On the Menu – Can Food Be the Planet’s Medicine?

A high profile session at the World Bank’s Spring Meetings on April 10, 2019, highlighted the urgency and absolutely critical role of a food system transformation for humanity to stay “in a safe operating space within planetary boundaries”.

Graig Hanson, vice-president Food, Forest & Water of the World Resources Institute posited the three F’s: Food, Fuel and the rest is Footnotes. Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: We are in deep trouble! At today’s 1 degree world we already have two planetary victims: the tropical coral reefs and the arctic sea ice. They are past the tipping point. If we want to survive in the Anthropocene, then 1. de-carbonize the economy 2. transform the Food System and we might have a 66% chance to avoid run-away planetary heating and its consequent destabilization.

Kristalina Georgieva , former EU Commissioner and presently CEO of the World Bank in her introduction stresses the unacceptability of the malnutrition problems we are facing and the ridiculous food waste: Love Food-Hate Waste.

Gunhild Stordalen, director of the EAT Commission: unless we get it right on food, we will not achieve the SDGs nor the Paris Climate Agreement. We know enough to act! Do we have the courage, before it is too late?

Watch these powerful introductions and Johan Rockstrom’s compelling keynote speech based on the science behind the EAT/Lancet report on where we are and where we have to go with our food system, hinged on the dimensions of food production, reducing waste and dietary change (minutes 0-48 of the video):

Event page at World Bank Group website, including video and comments.