Blogs
November 19, 2024 • 5 min read
When we think about food, an abundance of things might come to mind, such as our favourite dish, a meal that evokes childhood memories, and how it can bring whole communities together. However, food and nutrition insecurity would hardly—or maybe even never—cross our minds. A right and a privilege that more than 49 million people currently do not have. These people are living in regions so food insecure that they are on the brink of famine. When they think about food, they think about survival.
As COP 29 progresses in Baku, Azerbaijan, global leaders, industry experts, and activists are engaged in critical discussions about climate financing. Over the 12 days of the conference, there is an opportunity to establish new climate finance targets, ensuring that all nations have the financial backing and resources required to enhance their climate action efforts. This is vital to address the current climate crisis.
Today, however, the conference’s Food, Agriculture, and Water Day focus is all about lowering environmental impact, building resilience, fostering biodiversity, and enhancing food security. You might ask why an entire day will be dedicated to food systems. The answer is that it has never been so imperative.
By 2031, the global population is projected to reach 8.6 billion people, with food consumption expected to increase by 1.4% over the decade. Consequently, our already overwhelmed global food systems will push 600 million people to be chronically undernourished by 2030.
Considering this data, GOAL recently published a Food and Nutrition Security Discussion Paper on the global state and impact of food insecurity. What we discovered was daunting, but this analysis also revealed a pathway to resilience within the agricultural and food sectors. Furthermore, our paper highlighted learnings from GOAL’s work supporting equitable access to food market systems worldwide, with recommendations for the Irish government and the international community.
The current state of our world, increasingly affected by a myriad of crises – from conflict and climate change to diseases – poses a major challenge on the road to food and nutrition security for all, especially for those in the Global South.
Most people facing acute food insecurity reside in protracted crisis contexts marked by prolonged civil discontent, conflict, increasingly recurrent extreme weather events, and economic decline. These crises often push people into forced displacement and migration, with hunger and malnutrition following suit. This results in further pressure on global and local food systems as food production and supply chains are disrupted and demand for the resources of host communities increases. Such disruptions have led to rising food prices, creating further challenges for communities trying to achieve food security as they struggle to afford the limited available food. As a result, hunger and malnutrition are expected to worsen.
With geopolitical, economic and climate crises on the rise, people are pushed to look for the cheapest options, often resorting to poorer quality, less nutritious foods. This disproportionately affects marginalised and vulnerable groups, such as women, children, racial and ethnic minorities, Indigenous Peoples, rural communities, migrants, displaced persons, and small-scale farmers.
Despite being major contributors to food systems, communities in the Global South are the most affected by food and nutrition insecurity. This is largely due to lower economic stability and limited access to resources, which stem from systemic inequalities and discrimination, geographic isolation, and health disparities that impact nutritional needs and opportunities.
Our food systems also have a significant impact on climate change. Currently, global food systems are responsible for 30 to 34% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with agriculture and other land use activities accounting for about 71% of these emissions. The agricultural expansion in response to rising demands for food poses a severe threat to biodiversity. While some of the biggest emitters are based in the Global North, the impacts of their activities are severely felt by food-insecure populations in the Global South. As inhabitants of a highly interconnected world, these realities might seem too distant and too out of touch for our actions to have real impact. However, the reality is that no action or policy is too small. Together, we can make a difference.
Since its foundation over 40 years ago, GOAL has worked in some of the most food-insecure countries, such as Niger, Honduras and Ethiopia, to mitigate the effects of the world’s worst crises on the global state of food and nutrition security. From increasing food and nutrition security for Nigerien small-scale farmers, promoting economic inclusion of divers with disabilities in fishing communities in Honduras, enhancing resilience to drought among Ethiopian pastoralists through improved food security and inclusive economic growth, and helping Ugandan communities grow nutrient-rich, sustainable crops and teaching farmers how to cultivate them successfully, GOAL has worked towards and called for the transformation of global food systems into more sustainable models. However, there is an urgent need to further implement policies and programmes that foster these new food production and distribution models to become more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable.
Food systems stand as the world’s largest economic system in terms of employment and livelihoods, and it is imperative to rally all its stakeholders – including producers, input suppliers, processors, distributors, and consumers – to catalyse its path to resilience, inclusion, and sustainability together. Facilitating equitable access of small-scale farmers to global systems, pushing for climate-smart and indigenous agricultural practices, investing in local Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), especially women-led, and engaging marginalised and vulnerable groups through policies and actions is key.
Food is so much more than what meets the plate. It is about fairness, adaptability, and the right to access nutritious foods for all. GOAL’s ultimate message goes to governments, international organisations and civil society: it is our time to work together. By creating sustainable systems to feed our existing generation and those to come, we are paving the way for a better reality and a brighter future. A reality in which everyone has food and nutrition security and a future where access to healthy food is a universal right, not a privilege. The time to ‘meet the plate’ is now.
Catarina Neves
Humanitarian & Development Research Coordinator, GOAL Global
