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A multiple challenge

Our planet has the capacity to provide a growing world population with enough nutritious and varied food, now and in the future. However almost 800 million people go hungry and about 2 billion are malnourished. About 30 percent of the global adult population is overweight or obese, and around 30 percent of food produced worldwide is lost or wasted. Food systems are both contributing to and affected by challenges including climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss. They rely on a natural resource base that is becoming increasingly fragile and scarce. Unless consumption and production patterns are brought to operate within planetary boundaries, such pressures will further increase with population and economic growth.

A multi-stakeholder, systems-based response

Responding to these many challenges requires a systems-based approach that addresses the range and complexity of interactions in the production and consumption of food. The Sustainable Food System (SFS) Programme contributes to this by building synergies and cooperation among stakeholders along the pathway to more sustainable food systems.

Work areas and focus themes

The SFS Programme has four work areas and five cross-cutting focus themes that guide the Programme towards the achievement of its goal.

The four work areas are:

Raising awareness on the need to adopt SCP patterns in food systems
Building enabling environments for sustainable food systems
Increasing the access to and fostering the application of actionable knowledge, information and tools to mainstream SCP in food systems
Strengthening collaboration among food system stakeholders to increase the sector’s SCP performance

Each work area has a dedicated Task Force.

The following are the five focus themes that are being addressed under these four work areas:

Sustainable diets
Sustainability along all food value chains
Reduction of food losses and waste
Local, national, regional multi-stakeholder platforms
Resilient, inclusive, diverse food production systems

The Toolbox:

The SFS Programme is also developing a toolbox, comprised by tools that are aimed at providing guidance and knowledge on shifting to sustainable food systems: