Recently, a global panel of scientists representing more than 130 nations released the summary of their Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, containing dire warnings about rapidly declining biodiversity worldwide and the adverse impacts it will have on human wellbeing.
The report highlights five major ways in which humans are driving these declines in biodiversity and ecosystem services over the last 50 years – changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasion of alien species. All these activities are closely interlinked with food systems, and the report itself notes that “feeding the world in a sustainable manner entails the transformation of food systems.”
Food systems are comprised of the many elements that add up to the ways people get their food – the farms where food is produced, the businesses that process food into products, the markets and restaurants where it is sold and consumed, the policies that shape every step of the process, and much more.
While the world has been able to supply more food, energy, and materials to people in most places, this continues to take a toll on the ability to do so in the future. Nature is crucial for food, energy, medicines, and other materials central for human well-being, yet food systems contribute up to 29 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and continue to overuse scarce natural resources, contributing to the loss of biodiversity and animal and plant species.
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