Food and Agriculture: The future of sustainability

Overview

Informing Rio+20 and SD21

On our current trajectory, severe disruptions to national and regional food systems are highly likely to happen – the main question is when. This report, commissioned by the UN DESA as a strategic input to SD21 and the Rio discussions, focuses on vital areas and offers a collection of up to date information on the current and likely trends for our global Food and Agriculture systems. With contributions from more than 70 global agri-food leaders in the business, policy, green, and social arenas, the report exposes unforeseen areas of consensus.

Smart decision in high impact areas

By opening the silos of partisan thinking to invite reasoned discussion, it also exposes areas of disagreement and lays out a key set of specific “high impact” areas where smart decisions will make the most difference for sustainable and resilient food and agriculture systems. This paper illustrates how leading thinkers imagine our future food and agriculture world. It eschews positions and instead invites reasoned discussion. It cuts across the thought silos intrinsic to different world views and partisan values to identify consensus and also disagreement.

We solicited input from leading experts in different dimensions of agriculture, representing the perspectives of the natural and social sciences, developing and developed countries, policy and academia, public and private. Respondents were asked about most significant trends and the most important priorities in the next 20 years to ensure sustainable food and agriculture systems.