The Digest usually pulls no punches in its regular coverage of food industry news, views and policy-making. But this week’s effort is punchy in another way, because we focus on the fight to save nature.
This week the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity kicked off in Colombia. This marks two years since countries agreed on the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework (GBF), billed as the most far-reaching action plan to protect biodiversity. Good news on nature is hard to come by these days and this is an(other) event aimed kick-starting a(nother) decisive decade. “Your task at this COP is to convert words into action,” UN secretary-general António Guterres told the delegations from 190 countries.
If he had a penny for every time he’d said that at a COP, well, it might help plug the gigantic biodiversity finance gap that looms large over these talks. “A collapse of the ecosystem services that biodiversity provides could slash $2.7 trillion off global GDP by 2030. In contrast, funding to protect and restore nature and biodiversity was equivalent to $15.4 billion in 2022,” noted Oxford Economics.
Much will be made, too, of reporting and disclosures in the private sector. Companies haven’t done a great job of this to date but CDP this week said tings are looking up – a bit. “Nature supports our entire economy, so every business must understand how they depend on it, what the risks are, and then act quickly,” said Sherry Madera, CEO at CDP. “Our data shows we are seeing more and more companies coming alive to this, bringing nature into the boardrooms.”
The food and drink sector has the highest reliance on ecosystem services, and no other sector has a larger biodiversity footprint, according to a study of 2,369 companies within the MSCI All Country World Index. “The food products industry shows the highest impact, followed by the oil, gas and consumable fuels industry and the chemicals industry,” said the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, which conducted the study. “Among the top 10 highest impacting companies, five [JBS, Wilmar International, WH Group, Tyson and Bunge Global] are from the food products industry and three from the oil, gas and consumable fuels industry.” The big issue with food and nature is the impact of land use in the value chain (scope 3).
Speaking of scope 3 and land … a new report, Boosting Biodiversity Action through Agroecology, considers the importance of scaling out agroecological approaches in food systems to accomplish goals towards the protection and restoration of biodiversity. “Industrial food systems are a primary driver of biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and soil and freshwater pollution,” the authors note. “They threaten 86% of the 28,000 endangered wildlife species worldwide, and have decreased crops and animal genetic diversity to a low point, with only 12 plants and 5 animals making up 75% of the world’s consumption.”
The report, co-produced by a group of NGOs, offers detailed recommendations on how countries can include agroecological interventions, from production to consumption, including supply chains, processing, and market incentives. And links these to the GBF targets. It also highlights the “many converging points” between agroecology and other concepts/approaches, such as regenerative and organic agriculture, permaculture, climate-smart agriculture and nature-based solutions. But agroecology is the best bet because it “emphasises the whole food system (rather than solely production) and social values (including farmer agency, rights, and livelihoods)” which makes it “widely recognised as a truly transformative food system approach”.
Mindful that we need to wrap up, we will keep the lid on that can of worms. However, for those interested in digging a little further, it’s worth reading the paper by Olivier de Schutter, Chantal Wei-Ying Clément and Nick Jacobs – ‘Addressing power and poverty in a crisis-prone food system’, featured in the book ‘Regenerative Farming and Sustainable Diets’. The IPES-Food experts suggest that “any meaningful transformation hinges on confronting the central issue of power within our food system”. Agroecology, they write, “holds promise in reshaping a broken system”.
This brings to mind Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: “We stand now where two roads diverge. But […] they are not equally fair.” Are we brave enough to choose the one less travelled; the one that will brings bumps but not continue to break biodiversity?
Our other stories this week include a “first” from a UK supermarket as Lidl GB sets a plant protein target that impresses NGOs. There is also the publication of a hard-hitting and at times damning report by the House of Lords food, diet and obesity committee, in which peers called for food businesses that don’t meet healthy sales targets to be locked out of discussions on the formation of policy. We also reveal that Wrap’s new plastics pact will include all single-use materials, and not just plastic.
