Agriculture is the backbone of a civilization, accounting for 26% of total employment globally and 4% of global gross domestic product. Today, the agrifood system is an amalgamation of actors assisting the journey from farm to fork, including a range of actors involved in the production of food and non-food products, storage, aggregation, transportation, processing, and distribution, until consumption and disposal. Agrifood systems are integral to ensuring universal food security and providing adequate nutrition, and in recent years, there has been a substantial thrust toward developing a sustainable and efficient agrifood system—one that is resilient to the shocks of socio-political, economic, and climatic events.
Appreciating the context, the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Corporate Statistical Database, aims to close the gap on hunger and malnutrition by providing an exhaustive database from a total of 245 countries and territories. The database delves into a plethora of indicators such as demographics, gender, economic and political stability, and climate change. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) acts as a custodian for 21 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators, including the eradication of hunger and the prevalence of food insecurity.
Similarly, the recently introduced ‘Food and Diet’ domain in the FAOSTAT portal provides comprehensive data on the availability of food, dietary intake patterns, and diversity of foods based on extensive surveys. The database further aims to offer substantial insights for nation-states to develop their agrifood systems per their nation’s dietary patterns.
The need to reorganise global
agrifood systems
Global agrifood systems have evolved immensely over the past few decades, particularly due to the advent of advanced technologies and extensive research and development methodologies. However, there are several risk factors that decrease the efficiency of an agrifood system, further hampering adequate nutrition for all.
The State of Food and Agriculture report, published annually by the FAO, reveals a dark truth: the hidden costs of the global agrifood system are contributed by factors such as greenhouse gas and nitrogen emissions, water and land consumption, pesticide exposure, land degradation, and poverty. To recognise the urge to enhance nutrition and improve food security, it becomes crucial to address the true hidden costs scattered across the agrifood system. Studies have shown that adopting healthier and more sustainable dietary patterns helps in around a 76% reduction in costs related to climate change. Further, the inclusion of health and environmental costs in the total cost of diets would lower the overall wholesale costs, promoting healthier and more sustainable dietary habits.
Way forward
The robust database offers an opportunity for nation-states to develop comprehensive food systems targeted at understanding the consumption and availability of nutrition sources and further eliminating the various forms of malnutrition.FAOSTAT’s extensive database could be pivotal for true cost accounting (TCA) in the agrifood system. TCA, which involves a holistic evaluation of all costs associated with the system, would be imminent in determining the hidden costs along the way, further assisting in lowering the overall food production costs and thereby promoting healthier dietary habits.
Drawing from the existing model, nation-states could utilise the database’s indicators to develop a domestic/nationalised portal, with national concerns of interest highlighted through ground-level and latest insights. This would encourage various stakeholders to develop strategies to strengthen infrastructure and encourage healthier dietary patterns through behavioural policies.
Addressing the need to reorganise the agrifood systems across the world is a first step in the right direction. It is now crucial for nations to realise this urgency and implement robust tactics to eliminate chronic hunger, extreme poverty, and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 (as per the SDG targets) to truly impact the lives of current and future generations.
(The author, Ms. Archana Sinha, is the co-founder and CEO of the Nourishing School Foundation.)