Transforming Food Systems Under a Changing Climate: Changing diets and transforming food systems - key messages

In an aspirational global food system, everyone would meet but not exceed their nutritional needs, and fulfill personal preferences for tasty, affordable, varied, convenient and healthy food—while keeping climate change under 2°C. Diets are an outcome of people’s choices and are profoundly shaped by socio-cultural, physical and economic factors in the food ‘choice environment’. Historically there have been substantial changes in people’s diets and diets continue to be in flux. Dietary change offers a route to achieving the aspirational Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) food system, combining positive outcomes for health and for the environment. The most effective strategies to shift diets will involve multiple approaches that deliberately aim not just to influence consumers themselves, but all participants in the food system, taking into account plural values and incentives. Effectiveness of actions will depend on the political economy at national and global levels. Overall there is reason to be hopeful about the potential for dietary change, given both historic trends and the growing suite of tools and approaches available

Changing diets and transforming food systems

In an aspirational global food system, everyone would meet but not exceed their nutritional needs, and fulfill personal preferences for tasty, affordable, varied, convenient and healthy food—while keeping climate change under 2°C. Diets are an outcome of people’s choices and are profoundly shaped by socio-cultural, physical and economic factors in the food ‘choice environment’. Historically there have been substantial changes in people’s diets and diets continue to be in flux. Dietary change offers a route to achieving the aspirational Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) food system, combining positive outcomes for health and for the environment. The most effective strategies to shift diets will involve multiple approaches that deliberately aim not just to influence consumers themselves, but all participants in the food system, taking into account plural values and incentives. Effectiveness of actions will depend on the political economy at national and global levels. Overall there is reason to be hopeful about the potential for dietary change, given both historic trends and the growing suite of tools and approaches available

Differential impacts of conservation agriculture technology options on household welfare in sub-Saharan Africa

Conservation agriculture (CA), which consists of minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and crop rotation, is claimed to generate a number of agronomic, economic and environmental benefits. Recognising these potential benefits, CA is widely promoted in efforts towards sustainable agricultural intensification. However, there has been an intense debate about its suitability in smallholder farming environments, and this has stimulated a growing interest in the adoption and impacts of CA technologies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using survey data from rural households in nine SSA countries, this paper seeks to add to the extant literature by examining the drivers and welfare impacts of individual and combined implementation of the three components of CA. We employ inverse-probability-weighting regression-adjustment and propensity score matching with multiple treatment estimators. Results show that adoption of a CA technology significantly increases household income and income per adult equivalent. Disaggregating the CA components, we find that adoption of the components in combination is associated with larger income gains than when the components are adopted in isolation, and the largest effect is achieved when households implement the three practices jointly. We identify key factors that might spur increased adoption, including education, secure land rights, and access to institutional support services. Acknowledgement : This research was financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the research projects Promoting Food Security in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Agricultural Intensification, Social Security and Results-Oriented Approaches and Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural Innovation (PARI) . This article draws on data from the Lund University led Afrint II project, which was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Swedish Research Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the team of researchers from Sweden and the nine African countries who were involved in the Afrint II project

The dichotomy between state- and market-oriented agricultural development narratives: Beyond the rational choice explanation?

While there is renewed interest to promote agricultural development, there is a lively policy debate on the appropriate instruments to achieve this goal. While some actors argue that agricultural development requires strong government support and input subsidies, others criticize those state-focused instruments and favor market-oriented approaches. This paper aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the prevailing policy narratives in the agricultural policy making landscape, using Senegal as a case study example. Transcripts of in-depth interviews conducted with policy stakeholders in Senegal are the primary data source. The empirical analysis reveals that, there are two main coalitions with opposing policy narratives; agricultural support narrative coalition and agricultural support critique narrative coalition. The story-line of the agricultural support critique emphasizes that, the government provision of input subsidies is ineffective while story-line of the proponents of such policies consider support essential to promote agricultural development. The analysis of the narratives suggests that, the agricultural support coalition has a story-line with a beginning (low productivity caused by lack of inputs), middle (providing subsidized inputs) and end (increased productivity). In contrast, the agricultural support critique essentially presents non-stories and counter stories (focusing on alternative storyline of what should not be done). Acknowledgement : We thank the (BMZ) for funding this research through the collaborative project Promoting Participatory and Evidence-Based Agricultural Policy Processes in Africa. We thank all respondents who willingly provided information during the interviews conducted in Senegal

Agroecological transformation for sustainable food systems : Insight on France-CGIAR research

This 26th dossier d’Agropolis is devoted to research and partnerships in agroecology. The French Commission for International Agricultural Research (CRAI) and Agropolis International, on behalf of CIRAD, INRAE and IRD and in partnership with CGIAR, has produced this new issue in the ‘Les dossiers d’Agropolis international’ series devoted to agroecology. This publication has been produced within the framework of the Action Plan signed by CGIAR and the French government on February 4th 2021 to strengthen French collaboration with CGIAR, where agroecology is highlighted as one of the three key priorities (alongside climate change, nutrition and food systems)