Is Global Food Security a Solvable Puzzle? (Part 1)

500 scientists from 60 countries gathered at the 5th Global Food Security Conference in Leuven, Belgium. Instead of saying, "you had to be there," we bring you voices and reflections from the conference. Host Matthew Kessler recorded dozens of interviews, asking experts what key messages they want to deliver to those with the power to change food systems, what are the economics of food systems transformation, and which solutions to make food systems more resilient deserve more attention.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series, made with the support from ‘shout it out’, an instrument of the Global Minds program.

For more info and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode63

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Guests

• Martin van Ittersum, Conference co-chair, Professor at Wageningen University
• Tessa Avermaete, Conference co-chair, Project Manager at KU Leuven
• Ramya Ambikapathi, Scientific committee member, Senior Researcher at Cornell U
• Gerard Govers, Programme committee mebmer, Vice-rector of Science, Engineering and Technology and Vice-rector of Sustainability at KU Leuven
• Joanna Trewern, Conference Keynote, Director of Partnerships and Institutional Engagement at Pro Veg International
• Maitre d’hotel at Coeur Catering, responsible for food served at the conference

Conference Organizers

• Elsevier
• KU Leuven
• Wageningen University and Research
• TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Transcript

David Laborde

The goal of the world was by 2030. To eradicate hunger, we are not on the right track.

Joanna Trewern

I think the key challenge that we face in terms of achieving food security is how we manage demand within planetary boundaries.

Tim Searchinger

One core food system problem is that the politics of agriculture prevent the kinds of policies that push agriculture to be more environmentally sustainable,

Steven Lord

But if you do it the right way then you can maintain a cost effective way of changing the system.

Tessa Avermaete

So I think one thing to make our food system more sustainable is really in educating people. And let's start with young people with our children. 

Glenn Denning

We need to shift to healthy diets. I estimate that around half of the world's population is either consuming too little or too much.

Haneen Dwaib

It's not enough just to do research, we need to implement it. 

John Ingram

All interventions are context specific. And all interventions have negative consequences.

Ken Giller

One thing we are much better at these days is trying to link things up and look at the bigger picture.

Purnima Menon

What do we know about what people eat? You know, how can we understand that better? How can we understand that in a way that also helps to identify entry points for the kinds of transformations that we need to see. 

Matthew Kessler

Over a year ago, I had a somewhat surprising and intriguing request, I was asked to join the program committee of the next global food security conference. This was its fifth edition. What started with a focus on food production has shifted into a larger discussion about food systems, thinking about nutrition, consumption, economics, environmental and social issues.

Tessa

Well, I think there are already many conferences, of course when it comes to food and farming. But what we need also is to have one global food security conference, which is interdisciplinary, which brings together scientists from all over the globe. 

Matthew  

That was Tessa Avermaete, researcher, economist and project manager at KU Leuven, and one of the two conference co chairs alongside Martin Van Ittersum. For Tessa, this conference is more than an opportunity to present your work and go home.

Tessa

Here for this conference. We have been thinking a lot also about all the other things around the conference, for example, the dialogue, the fact that we are here with you TABLE Debates, organizing this dialogue, organizing the podcast is really important, but also the catering what we eat, what we drink during the conference is not just any more we organize a conference, we go we present and we go back. There's also a lot of people coming for example by train, thinking how can we make it as sustainable as possible and that's nice to see that real evolution is fuel. Compare that with 10-20 years ago.

Matthew  

Welcome to Feed, a food systems podcast presented by TABLE. I'm Matthew Kessler. Over the next few episodes, we’re going to take a short break from our Nature Season.  In April 2024, I joined over 500 scientists from 60 countries for the Global Food Security Conference. We spent a week together in the beautiful city of Leuven in Belgium. I recorded dozens of interviews with conference presenters,
organizers, and keynotes.

For the regular listeners of Feed – you won’t hear me doing my typical asides, where I either interject, add context, or push back. Just like at the conference, you’re going to hear different approaches on how to make food systems more resilient.

