CMBD Perspectives — What is your FOODprint?
Friday, February 1st, 2013
On 22 January, there was a press conference in Geneva to launch a “Think.Eat.Save Campaign: Reduce Your Foodprint”. Notice that the last word here is FOODprint, not FOOTprint. It is not entirely clear why there was only a press conference and not an event. But here it is: the FAO, UNEP, something called Messe Düsseldorf”, and several NGOs including “Feeding the 5,000”, the “Water and Resources Action Programme” (WRAP), and the “Love Food Hate Waste” Initiative, as well as the Zero Hunger Challenge — all joined together to announce this campaign. The goal of the campaign is to mobilize awareness and change the culture to reduce food waste both in the consumption system and in food production (where it is both lost and wasted).
One-third of all food is lost or wasted, worth an estimated $1 trillion per year. At the consumer end, it is roughly 300 million tonnes, and the argument is that at least half of that is unnecessary food waste. This means that the food is still fit for consumption but is discarded by producers, retailers or consumers for appearance or a generically applied “sell-by” date or simply too much food on the plate.
The campaign is also intending to mobilize and support changes in the food production system. Better harvesting techniques, processing, storage, transport and marketing methods are involved here. The gap from field to fork has many opportunities for improvements to change the culture of food waste and loss. Both ends are receiving support in this campaign. The FAO already has a “Save Food” Initiative that is working at both ends of the food chain, while UNEP brings its expertise on resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production patterns. Messe Düsseldorf is an unusual partner – it is a trade fair company that is supporting a SAVE FOOD campaign which is apparently being linked to this broader Think.Eat.Save Campaign. And the NGOs? We’ll be taking a closer look at these in our new Global Issues and Players Program.
From the CMBD News 28 January 2013
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, even though it has similarities to harvest celebrations all over the world. More Americans travel to spend the day with their family than at any other time of the year – similar in that respect to the Chinese New Year in China. It is also a holiday centered around food – the turkey for those who are not vegetarians – supplemented with cranberry sauce, cornbread, sweet potato and other hearty vegetable concoctions, pumpkin and mincemeat pie. Finding a suitably sized turkey for the occasion in Europe can be difficult, especially in France. We have found one reliable source in Geneva, but we understand that there are several others here. Carrying forward the Thanksgiving tradition, we travel to the family “homestead” for the occasion, which for us happens to be in southern France, and we transport the turkey and its accompaniments with us from Geneva, thanks in large part to the American Market near the main Geneva train station. Some years ago, a first experience with Thanksgiving in Europe occurred while studying in Vienna. A thoughtful friend from the diplomatic community, the wife of the lead US negotiator for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) arranged to give us an American turkey through the diplomatic store, and the celebration included students from Japan, Italy, Germany and Canada. We wrote articles about having “turkey with SALT” for our home audiences. This time around, years later, we are living in a world where “turkey with salt” has many different connotations. Issues about food security, nutritional balance and eliminating things like salt from our diets provide a dramatically different dynamic to the concept of celebrating a harvest. We would like to pick up on this dynamic in our commentary this week, and we would also like to announce that there will be no newsletter next week as we join in the holiday celebration. Our next newsletter will be in two weeks’ time. So in the CMBD News this week we include some reflections on issues and events beyond the coming week and wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.
World Water Week has been an annual event since 1991, with a different thematic focus that brings water experts and policy makers together at the end of August in Stockholm when the weather and sunshine are still fairly generous in this Northern water wonderland. This year, from 26 to 31 August, the theme was “Water and Food Security”. Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, José Graziano da Silva reversed the phrasing of the theme in his opening plenary speech, when he said, “There is no food security without water security”. The occasion can be a festive wrap-up of the summer wanderings away from Geneva – just as the more intimate and invitation-only Jackson Hole economic policy symposium of central bankers and financiers wraps up the summer break in the US with a Western cowboy kind of atmosphere. We have some commentary on both of these events, as well as another larger gathering on the other side of the world, in Bangkok, which gets our vote for a preferred summer’s end destination even if the climate change negotiations that are being hosted there this week are probably the most discouraging of the three events.
Food security is not so much a new issue as it is a new approach to an old issue, an approach that is in the forefront of new thinking about business in development. The Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development in June, while many were disappointed in the level of commitments, will eventually be recognized as a landmark occasion for integrating social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development and for articulating the inter-linkages among these aspects. And it is especially in the elevated attention given to food security and nutrition and sustainable agriculture where these inter-linkages are articulated. The Rio Declaration calls for increasing sustainable agricultural production and productivity globally by “increasing public and private investment in sustainable agriculture, land management and rural development.” The Declaration further notes the key areas for investment and support to include “sustainable agricultural practices; rural infrastructure, storage capacities and related technologies; research and development on sustainable agricultural technologies; developing strong agricultural cooperatives and value chains; and strengthening urban-rural linkages”. This, then, is an area where business in development can and must play an instrumental role, and CMBD provides a forum for addressing the business engagement in supply chain responsibilities, linkages to smallholder practicalities and appreciating the distinctions between global and local markets, as well as the broader policy issues involving poverty eradication, nutrition and health promotion.