As we’ve just launched the Diet Change Not Climate Change pledge, I attended the opening day of the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit – which was a slightly surreal experience. While nearly all of the speakers agreed that our global food system is broken, there were very few mentions of the actual ways in which the system is broken and almost no mention of the most significant thing we can do to fix it – transition away from the farming and eating of animals.
While advances in agriculture, food technology and supply-chain management have meant that middle-class consumers can have fresh fruit all year long, eat a steady supply of ready meals, and cook with ingredients sourced from around the world, the food system is hugely damaging to planetary and human health. From rampant deforestation, soil destruction, biodiversity loss, and climate change to the obesity and diabetes epidemics, along with the brutally sobering fact that every five seconds a child dies from malnutrition, it is clear that the food system is unsustainable and has failed to deliver on its promises.
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Yet, while a few speakers briefly touched on these specific issues, most of the discussions were vague to the point of absurdity, and, on the opening day at least, there was little mention of the actual structural problems at the heart of the food system, including the outsized impact of big business on the food system, the failures of the 20th century’s green revolution, and the negative impact of pesticides and fertilisers. There was almost no mention of the single most destructive elephant in the room – the hugely negative impact of animal agriculture and the farming of feed crops. So, three cheers for Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the UN’s Environmental Programme, who, without going into detail, spoke about the urgent need for a conversation around “big soy, big timber, and big cattle”.