In this episode, we hear the key messages that scientists want food systems decision makers to hear. We talk about the role that emotions play in discussions about the future of food, whether we should use the F word – feminism – when advocating for critical approaches to food systems, and we’ll hear from the head of catering at the conference– and how they think about sustainability in the food they serve.

But first, let's set the scene just as we did it Leuven with Martin Van Ittersum, professor at the plant production systems group at Wageningen University and co-chair of the conference, talking about the past, present and future challenges when facing global food security.

Martin van Ittersum  

In my lifetime, basically 60 years , 1962 to today 2020, we have seen a population grow from three to 8 billion people on our planet. And yet today, we have more calories on our plate than we had in 1960 per capita per person. That's the average. Thanks to that, let's say the intensification of agriculture, increasing productivity, food prices went down, which made food affordable for many on the planet. And we have fewer undernourished people than well, not ever before, let's say until 2015, that the trend was really downward. So fewer fewer hungry people on our planet that has stagnated that over the past, let's say 10 years, and even increased recently, thanks to well, all kinds of conflicts in the world, COVID, the war in Ukraine with Russia etc. So, and at the same time, we have seen, so this decrease in undernourishment now, stabilization, but a massive transfer to another problem, which is overweight and obesity. In fact, many more people, overweight and obese now,  then there are hungry on our planet. And it's everywhere, maybe with the exception, that in Africa, it's less prominent, but it's everywhere. And then the final trend is, of course, the environmental problems that came with the intensification. So nitrogen surplus, for instance, or greenhouse gas emissions or the land use that is taken by agriculture. That's all very substantial. And it's a significant contribution to the environmental crisis that we are facing. 

Matthew

One thing I want to ask you about as we live in this globalized food system, but each region in the world faces a completely different set of circumstances. And I think you identified two in particular trends in high income countries and trends in low income countries. Could you perhaps talk a little bit about the state of affairs of global food systems and global food security and in high income countries and low income countries?

Martin van Ittersum  

I think that's a very pertinent question. Because I mean, talking about global numbers hides so much of the regional differences, we can talk about global problems, but actually, they are so different from one region to the other. So two extremes that I highlighted in my presentation, if you look at the drivers towards the future, that will determine let's say, food requirements, and what we can and should do in the food system. Two extremes, one is Sub Saharan Africa, where population will double until 2050, and even further increase, maybe almost double again towards the end of this century. Moreover, they are on average in lower income levels. So if their income increases, which is the projection, then it's very likely that they will consume more calories, more like animal based products, etc, which is, I think, all logical, and these people deserve that. So that means that in Sub Saharan Africa, demand will increase a lot. So increasing availability, production, and avoid that the trend of expansion of agriculture area continues. That's a prime thing that we need to focus on from my point of view in Africa. The other extreme is Europe, where population does not increase, actually slightly decreasing. It's an aging population. It's a population that is actually eating too much of many products. And at the same time, we are facing environmental problems. So we have the possibility we are in a position as Europe to focus not so much on productivity, but to focus on cleaner production, more healthy production, so to focus on planetary and human health. And that, let's say it sets the scene for two very different challenges of improving and changing the food system in two very different regions.

Matthew  

And zooming out to the global lens. I see that we have these shared problems around the environmental impacts of different foods. We have the expansion of agricultural land which takes up presently 50% of habitable land across the planet.

Martin van Ittersum 

I think it's important to notice that the increase in production in, let's say, in Europe, and America has come by far, mostly from increasing yields, and actually in a contraction of area, so smaller agricultural area we're using today than in the 1960s. The other extreme, again, is Africa, where we are using much more lands today than we did in 1960s. And the yields have increased, but not a lot. So the increase in production in Africa comes predominantly from area expansion, not from increasing yields per hectare. So if we want to avoid that, that continues, a productivity increase is inevitable that has to happen.

Matthew  

So that's one of the kinds of solutions that's thinking about how do we narrow this yield gap? What other solutions would you like to highlight here to meet any of these great global challenges that we face.

