We Are What We Eat
The part of the system that is probably most familiar to all of us is this last part: consumption. We might not know how food got to us, where it was produced or how it was transported, but we do know what we chose to buy, where we bought it from, what we paid for it, how we prepared and ate it or threw it out.
Consumption of food might be the part we are most familiar with, but it may not be one that we think about all the time. In many ways though, this area can be the most effective for transformation. Shaping consumer behaviours and collective demand can help change markets.
The power of consumers
Consumers are more and more interested in knowing from where their food originates. FAO’s Fishing Areas classification is one tool that makes this more transparent. Learning that you are purchasing fish from nearby waters can help support your local economy. This classification also ensures that the catch has been legally sourced, protecting against overfishing and destruction of ecosystems.
Another consumer-oriented initiative that supports food producers is the Quality and Origin Program. For several years, FAO has been working together with partners, governments and producers worldwide to register traditionally made products with Geographical Indication (GI) labels.
Some examples include Darjeeling tea (India), Manchego cheese (Spain), and Taliouine saffron (Morocco). These labels help consumers link product characteristics – such as taste or quality – with GI status. As such, they are willing to pay higher prices, translating into higher incomes for rural households.
The aforementioned Mountain Partnership Products (MPP) Initiative is yet another project that taps into the power of choices. This FAO-supported programme provides technical and financial support to smallholder mountain producers from developing countries to improve product marketing and streamline value chains.
These products receive an MPP narrative label that provides consumers with information about the product’s origins, processing, nutritional value and role in local cultures. The MPP label helps to make certain unique foods and products more widely available in markets, raising their value and thereby incomes for the producers.
Our modern world is putting enormous strain and competing pressures on our agri-food systems. Growing populations, growing cities, growing wealth with its connection to changing consumption are all challenging our agri-food systems’ ability to provide nutritious food and decent livelihoods for producers in a way that is sustainable for our natural resources and environment.
Combined with the changes in climate, including extreme weather, land degradation and biodiversity loss, the pressures are unprecedented and need urgent addressing. Our collective choices as consumers and producers today impact what tomorrow will look like.
COVID-19: An opportunity to make a change
Even before the pandemic, more than three billion people couldn’t afford a healthy diet. In this time of COVID-19, many more people are unable to afford or access nutritious foods, often resorting to cheaper, readily available ones.
Consumption patterns are also changing for others who are focusing more on the role of diets on their health, enhancing demand for fresh and nutritious foods. This situation has brought an opportunity to build back better.
Governments can capitalize on this to implement and strengthen policies not only in agriculture, but also in other sectors such as trade, health, environment, education and infrastructure, to create the conditions for better diets. Policies and incentives should encourage growing a variety of fruits and vegetables instead of just cash crops.
We also have a role. Informing ourselves about what makes a healthy dietand how our choices can collectively affect the sustainability of agri-food systems is one place to start.
In this story series, we are exploring the various parts of the agri-food system to demystify all that goes into producing our food and examine the ways we, consumers, producers, traders, can make changes that will transform these systems into ones fit for the future. These main themes will be covered in the UN Food Systems Summit coming up this September 2021.
*SOURCE: FAO. Go to ORIGINAL.
2021 Human Wrongs Watch
