“How can we change the food system in order for it to provide us with healthy food, save environment and make a business sense?” “Should we give up on our planet if the solutions don’t make business sense?” and “Does food production need stricter regulation and how does business get on board of the global race for sustainability?”
We have long known that what we eat affects our health, but we are only beginning to grasp how much our food affects the environment, close to home and around the world.
Protracted crises are among the most challenging contexts in which to fight food insecurity and malnutrition. Driven by multiple underlying causes such as recurrent natural or human made disasters, weak governance and unsustainable livelihood systems, protracted crises affect an estimated 366 million people worldwide.
In the past scaling-up in agriculture was all about the ways extension could help informing farmers more effectively and about application of the good agricultural practice research.
The development of knowledge based bio-economies is increasingly seen as a pathway towards a sustainable economic growth based on renewable resources, moving away from the fossil fuel economy and responding to pressing local and global challenges, including climate change.
The world is becoming a more urbanized place, currently about 50% of the worlds´ population lives in cities and the proportion is expected to increase to almost 70% in 2050. The increase is likely to be particularly prominent in Africa and Asia, where urban population is expected to double between 2000 and 2030.
There is a growing need for a deepened knowledge among different stakeholders in Sweden and globally about the need for a transition of the agriculture sector to an approach based on biodiversity and ecosystem services (as for example biological control, water regulation, nutrient circulation processes) and on local knowledge, creativity and initiative combined with cross-learning over networks
The food security discourse has weak focus on the agro-pastoral systems typical for sub-Saharan drylands. These regions have 40% planetary land cover and host 1/3 of its population - often among the poorest. Much of these lands are degraded for food security and livelihood potentials. Trees are important structural components in these systems and related to attempts of restoration.
Conference organizers have managed to facilitate stimulating discussions in spite of the very short time at hand and, while I am not learning that much about resilience, there are many other insights to be gained!