Martin van Ittersum  

So I separated the challenges, it does not mean that we should not learn from each other. And I think if Africa intensifies, and let's hope it happens, then hopefully they won't make the mistakes that we made in Europe and in China and other places on the planet. And we overshoot and apply too much nutrients and apply too much pesticides in a non-informed manner. The other thing is maybe in respect to diets, we in Europe, in America, went from a place of poor or moderate nutrition right away to over nutrition in just a generation's lifetime. Let's hope we learn from this. And we can we can avoid these kinds of problems. At the same time, I think we can learn from African systems in terms of diversity in terms of integrating crop and livestock, whereas we tended to specialize more and more have, let's say, more simple crop systems. So these are things that still we can learn from each other. And that can contribute  to solutions. They are not always, they are certainly not the single solutions. I think we always have to contextualize.

Matthew  

Is there anything else you wanted to share? You wanted me to ask you that I haven’t? 

Martin van Ittersum  

It’s clear there are many challenges with respect to the food system that we need to improve, and some call it a transformation is needed. Others may say, well, we need to do better, or we need to revise the food system. I think what Michael Puma said in his keynote address is very valid. And that says, well take away the bad things from the food system. But don't throw away the baby with the bathwater. So don't throw away the good things of the current food system and actually - cherish the  positive things also, because it's very risky to do a major overhaul of the food system without knowing exactly what the new situation should look like, and what the trade-offs are of new situations.

Matthew  

So do we aim for tweaks and reforms to improve the system? Or do we aim for radical transformation? Here's another view.

Ramya Ambikapathi

My name is Ramya Ambikapathi. I'm a nutrition epidemiologist and a senior research associate at Cornell University.

Matthew  

We're at the Global Food Security Conference in Leuven. And we're hearing a lot of different presentations. One thing maybe we're not hearing as much about as feminist approaches to food systems. Can you talk about why that's an important lens to look at food systems and food system transformation? 

Ramya

Food Systems are gendered. Foods are gendered. Food environments are gendered - who's selling, who's buying, what kind of foods we like. And if you want to look at the kind of emissions that's produced, even after adjusting for calories, it's actually high income urban men that you should be targeting. But that sort of conversation doesn't take place. It's sort of this blanket, we need to eat better for the planet. So I think feminist approaches give you that sort of lens to see that yes, indeed, it is gendered. So you need a sort of the social approaches like what are structures and norms are leading to these sort of patterns of employment, like for example, the feminization of agriculture or the fact that women are in the value chain and the supply chain or they're still part of like, they're still doing all the processing, but they're not doing like, the marketing, like they do all the hard labor of like cleaning, cutting, opening the shrimp peels that are there, all that stuff. But then when it comes to marketing, that is still aggregated and done by men. I just want to say that feminism is not about women. It's about really marginalized populations in different contexts. So it could be young women, young boys, it's about who doesn't have opportunities, who doesn't have the capabilities or what's being taken away from them.

Matthew  

So you just made it incredibly clear why it's important to be thinking about gender in the food system? What message would you want key decision makers in the food system to hear in a way that isn't just say, tokenistic or checking a box?

Ramya

So this is a constant debate whether to use the F word or not. So you don't have to use the feminist word but people do I mean, people still use participatory and some of it is absolutely being co opted and watered, like saying, oh participatory, engaged with the researcher that's participatory. Participatory is about a process, in that process you're giving voices to people who have not been at the table historically, and who really should  be part of it, because it's affecting them. I mean, you wouldn't want someone else kind of shaping your food environments, your food choices. To me, I think when I think about feminist approaches, it's the level of dignity human dignity that you afford yourself should be afforded to others.

Matthew

What are you eating right now?

Conference attendee #1

What I'm eating? I don't know. But it's really delicious. 

Conference attendee #2

I'm impressed. And also very hungry.

Matthew

How’s the food?

Conference attendee #3

Food is good. It's nice. It's all veggie. No complaints.

Matthew

Okay. Where are we right now?

