{ "title": "Why Sustainable Food Systems are Needed in a post-COVID World", "publication": "IMF Blog, July 14, 2020", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world", "overlayPath": "/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/index.md", "summary": "2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world’s food systems.", "sections": [ { "heading": "Overview: COVID-19 as a reckoning for food systems", "content": "- 2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world’s food systems.\n- COVID-19 shut down half the globe in just months, producing images of panic buying, empty grocery shelves and miles-long queues at food banks that highlighted systemic imbalances.\n- Pandemic disruptions showed that a global food supply chain that is highly centralized and operates on a just-in-time basis is prone to falter in the face of shocks.\n- Specific disruptions cited:\n - Harvesting and packaging became impossible in many countries as workers were blocked at borders or fell sick.\n - Stocks piled up and food went to waste because restaurants and bars were closed.\n - The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program expect that a “hunger pandemic” and a doubling of people starving may soon eclipse the coronavirus, unless action is taken." }, { "heading": "Health and nutrition challenges", "content": "- Pre-pandemic food insecurity and malnutrition:\n - In 2018 about 820 million people went to bed hungry.\n - A third of all people lacked essential nutrients.\n- Overnutrition and associated diseases:\n - 600 million people were categorized as obese.\n - 2 billion people were overweight.\n - Imbalanced diets are associated with obesity, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases that compromise immune health.\n- Consequences:\n - Immuno-depressed and malnourished people worldwide are suffering disproportionally the lethal consequences of COVID-19.\n - Human tolls translate into huge economic costs, including lost incomes and soaring public debt." }, { "heading": "Environmental impacts of current food production", "content": "- Food production practices and environmental degradation:\n - Food produced through the overuse of chemicals, in monoculture cropping systems, and intensive animal farming degrades natural resources faster than they can reproduce.\n - These practices cause a quarter of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions.\n - Livestock are responsible for about a half of that quarter.\n- Risks from intensive animal farming:\n - Industrial animal farming operations that rear large numbers of animals in confined spaces breed lethal viruses, like the 2009 swine flu.\n - Such operations spread antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” because of the overuse of antibiotics to promote growth and prevent infections.\n- Zoonotic risk from habitat disturbance:\n - Disturbing pristine habitats to farm and hunt has allowed deadly pathogens like SARS, HIV, Ebola, to jump species and infect humans." }, { "heading": "Economic reset: opportunity to transform food systems", "content": "- Rebuilding after COVID-19 presents a unique opportunity to transform the global food system to be:\n - Resilient to future shocks.\n - Environmentally sustainable.\n - Capable of ensuring healthy nutrition for all.\n- United Nations agencies collectively suggest four broad shifts in the food system:\n\n - Resilient food supply chains\n - Efficient and effective food supply chains lower risks of food insecurity, malnutrition, and food price fluctuations.\n - They can simultaneously create jobs.\n - Rural transformation to empower small producers and retailers and mainstream them in the food systems economy can help build resilient food supply chains.\n\n - Healthy diets\n - Curbing the overconsumption of animal and highly-processed food in wealthier countries and improving access to good nutrition in poorer countries can:\n - Improve well-being and land use efficiency.\n - Make healthy food more affordable globally.\n - Slash carbon emissions.\n - Policy options include:\n - Retargeting agricultural subsidies toward healthy foods.\n - Taxing unhealthy foods.\n - Aligning procurement practices, education programs and healthcare systems toward better diets.\n - Expected outcomes: reduced healthcare costs globally, reduced inequality, and a healthier population better able to weather future pandemics.\n\n - Regenerative farming\n - Shift toward sustainable and regenerative land and ocean farming connected to strong local and regional food systems can heal soils, air and water.\n - Benefits include boosting economic resilience and local jobs.\n - Enablers include promoting sustainable farming, facilitating market access, and leveling the financial and regulatory playing field for smaller, sustainable farmers relative to large intensive farmers.\n\n - Conservation\n - Breeding fewer animals to accommodate a shift toward more plant-based diets in wealthier countries is key to saving pristine ecosystems.\n - Conservation efforts aligned with recent proposals by the UN Environment Assembly for a global framework to protect the Earth's plant and wildlife, together with bold measures to eradicate the trade of wild animals, are central to:\n - Restoring biodiversity.\n - Boosting carbon sequestration.\n - Lowering the risk of future pandemics." }, { "heading": "Policy implications and priorities", "content": "- Food systems intersect human, animal, economic and environmental health; ignoring this intersection exposes the world economy to larger health and financial shocks as climate changes and global population grows.\n- Prioritizing food system reforms in “build forward” agendas can:\n - Make concrete inroads toward the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.\n- Strategic policy levers emphasized:\n - Rural transformation and inclusion of small producers and retailers.\n - Fiscal measures: retargeted subsidies and taxes to shift diets.\n - Regulatory and market measures to favor sustainable and smaller-scale producers.\n - Conservation frameworks and measures to curb wildlife trade." }, { "heading": "Closing", "content": "- The article closes by stressing the foundational role of public health in economic resilience, invoking Winston Churchill: “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”\n\nNicoletta Batini, James Lomax, July 14, 2020\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks\n - Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf;charset=UTF-8\"}\n\n---\n\n References\n\n- soaring public debt\n- quarter of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions\n- Curbing the overconsumption of animal and highly-processed food in wealthier countries\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/bundle-manifest.json)", "Authors: Nicoletta Batini, James Lomax", "Published: July 14, 2020", "2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world’s food systems.", "COVID-19 shut down half the globe in just months, producing images of panic buying, empty grocery shelves and miles-long queues at food banks that highlighted systemic imbalances.", "Pandemic disruptions showed that a global food supply chain that is highly centralized and operates on a just-in-time basis is prone to falter in the face of shocks.", "Specific disruptions cited:", "Pre-pandemic food insecurity and malnutrition:", "Overnutrition and associated diseases:", "Consequences:", "Food production practices and environmental degradation:", "Risks from intensive animal farming:", "Zoonotic risk from habitat disturbance:", "Rebuilding after COVID-19 presents a unique opportunity to transform the global food system to be:", "United Nations agencies collectively suggest four broad shifts in the food system:", "Food systems intersect human, animal, economic and environmental health; ignoring this intersection exposes the world economy to larger health and financial shocks as climate changes and global population grows.", "Prioritizing food system reforms in “build forward” agendas can:", "Strategic policy levers emphasized:", "The article closes by stressing the foundational role of public health in economic resilience, invoking Winston Churchill: “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”", "**Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks**", "[soaring public debt](https://blogs.imf.org/2020/07/10/fiscal-policies-for-a-transformed-world/)", "[quarter of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/farming-food-and-climate-change-batini.htm)", "[Curbing the overconsumption of animal and highly-processed food in wealthier countries](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/02/26/Macroeconomic-Gains-from-Reforming-the-Agri-Food-Sector-The-Case-of-France-46583)" ], "related": [ { "title": "Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "http://www.fao.org/3/a-bp285e.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/3/a-bp285e.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/3/a-bp285e.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf;charset=UTF-8" } } ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/index.md", "json": "/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/blogs/articles/2020/07/14/why-sustainable-food-systems-are-needed-in-a-post-covid-world/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-08-27T17:00:34.793Z" }