors need to keep pace with the ongoing transformation while preparing to navigate the potential threats, disruptions, and challenges that may arise. Foresight in food safety facilitates the proactive identification of drivers and related trends, both within and outside agrifood systems, that have implications for food safety and therefore also for consumer health, the national economy, and international trade. Early identification and evaluation of drivers and trends promote strategic planning and preparedness to take advantage of emerging opportunities and address challenges in food safety.In this publication, the FAO Food Safety Foresight programme provides an overview of the major global drivers and trends by describing their implications for food safety in particular and for agrifood systems by extrapolation. The various drivers and trends reported include climate change, changing consumer behaviour and preferences, new food sources and production systems, technological advances, microbiome, circular economy, food fraud, among others. The intended audience for this publication is broad – from the policymakers, academia, food business operators, private sector, to all of us, the consumers.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Technical book
    The future of food safety
    Transforming knowledge into action for people, economies and the environment
    2020
    Also available in:

    This technical summary prepared by FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) reports on the two international food safety conferences held in Addis Ababa and Geneva in February and April 2019. It recalls the key actions and strategies presented to address current and future challenges to food safety globally and the steps required to strengthen commitment at the highest political level to scale up food safety in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At a pivotal moment focussing international attention on actions needed to bolster food safety, this publication recalls the priorities discussed so that food safety strategies and approaches can be aligned across sectors and borders, reinforcing efforts to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and supporting the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.
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    Meeting
    Meeting document
    Round Table on Imagining Future Healthy and Inclusive Food Systems in Asia and the Pacific 2018
    Asia and the Pacific is experiencing major demographic shifts and rapid urbanization. E-agriculture technologies (remote sensing, drones, sensors) are emerging, with potentially profound implications for the entire food system and management of the natural resource base. Structural transformation of the economy has also changed the nature of the food security problem. Earlier, many governments thought that producing more staple food was sufficient to improve food security. However, today’s economy, increasingly based on human capital and less on physical strength, requires that policies and programmes promote healthy diets for healthy people. This need for improved nutrition will require shifts in agricultural production and trade patterns. Solving the malnutrition problem in urban areas will also require different solutions than in rural areas, due to the difference in urban and rural food environments. In line with the structural transformation of the economy, farm households also increasingly rely on non-farm income to support their livelihoods and risk management strategies, which has implications for the uptake of new technologies. The demographic shifts, urbanization and structural changes in the economy, coupled with climate change, have made the food security and nutrition problem more complex than in the past. Solutions require input from different stakeholders, both public and private, as well as a range of government ministries, including health, finance, education, environment, trade and social welfare in addition to agriculture. This round table session will encourage delegates to exchange views on these challenges and share suggestions for creating healthy food systems that promote good nutrition and accelerate poverty reduction through inclusive and sustainable agricultural development.

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    Book (series)
    Flagship
    The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
    Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets
    2020
    Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions.The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    High-profile
    Status of the World's Soil Resources: Main Report 2015
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    The SWSR is a reference document on the status of global soil resources that provides regional assessments of soil change. The information is based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, complemented with expert knowledge and project outputs. It provides a description and a ranking of ten major soil threats that endanger ecosystem functions, goods and services globally and in each region separately. Additionally, it describes direct and indirect pressures on soils and ways and means to combat s oil degradation. The report contains a Synthesis report for policy makers that summarizes its findings, conclusions and recommendations.

    The full report has been divided into sections and individual chapters for ease of downloading:

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    Book (stand-alone)
    High-profile
    State of knowledge of soil biodiversity - Status, challenges and potentialities
    Report 2020
    2020
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    There is increasing attention to the importance of biodiversity for food security and nutrition, especially above-ground biodiversity such as plants and animals. However, less attention is being paid to the biodiversity beneath our feet, soil biodiversity, which drives many processes that produce food or purify soil and water. This report is the result of an inclusive process involving more than 300 scientists from around the world under the auspices of the FAO’s Global Soil Partnership and its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, and the European Commission. It presents concisely the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity, the threats to it, and the solutions that soil biodiversity can provide to problems in different fields. It also represents a valuable contribution to raising awareness of the importance of soil biodiversity and highlighting its role in finding solutions to today's global threats.