Transforming global and national food systems is essential for food and nutrition security for millions, and for improving livelihoods for over a billion people in the food system without further damaging climate or nature. This requires a systemic shift driven by appropriate incentives across the food value chain, with public policies and agricultural support acting as critical levers for governments to guide this transformation.
Agricultural support has historically been aimed at improving food security and has been very successful at it. At the same time, it has also inadvertently contributed to making agriculture unsustainable as it is now practiced in many parts of the world. Biodiversity loss and environmental degradation due to practices like monoculture and excessive chemical use are prime examples of this. Similarly, policies designed to stabilize national food prices often have unintended side effects, such as increased international food price volatility and wasteful input use, damaging nature and climate. Recent research suggests such policies can even make domestic prices more volatile. Given the magnitude of these unintended consequences and the need to continue to adequately meet the dietary needs of a growing population, there are growing calls for a fundamental re-valuation of how agriculture is practiced and how policies support agriculture. Repurposing resources from harmful practices towards ecologically sustainable and economically viable options offers a unique opportunity to align agricultural policies with global sustainability goals like the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.
Clearly, identifying more effective support options to create the incentives for farmers and consumers to exercise more sustainable choices could yield immense national and global benefits for food security, nature, and climate.
While the need for repurposing policies is now widely recognized, and several creative initiatives are underway, implementing concrete policy reforms has proven to be very challenging. Two recent pronouncements offer potential for change: the G20 Ministers of Agriculture’s commitment in June 2023 to “strengthen policies and collaborative actions for climate resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems,” and the COP28 Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, a landmark commitment by 159 Heads of State to “revisit or reorient policies and public support” for the food-climate nexus. The next step is to implement these aspirations.
A concerted effort is needed globally to implement these commitments at scale. Despite the strong conceptual case for repurposing, practical implementation is complicated due to collective action problems, the political economy of legacy policies, and a lack of knowledge on viable “triple win” options. This knowledge is crucial for overcoming political economy barriers and managing economic, social and environmental tradeoffs. Generic solutions are not universally viable, but valuable lessons can be learned from countries that have successfully tackled some of these problems or are in the process of finding viable options.
Objectives
This webinar aims to:
Share experiences: Increase understanding of what types of meaningful reforms they think are feasible and practical based on lessons learned from their own country experience in implementation.
Share Best Practices: Showcase successful approaches, including what has been tried in panelists’ countries, and identify major challenges and opportunities for implementation.
Identify Policy Levers and Support Needs: Explore concrete policy recommendations and financial instruments and identify the big knowledge gaps and what types of support (technical, knowledge/analytical, operational/institutional) would be most useful for making progress on the repurposing agenda.
