How to achieve a sustainable food chain system? The Role of FAO, UNFSS and the Voluntary Sustainability Standards
- occamobservatory
- 5 ore fa
- Tempo di lettura: 3 min
By Tea Furlan
Two main challenges have emerged in recent years: promoting sustainability within the food chain and addressing the alarming rise in global obesity rates. There are two actors that have been paying growing attention to these transformations, they are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS).
FAO has been promoting agroecological approaches, in line with its core mission of safeguarding rural livelihoods, equity and social welfare is necessary to commit to sustainability in the food chain. The aspiration of these approaches is to combine ecological principles into farming systems, with the aim to create resilient, inclusive and environmentally friendly models of food production. As a matter of fact, sustainable food systems ensure that everyone has access to nutritious and affordable food, regardless of their location or socioeconomic status.
By encouraging the adoption of policies that support local knowledge, biodiversity, renewable resources, reducing reliance on chemical inputs, the new system captures multiple benefits. It enriches both farmers and ecosystems, as agriculture is the largest consumer of the world's resources of freshwater, and more than one quarter of energy used globally is spent on food production and supply.
These kind of policies can even help rebalance food environments in view of healthier diets. Moreover, these strategies improve employment opportunities among young people and women because of the higher resilience that agroecological production systems, that try to fuse ecological and social principles to enhance the sustainability within the interaction between plants, animals, people and nature, offer to rural and domestic employment.
FAO, through its actions, helps countries to overcome challenges by promoting knowledge and bridging capacity gaps, enforcing and strengthening policies and institutional frameworks,while enhancing the competitiveness and resilience of small producers and land-owners.
It is in the design and adoption of these policies that the United Nations on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS) play a key role.
UNFSS focuses on Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS), which are increasingly being applied to ensure compliance of some conditions related to food products, for example, environmental, ethical and health-related conditions, so that purchasing products does not hurt the environment or the people that make those products. With the purpose of agroecology in mind, VSS assist in achieving sustainable actions, guaranteeing market access and triggering consumer awareness. With respect to VSS, it assists in improving public health and dictating the rising rate of obesity. Since ultra-processed foods are increasingly becoming available, there is a need to push for nutrient-dense and sustainable foods. Both FAO and UNFSS explicitly stated the importance of introducing healthy eating habits at an early age to counter this trend, in particular through school programs and public education campaigns.
From this point of view, agroecological and sustainability standards play two roles: they are both environmental tools and instruments of public health policy. The way they interact, changes the role of food systems, from a profit-centred model towards one that gives priority to long-term practices and well-being. The benefits that may arise from this approach would be especially important in regions facing both nutrition insecurity and diet-related diseases. The policies put in action are in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as SDG n.2 “Zero hunger”, in order to promote food-security and nutrition globally, delivering food security and nutrition for all.
The collaboration that can arise between normative frameworks established by FAO and the approach of the UNFSS may facilitate reaching inclusive, healthy and sustainable futures for further development of the global food-chain process.
Sources
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/fast-facts-what-are-sustainable-food-systems/#:~:text=A%20sustainable%20food%20system%20is,transporting%20of%20food%20to%20consumers.