Maitre d’

We are in the Jubilieum Hall in Leuven, we're doing like a conference, four days and we’re serving the food here.

Matthew

And who are you? What do you do for a living? What's your name?

Maitre d’

So my name is Tijo and I'm the Maitre d’hotel. So basically, I manage and I'm responsible for the service and the catering area.

Matthew

When did you know that you wanted to work with food?

Maitre d’

Well, it started as like a student job which was in catering. And basically, I liked it so much that I just stick around.

Matthew

You're leading the catering for this conference, we have something like 500 people attending and you're responsible for the food. How do you think about the food at a conference like this?

Maitre d’

Well, as co catering, which is a company where I work for, we tend to like, try to push a lot of vegetarian and vegan options. During the four days that there are sessions and food here. The whole menu is vegetarian, which we really like. And we think it's exciting and challenging to get people that are not really vegetarian themselves, like a good healthy option.

Matthew

So sometimes when you go to a conference, and you have a vegetarian option, it's not a very exciting option. What you're serving here is very different. How did you think about what you wanted to put out at each of these meals?

Maitre d’

Well, to be honest, I'm not a chef. Of course. Usually, yeah we have a lot of great chefs in the kitchen with a lot of creativity. We also do serve some like very basic dishes and basic sandwiches, but always try to put on it like a little twist. So for example, we had like a sandwich with cheese. Yeah, we had some mustard with add some like seaweed cheese instead of like regular like plain cheese. So yeah, we always try to put on a little twist, make it more exciting.

Matthew

And I've had some interesting dishes. Can you describe one of the dishes that you especially like?

Maitre d’

Well, I really like the radicchio salad, which is made with radicchio, goat cheese, almonds, grapes, a grape dressing I guess.

Matthew

I've just noticed more generally, it seems like there's more thought given to sustainability in the meals. So one of those is providing vegetarian meals. But in what other ways are you thinking about sustainability?

Maitre d’

Yeah, we tend to do a lot like during the Tuesday during the reception, like one of the depths on the table was a guaca-nole we call it so instead of guacamole, it's a guaca-nole which means we don't use avocado. And it's that we use I forget word in English. celeriac Yeah, celeriac. I always forget it for some reason, and I always have to double check what I'm serving. But so instead of in guacamole, it's a guaca-nole with celeriac instead of avocado. Which is like way more friendly to the environment. Yeah, we take local vegetables instead of like importing those. Yesterday we we took all of the leftovers that we had, we made to take away meals so to also try to fight food waste. That's yeah, something we always try to do when we know like, there might be a lot of food leftover, we try to do something like that. 

Matthew

So I think we're basically done. Maybe maybe one thing about where the food's coming from where you're where you're sourcing your ingredients.

Maitre d’

So we are Ghent. So we're sourcing the food from like all of the local like as most much locally as possible. So for example, our cheese, we get it from like, local dairies around Ghent and our mustard is like Ghent mustard, the olives are made by like, a company from Ghent. Yeah, we try to put as much effort into that stuff as possible, also, like the beer we use is from here from Leuven as well.

Matthew

What's your favorite beer from Leuven?

Maitre d’

Well, as a like regular Pilsner, I prefer Stella like to anything. So thats local beer that we used for the reception, so I was happy about that.

Matthew

And we're not gonna get royalties for this promotion. So I think we can leave it there, and I'll let you get back to work. Thanks very much for speaking with us.

Maitre d’

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

Matthew (read-out)

Do you want the inside track on Food Systems? In TABLE's fortnightly newsletter, FODDER, we summarise the latest on food systems - journal articles, reports, books, media trends, events and jobs. Click on the link in the podcast show notes to join the growing community of over 4,000 food systems professionals.

Gerard Govers

What are the material foundations for a large part of our world, and then we deal with silicium, with sand, we deal with salt, we deal with oil, we deal with copper, we deal with lithium, and some other stuff. The funny thing is, nobody bothers about it, nobody is really worried about it. Nobody has concerns about it. We all have a smartphone. But we don't care really a lot about how it is produced where all these materials come from. And then comes food. And then everybody has an idea about you know what should happen and how it should be done et cetera, et cetera.

