Food For Thought: Time Is Ripe To Rethink Food Systems Of The Future

Food For Thought: Time Is Ripe To Rethink Food Systems Of The Future

Since the middle of the last century, the world's approach to getting food on the table has focused first and foremost on productivity. We have expanded access to affordable food by ramping up agricultural production by any means possible. While this has helped many countries in Asia and beyond reduce hunger, it has not guaranteed access to healthy foods, and it has taken a tremendous toll on the environment. Our modern day food systems are neither nourishing, sustainable nor equitable. They are failing to meet the needs of people or our planet. Diet-related diseases are increasingly common, industrial agriculture is accelerating climate change, and the system as a whole is built on inequity, with the people we rely on to produce our food especially vulnerable to malnutrition and food insecurity. Ultimately, too few people have been empowered to be protagonists in their own food future, a future of good food for all. The impact is sadly clear. Many Asian countries are struggling with malnutrition–calories have become cheaper, but nutritious diets are more expensive and less common, in spite of rising per capita incomes and decreasing poverty. What's more, climate change, outdated policies, rapid urbanization, corporate consolidation and industrialization have made