The quest for healthy food

The global food system is not broken but its resilience is threatened, according to researchers looking for answers to the problems around nutritional quality and inequalities in the food chains.

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Access to food has never been so easy. The global food system has been resilient and able to adapt during the 20th century to many shocks and stressors, such as an unprecedented population growth. The huge increase in production has exceeded the demographic growth. Yet, a profound transformation is needed for the following reasons: food is today the major problem in public health; the economics of food chains fuel inequalities; and food systems are responsible for major environmental and climatic damage. However, no great transformation is taking place, for different reasons, including conflicts of interest.

DEEPER CHANGE NEEDED

Food systems’ resilience depends on the ability to change the very drivers that made them resilient in the 20th century. These systems have been able to evolve in the past under huge and numerous constraints.

Incredible changes have taken place since World War II that have successfully prevented a massive global food shortage. The percentage of population living in countries with sufficient food supply (>2 500kcal per capita/day) has almost doubled from 33% in 1965 to 61% in 2005; the population living with critically low food supply (<2000kcal per capita/day) has dropped from 52% to just 3%.

Similarly, a long-run downward trend of international food prices has been observed up to the mid-2000s. Now, the 155 million acutely food-insecure people in need of urgent assistance are suffering more from persistent conflict or insecurity, economic shocks and weather extremes than from a lack of global food supply.