The ways we produce and consume our food pose an escalating threat.
Across the world, dietary inadequacy is wrecking public health. Up to 756 million people are estimated to be hungry. More than 675 million adults are obese. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease kill 41 million each year – almost two-thirds of all deaths globally. At least 1.2 billion women are short of vitamins and minerals, which exposes them to chronic fatigue, low resistance to infections and birth defects in their offspring. Likewise, almost 400 million pre-school-age children, who are consequently at risk of impaired brain development and diminished learning capacity.
Three-quarters of the people who are unable to afford a healthy diet live in low- and lower-middle-income countries
And still, rather than halt and reverse, we take wrong dietary turns. Ultra-processed foods are becoming normalized. Healthy diets, by contrast, are unaffordable to four people in ten.
All the while, agrifood systems in their current form tend to jeopardize soils, forests and waters. Most biodiversity loss can be laid at the door of agrifood systems, as can much deforestation. They are responsible for an estimated one-third of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fuelling climate change. In turn, erratic weather patterns accelerate environmental damage and cast healthy diets further out of reach.
"One thing we have done really wrong is to take diversity out of our agrifood systems. We need to put it back in. And we need to think carefully about how we produce more of it."
Corinna Hawkes, Director, Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division, FAO
©FAO/Desmond Kwande
Recent FAO research has put the hidden social, health and environmental cost of agrifood systems in their present form at a staggering USD 12.7 trillion in purchasing power parity – equivalent to the combined annual GDP of Germany and Japan. Nearly three-quarters of this cost is associated with labour productivity losses from diet-related NCDs.
