Devex Dish: Who should be responsible for healthy diets for all?

It feels like the kind of day that we should be celebrating delicious food, the miracle of what our planet can produce, and the beauty of gathering around a nourishing meal. But the reality is that far too many people don’t have enough to eat — and often when they do, that food is not nutritious enough.

This year’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report should give us all pause: Some 733 million people, or 1 in 11 people worldwide, are going hungry. That figure rose during the pandemic and has remained stagnant ever since as the main drivers of hunger — conflict, climate change, and economic shocks — occur more often and with greater intensity. In Africa, where the situation is most dire, more than 1 in 5 people are facing hunger.

The theme of World Food Day this year is “Right to foods for a better life and a better future,” and to me it reads like a call to action for us all. That right to affordable, diverse, healthy, safe food is nowhere close to being met — even in higher-income economies.

“There is no time to lose. We must take immediate action, ” Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization said today at the World Food Day ceremony in Rome, Italy. He called for renewed “commitment to build more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems that can nourish the world.”(By the way, happy 79th birthday to FAO!)

If you’ve been following Dish all year, we’ve highlighted many innovations in agriculture — from investing in “orphan crops” to developing more heat-tolerant crops — that can lead to healthier, more sustainable diets for both humans and the planet. But that responsibility lies not just with food producers, but anyone and everyone working throughout the agrifood value chain, along with the policymakers who decide how budgets get spent. An opinion piece for Devex out today highlights the role that leaders within the food and beverage industry can play.