World Food Forum Announces 2022 Theme: Healthy Diets. Healthy Planet.
Rome – Today the World Food Forum (WFF) – powered by Global Youth, announced its 2022 theme, Healthy Diets. Healthy Planet., to draw attention to, and spark action around, the interrelation between climate change and stable access to adequate, safe, sufficient and nutritious food, as well as healthy diets for all.
In addition to the globally recognized need to reduce emissions, increase food security and adapt to climate change, the WFF insists more must be done. It calls for global action to increase and protect biodiversity, improve diets, enhance nutrition and optimize environmental sustainability while ensuring social equity, especially among the most vulnerable people.
This year, WFF activities will aim to increase youth-led discussion and action around these urgent topics. In the lead up to the 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the WFF will bring together youth to raise awareness on the connection between dietary and planetary health, as well as to co-identify bold, actionable solutions to minimize and mitigate climate change impacts in our lifetime while simultaneously increasing global access to safe and nutritious food and healthy diets.
From production to consumption, global agrifood systems are responsible for 31 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, while Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) activities accounted for around 13 percent of carbon dioxide , 44 percent of methane, and 81 percent of nitrous oxide emissions from human activities globally during 2007-2016.
Meanwhile, according to the 2021 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), heathy diets are financially out of reach for more than 3 billion people, and as stated in the 2021 Global Nutrition Report, over 40 percent of all men and women are now overweight or obese. In addition, almost a quarter of all children under five are stunted (low height-for-age) and 45 million are wasted (low weight-for-height).
Ongoing challenges including conflict, climate change, and pests and plagues are putting additional pressure on our already stressed agrifood systems, impacting both access to and availability of food. International food prices reached an all-time high in February 2022, which has been further exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, due to the fact that the Russian Federation and Ukraine account for about 30 percent of the global market of wheat and are prominent players in global trade of many food and agricultural products.
As stated in the 2019 EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report, “Food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth. However, food is currently threatening both people and planet.” The WFF seeks solutions that recognize the linkages among food, agriculture, biodiversity and climate change in order to contribute to food security and enable healthy diets for all, ensuring that no one is left behind.
The WFF also seeks to inspire major shifts in production methods to maximize sustainability considerations together with shifts in consumption patterns towards healthy diets from sustainable agrifood systems in order to significantly reduce the costs associated with unhealthy diets and climate change by 2030.