Matthew 

That's Gerard Govers, who is on the programme committee for the conference, he’s a Professor of Geography at KU Leuven, where the conference is hosted, and…

Gerard

Since seven years now, I've been Vice Rector of Science and Technology here at KU Leuven. And as well as of sustainability.

Matthew  

Gerard is curious about our different relationships with the built and natural environment, and how we might care less about some of the material foundations of what makes up our world, salt, sand, copper, lithium. But that's not really the case when it comes to food.

Gerard

So food is really very close to, you know, the essence of our being. And why is that important to consider that that is because when things are very close to the essence of our being, we get emotional about it. So it's not only we're no longer only looking at, you know, facts and trying to understand things, it becomes emotional too, as well, there are feelings involved. That's not a bad thing. Emotions is not a bad thing. That's not the point. But it is really important to be aware of that. Because if you are not, then you are falling in what you could call an emotion trap. As a scientist, you should be objective, you should try to look at facts, and you should try to reason based on facts. If your emotions get in the way of this scientific reasoning, then we cannot expect you to know to achieve, let's say, optimal outcomes in terms of analysis, but not only in terms of analysis, also in terms of policy outcomes, and further development. So it's really quite important to be aware of the fact that your perception, your view, your approach may partly be driven by emotional motives. That's not bad as such, but it needs to be taken into account. And of course, the other side of the medal is then look, if humans are emotional beings, and if food is related to emotions, then of course, we cannot think about the sustainable global food system, if we don't take these emotions into account. I mean, if people do not feel happy about, you know, the way food is produced, the way it is brought to them, the way they can enjoy it, then we don't have a really sustainable system. Because you know, if they are not emotionally happy about it, they will be unhappy. And that's not what we want. You can't call that sustainable. 

Matthew 

Just on the last point, thinking that perhaps the most efficient solution from a resource-use efficiency point of view, from thinking about better economic outcomes, doesn't always line up with where people's values are and what their preferred preferences are. And I think that's one of the challenges following your other observation, which is that everyone enters these conversations from a very particular place from from a region from a context where what's important to them, is different. Some people care more about the loss of local biodiversity. Others carry out livelihoods in the region and making sure they have a strong kind of rural community. Farmers obviously care about their bottom line to continue farming into the future and passing that on to future generations. And I think all these different priorities have led us to this state of polarization. And the media ecosystem has also amplified that. So I wonder what is our role as scientists, as researchers, in navigating this polarization towards better food outlets?

Gerard 25:30

You know, that's a major challenge, Matthew, and I don't think there is anybody on the planet who can say, you look, I have the solution for this. The fact you know, once emotions become involved, okay, we take a certain position, and then you know, we kind of reverse, we tend to find those arguments that justify how we feel about it, rather than looking for arguments and then determining how we should feel about a certain issue. What can scientists do about that? Well, to try to objectify the debate. I'll give an example, we had important discussions in the food debate about for instance, organic agriculture. And some people will tell you Look, we should go to organic agriculture, because that is better for the environment. Now, there are many instances where that is objectively not true. Look, if you go for organic agriculture, what will happen is basically your yields will go down. And the second thing that will happen is and these yields that's not only, for instance, grain yields, but it's also yields in terms of the kilograms of meat that you will produce per unit of time, whether or not it’s chicken or beef doesn't matter. Well, that means that if you then going to calculate, you know, what is now the co2 emission per unit of product that generally for organic production, that's going to be higher than for very efficient conventional production. So that's something that scientists can bring to the table, they don't have to say look, I have to defend conventional agriculture, I can still say, Look, this is what the situation is. But even giving these disadvantages of organic agriculture, there may be some room to have organic agriculture in some circumstances and under certain conditions, only, let's not expect you know, benefits from that organic agriculture that will not be there, that is really quite important.

