UNCCD FOOD DAY: Seeds of Change for a Nature-Positive Future
Patterns of food production have proven to be insufficient and many of the consequences of this are threatening human health and the environment.
Food waste continues to be a challenge, creating a gap between food production and consumption and contributing to land degradation. The status quo of land use is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, biodiversity loss and is failing to provide people with nutrient-rich diets.
In order to achieve the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, ensure that everyone has access to healthy food, and see that our food system is positively impacting biodiversity, nature, and contributing to climate change mitigation, we need to work towards an integrated food systems approach, moving away from unsustainable practices like resource-intensive production, dependence on animal products and high levels of food waste.
For this reason, the UNCCD Food Day titled “Seeds of Change for a Nature Positive Future” was organised on May 12th at the Rio Pavillion and was the first ever Conference of the Parties with a full day devoted to food systems.
The event encompassed a total of seven sessions through which it aimed to raise awareness of the need to transform our existing food systems. This means reversing current unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and exploring solutions for restoring degraded ecosystems, improving and scaling soil health globally, promoting sustainable diets and more.
CA4SH actively participated in the session titled “Healthy Soil for a Healthy Planet”, with Leigh Winowiecki, co-lead of CA4SH and a CIFOR-ICRAF scientist, as one of the panellists.
““Soil Health is central to reaching the SDGs, central to reaching Land Degradation Neutrality, therefore it must be part of the UNCCD, UNFCCC and CBD Declarations””
The session emphasised the role healthy soils have in achieving the goals of the three Rio Conventions and in particular land degradation neutrality. It showcased experiences from different perspectives and sectors and it highlighted CA4Sh, the multi-stakeholder platform that was recently launched at the UN Food Systems Summit.
The event aimed to provide solid outcomes, specific targets and to serve as a call for action to countries, the private sector and other stakeholders.
