Transitioning to Sustainable Food: Research-Based Partnerships

Sustainable Food is one of the axes that articulate all our work as a Foundation, to the extent that we have detected that it is a cross-cutting issue to many other challenges and problems of our time. Weaving alliances to build other possible futures is a firm commitment on our part, which is why our initiatives in this regard are increasingly linked to collaboration with other agents in our ecosystem and, especially, to the promotion of research in sustainable food, a highly multidisciplinary topic, to guide the way to the food transition.

The choices we make about our diet, both individually and collectively, have an impact on our social balance and our planet. For this reason, at the Foundation we work on Sustainable Food from a systemic approach, since we know that the ecological, economic, social, nutritional and community health impacts of food are interdependent. Research is, in this sense, a key tool that can allow us to identify the challenges we face and what are the possible ways to address them. The Alimentta think tank or the creation of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship are some of the initiatives that we have promoted from the Foundation to promote research that brings together experts from different fields of knowledge around food, achieving a holistic vision of reality, problems and solutions to address the food transition.

Aware that this broad challenge presents a whole network of implications, which cannot be addressed from a single approach or alone, our strategy is to weave alliances with other agents in our ecosystem to carry out initiatives that can contribute to the systemic change we want for the future, acting simultaneously at several levels. In recent months we have developed, in particular, three initiatives that address the issue of sustainable food from different and complementary approaches: in its demographic, social and public policy dimensions, respectively.

The demographic dimension of food: #ReGeneraciónRural, new ways to promote new agricultural enterprises

The agricultural professions enjoy a good reputation in Spain, especially after the confinement due to COVID-19 demonstrated their essential role. However, there is still a great lack of knowledge and preconceived ideas about a professional option of great value, which is resulting in a lack of generational replacement in field work.

Territorialized Agri-Food Systems are shown to be a necessary model for the food transition, which is why it is urgent to promote them together with agricultural self-employment and small enterprises that contribute to their development but that encounter numerous obstacles to a leap in scale that allows their generalization. If we want an agri-food system that puts people at the centre, that is respectful of the planet, provides quality employment and vindicates the value of absolutely essential professions, we must look at what is currently happening with the reputation and future of agricultural professions and offer ways for young people to see them as a job option for the future and to be trained.

To this end, together with CERAI (Centre for Rural Studies and International Agriculture), we promoted the report The Road to Agricultural Employment in Territorialised Agri-Food Systems. This study makes a diagnosis of the reasons that are leading to the depopulation of rural areas and the obstacles that people who seek to make a life project in rural areas face. It then provides a detailed analysis of the current situation of agricultural professions in our country, the differences between the two systems of food production and distribution that currently coexist and the possible ways to promote the necessary return of young people to the countryside.

The social dimension of food: a study Feeding a sustainable future, to address food insecurity in Spain

Sustainable food is the basis of life, a determinant of the health of people and the planet, a source of well-being and an empowering element. Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger, seeks precisely to achieve food security and improved nutrition, promoting sustainable agriculture. Unfortunately, the number of people who cannot feed themselves adequately in Spain is alarming, as shown by data from food aid organizations. A reality that has been aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic, with new profiles of people who have lost their jobs and are in a situation of food insecurity.

To find out the current data on food insecurity in Spain and the possible ways to address the problem, we have funded the study Feeding a sustainable future, developed by the University of Barcelona under the leadership of Dr. Ana Moragues. This is a pioneering research that for the first time addresses the issue of food insecurity in Spain, using the FAES scale of the United Nations. The text reveals unpublished data on the lack of access of many Spanish families to healthy and sustainable food: more than 2.5 million Spanish households cannot regularly access sufficient food in quality and quantity. The report shows that food insecurity is a problem that goes beyond the cyclical, since even before the pandemic, 11.9% of Spanish households already suffered from this condition. In addition, the study includes the need to promote measures and policies focused on people and their dignity to build a fairer society, motivating public institutions to deepen their measurement for the creation of public policies that tackle this social problem.

The role of public policies in the transition to sustainable food systems: White Paper on Sustainable Food in Spain

The transition to sustainable food systems is the most effective way to put the brakes, and even reverse, some of the most pressing challenges and problems of our time: climate change, malnutrition and obesity, rural depopulation… For this systemic change to take place, the role and positioning of public policies should be decisive, active and committed.

With the intention of accelerating this process, together with the Alternativas Foundation, we prepared the White Paper on Sustainable Food in Spain, offering keys and concrete proposals to make the food transition effective. The text, in which more than 50 researchers and professionals from the third sector have participated, is proposed as a starting point to reflect on what food system we want for 2030, as well as a roadmap for a just food transition towards sustainable food systems, in all its dimensions. The proposals are organised into five fundamental pillars: informed citizenship, facilitating and secure policy framework, economic incentive system in coherence with food sustainability objectives, balanced, transparent and inclusive value chain, and food production in balance with nature.

Following the publication of the White Paper, a White Agenda has also been launched to set up working groups that meet periodically to activate concrete measures to respond to the problem of food insecurity, based on the findings of the study.

Food is a cross-cutting issue that affects us as a society on many levels, both in the long, medium and short term. Undoubtedly, it is one of the key lines of action that must be taken to achieve a fairer and fuller society, as well as a habitable planet to bequeath to future generations, since food is both a cause and a way of solution to the climate emergency. We continue to see the extent to which research plays a key role in defining the paths that this transition should take and what its implications are.

We will continue to strengthen these alliances to promote research and open new ways to get closer to that sustainable and better-nourished future that we need as a society.