Foreword

This corporate report The future of food and agriculture – Drivers and triggers for transformation is the culmination of efforts that mobilized hundreds of technical experts in domains related to agrifood systems, both within and outside the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). All of them contributed to the Corporate Strategic Foresight Exercise (CSFE), a forward-looking effort aimed at identifying possible transformative patterns for agrifood systems towards sustainability and resilience. It is a foresight exercise whose ambition is to enable all readers to gain a vision that encompasses potential alternative futures and inform decision-making processes. It does so knowing that shedding light on the complexities of agrifood systems and their interrelations with broader socioeconomic and environmental systems is a tall order.

All these experts engaged in identifying key “triggers” for transformation and their impacts on socioeconomic and environmental outcomes, including food security, nutrition, natural resources, ecosystems restoration and climate change. They were conscious of the crucial role that agrifood systems play in achieving the “four betters” to which the Organization aspires: better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life. The findings of these efforts contributed to elaborate FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31. The logical next step of this endeavour was to share them with all stakeholders that have common values and aspirations. As such, this report presents the richness of the discussions, analyses and findings that emerged during the entire CSFE to all those who are concerned with the future of agrifood systems.

As pointed out by the United Nations Secretary-General, many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are off-track, including those to which agrifood systems are expected to contribute. The COVID-19 pandemic, economic downturns and ongoing conflicts all add to the creation of even greater challenges in achieving such SDGs. The previous FAO reports on the future of food and agriculture had already clearly stated that a “business as usual” approach would lead to a worrying future, characterized by increasing uncertainties and exacerbated inequalities. There is an urgent need to accelerate transformative processes in which agrifood systems interact with broader socioeconomic and environmental systems.

Consequently, this report highlights four key triggers for the transformation of agrifood systems: improved governance; increased consumer awareness; better income and wealth distribution; widespread technological, social and institutional innovations. All of them will have to be activated by means of suitable public strategies and policies, and through the participation of all stakeholders. Along this transformative pathway, choices will have to be made to trade off contrasting objectives, such as increasing immediate consumption and well-being versus investing to ensure a better future, or deciding how to charge the costs of unsustainable development to wealthier societies to assist poorer ones. This implies overcoming vested interests and reconciling different visions.

The key message of this report is that it is still possible to move agrifood systems along a pattern of sustainability and resilience. The broader socioeconomic and environmental systems could move in the same direction – which means short-term unsustainable achievements will have to be traded off for longer-term sustainability and resilience. Along this pattern, one can always find recourse by recalling the words of the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci: “…my mind is pessimistic, but my will is optimistic. Whatever the situation, I imagine the worst that could happen in order to summon up all my reserves and will power to overcome every obstacle.” I hope this corporate report is a positive contribution in this direction.

QU Dongyu
FAO Director-General