Matthew 

Finally, Joanna Trewern, Head of Research at Pro Veg International. 

Joanna

Pro Veg is a food awareness organization working on food systems transformation. Specifically the transition to more plant rich diets around the world.

Matthew

And you’ll be giving a keynote at our panel debate that is looking at how do we manage food demand within planetary boundaries, which seems like this enormous task but an incredibly important one. How do you think about, how do you approach this?

Joanna

First of all, fitting that subject into a 20 minute keynote speech has been fun as you can imagine.

Matthew

And a three minute talk right now.

Joanna

And a three minute talk right now, indeed. 

Joanna

There are three key messages that I want to deliver. The first one is that, we need to recognize that what we want from our food system has changed over time, right? After the Second World War, we had one central goal, which was to feed the hungry, to feed people. What we have now is this complex, nuanced triple challenge, the need to feed people nutritious food, but also addressing climate change and restoring nature. We're now looking at these three interlinked things rather than just the one goal of addressing hunger. That's the first message. The second one is really, that we cannot tackle this triple challenge, or secure a livable future on this planet, without managing demand. That much is clear from all the research that is coming out on food systems, we're already exceeding planetary boundaries with the food system we've got. And that doesn't even take into account the projections of increased demand. So unless we can address demand, we've lost basically. And the third one is that if we are to effectively manage demand, we need to take a food systems approach. By that I mean, we need solutions that work across the value chain, from production to consumption, and everything in between. But we also need a comprehensive set of solutions, which are a mix between things that policymakers and business leaders can do today. So politically feasible and possible things within our current system, and more ambitious but difficult to implement actions that really involve changing the system so that it's not all about eating and producing more.

Matthew 

What we're talking about here is systemic change. And there's a question of, how do we get there? You spoke about the incentives are not perhaps geared in the right direction, in what direction should the incentives for food systems be?

Joanna

I think there are three things that I particularly want to highlight that give me hope. The first one is, what can we really do with fiscal or financial incentives? This could be about repurposing agricultural subsidies. So we know, if you look at the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe, four times as much is spent on livestock farming than horticulture or plant agriculture, there's something there that we need to look at, if we want people to eat more plants and less meat. The second one is really public procurement. And in particular, school food. I think this is a critical lever. It's something that's popular, you know, people want those in hospitals, in schools, and in other public settings to be fed good food. And that's nutritious food that's good for them, but also food that's good for the planet. And public procurement is a lever that can really influence the whole system from supply to demand by creating secure markets for local farmers, as well as delivering that good quality food at the other end of the chain. And the third one is social marketing campaigns. I've been involved in quite a bit of work, looking at beliefs around food and kind of consumer perceptions. And one of the things that we see, particularly in Europe is that consumers think that you need to eat lots of meat to have a nutritious diet. And they don't really think in that same way about plants. So we need interventions that start addressing those beliefs to help people understand that they can have a good diet that is plant rich. And I believe that social marketing campaigns that are based on behavioral science principles are a great way to start achieving that.

Matthew 

Let's say you have the ear of key decision makers in the food system, you're in a room with them, what would you tell them that they should be acting on right now?

Joanna

The one message I would want them to take home is that we need more diversity in the system. And that is something that can lead to a whole host of solutions from I don't know producing more local vegetables all the way through to delivering better quality public meals, and ensuring that we have better ranges in supermarkets. So that'd be my one message, more diversity in the system.

Matthew  

What did you think of all these different reflections? If one of your thoughts is I'd like to hear more, you're in luck. We've got two more episodes where we hear different views from the conference. A big thanks to the conference organizers: KU Leuven, Wageningen University, Elsevier and TABLE. TABLE is a collaboration between the University of Oxford, Wageningen University, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, University of the Andes, National Autonomous University of Mexico and Cornell University. 

The best way to stay up to date with all the work going on a table is to subscribe to our newsletter at table debates.org. This episode was produced and edited by me, Matthew Kessler, music by Blue Dot sessions. Thanks for listening and speak soon.