The 10th International Forum on Food & Nutrition of BCFN Foundation was held in Milan on Dec. 3, to emphasize that while the global situation is dire, there are still some encouraging signs. The common goal was to put the debate about food and environmental sustainability at the center of the global agenda.
As Guido Barilla explained: “We have 10 years left before the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030. There is an urgent need to intervene in the current agri-food systems because the idea of development and progress based on the conviction that the planet’s resources are unlimited is no longer viable. We need to look at food in its economic, social and environmental dimensions, placing at the center of the Development Agenda all the players involved, from the private sector to citizens, in order to lay the foundations for an inclusive, lasting and prosperous future.”
Guido Barilla
According to the report “Growing Better: Ten Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use,” the hidden cost of our food systems, between irreversible damage to ecosystems and growing expenditure on public health, is an astronomical $12 trillion. This is mainly due to chronic diseases related to unhealthy diets. The figure far exceeds the $10 trillion market value generated by agri-food systems, creating a deficit of about $2 trillion. A revolution is needed to make available by 2050 up to 1.2 billion hectares of land now earmarked for agriculture in order to save $10.5 trillion in hidden costs.
To give hope – and not just numbers or alarming data – many representatives of civil society, the private sector, and the world of research and science have stepped in. This year, as never before, we all feel the urgent need to call to action institutions, organizations, researchers and citizens to undertake together a new path of sustainable development – starting with food.
Particularly appreciated was the speech of Carlo Petrini, President of Slow Food, committed to restoring food’s proper value with respect to those who produce it, in harmony with the environment and ecosystems, and based on the knowledge of the territories and local traditions of which they are custodians. The head of the international non-profit association focused on local communities, an underestimated resource that should be cared for and valued in the interest of the common good of the planet.
Carlo Petrini
“If we want to focus local communities on food policy,” Petrini explained, “then the multitude of realities they represent must be involved. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) speaks of as many as 500 million small family-run agricultural entities that characterize the world’s agriculture. This impressive number convinced FAO as well as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and all the international organizations to increase their focus on these people. Because 500 million is a huge network. And if we consider not only the agricultural producers, but also those who work for along the chain, in handicraft enterprises connected to the products, the small enterprises... all together, they can number a billion. Local communities are the central element for such a paradigm shift. They will also determine industrial policies, global policies and can certainly be a very important element with respect to the changes of attitude that we must encourage if good food is to respect the ecosystems and the people who produce it.”
The role of local communities is also fundamental to the critical environmental problem: namely, the climate crisis. With reference to the latest bleak statement by the UN Secretary General about the point of no return in 60 years and the renewed ecological awareness due to plastic pollution, Petrini sees a solution in local communities: “Who can generate a virtuous cycle better than a multitude of small communities represented around the world?”
At the level of the local community, Petrini launches four major challenges:
1. The structural challenge: “How can these widespread entities be governed? An international farmers community is unthinkable because of the sociological, historical and environmental diversity worldwide. It cannot be traced back to a centralized logic, so the only possible logic is to work with the existing network. We must understand that the most precious asset of this multitude of local communities is diversity. Let’s accept this network rather than trying to impose some international organizational chart on people.
2. The goal of technologies: “We must at all costs ensure that the technologies are at the service of the communities and not the other way around. From this point of view, the centralization of power and money in the hands of a few is becoming a huge problem. We need to create formulae, consortia and organizations, so that the technology that will save us water and reduce the use of pesticides does not fall into the hands of primarily large producers. It must be a widespread patrimony. And yet, putting technology at the service of many is a great challenge. Nevertheless, we cannot accept that the technology remain in the hands of only a few.”
3. The educational project: “The local communities must start an intensive educational project worldwide, which educates the leaders of these communities and educates us all to the common good above all. It’s a huge challenge, but one that still has to respect traditional knowledge.”
4. The renewed economy: “Everyone talks about sustainable development. Let one thing be clear: talking about sustainable development with this economy is a chimera and a lie. It is the economy that must change, it has reached the end point, this is an economy that kills. And so, from below, we must all work together to generate a new type of economy that is attentive to communities, to the local, to the common good, to circularity. The challenge of the century is to change the economy because if this economy changes, if this economy is dismantled to rebuild one on a human scale, we will have won the challenge. Otherwise, sustainable development will not be possible.”
For this 10th edition, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) Foundation covened stakeholders on the Sustainability Challenge, in joint collaboration with World Food Programme Italy, National Geographic, the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN), the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment (CCSI), Santa Chiara Lab – University of Siena (SCL), and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food (GAFF).