Sustainable consumption

Hello everyone! My name is Lana Weidgenant and I am the Youth Vice-Chair of this topic area in the UN Food Systems Summit. I am looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the questions above soon and don't forget that you can select your preferred language at the top right!

Hi all, thanks for opening this consultation. Here are my responses to the questions above. 

1. Is there anything we have missed or that can complement these propositions?

The propositions need a few alterations to ensure that they truly serve future generations. For example, taxing unhealthy foods will have different impacts if we define unhealthy foods as those high in fat/ salt/ sugar, versus if we define them as ultra-processed. We have limited environmental resources available and therefore need to prioritise them to produce healthy foods. If taxation strategies are based on nutrient composition, then it is possible that foods such as diet coke could be encouraged to the same degree as fresh water, then they we will not see the same environmental benefits. Additionally, foods which have degraded food matrices, from ultra-processing, need to be accounted for. This cannot be done if we only allow nutrient composition of foods, rather than the level of processing to be regulated. This also applies to reformulation.

Reformulation can be a necessary ‘bandaid’ solution for reducing the fat, salt and sugar in the food supply, but it is not a transformative action as it does not treat food holistically (for example, it cannot account for degradation of food quality resulting from processing). Making tweaks to the fat, salt and sugar content of foods will not result in the required changes to reduce environmental impacts. Ultra-processed foods rely on more agriculturally intensive farming practices than minimally processed foods, they also require additional resources for processing itself, as well as demand added plastic packaging and transportation. This results in greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, over use of scarce water resources, eutrophication, plastic waste and pollution and more. Additionally, farmers and food processors working for large food corporations producing these foods are not always properly renumerated and job conditions are often poor. This summit is aiming for solutions which truly transform the food system, so enforcing regulations around foods which are highly processed (e.g. taxation) is a much more transformative solution than those that encourage ‘tweaking’ one element of the system, such as reformulation.

Secondly, it is important that plant-based diets are promoted for both health and environmental benefit. It is essential the dietary guidelines align with the most recent evidence about sustainable diets, and encourage foods which are better for both people and the planet. However, this is an opportunity for us to promote truly sustainable foods such as legumes. Unfortunately, ‘plant-based foods’ are becoming increasingly processed, with meat-alternatives made from ingredients which no longer contain the original nutritional value of legumes, such as fibre. In addition, additives such as salt, sugar, saturated fats and preservatives are turning these foods in unhealthy alternatives. They are often transported frozen which has significant environmental impacts, and ingredients (e.g. palm oil) as associated with deforestation and subsequent biodiversity impacts. Instead, consuming legumes which can be transported without refrigeration, and sourced directly from growers, is both more environmentally sustainable as well as increasingly the likelihood that farmers will be appropriately compensated. Diversification of proteins here is important too, as long as the foods are truly diverse, and not just reformulated/ processed versions of the same original plant product.

2. What concrete actions are you, your youth organization, or your community ready to take to ensure sustainable and healthy consumption

Youth can demand government action and continue to put pressure on corporations to prioritise health and sustainability. We can also vote with our wallets- and choose wholefoods (fruits, vegetables, legumes, etc) instead of ultra-processed products.

3. How do you think Governments and other stakeholders can support youth in achieving the actions identified?

Changes to food systems need to come from leaders in each world region/ country. This is of particular importance for nutrition, where the driving forces are predominantly economic and have led to corporate domination of the food system. This does not enable the prioritisation of environmental sustainability or health. Instead, governments need to prioritise people, through ensuring that policies and regulations (including agricultural subsidies) are aligned with goals for health and the environment. Taxation is key here, as are restrictions on marketing (see propositions 1 & 5).

4. Supposing there were coalitions formed around any of these, which one would you be interested to join?

Absolutely! I conduct research into sustainable foods and diets and would love the opportunity to contribute to: Fiscal policy measures, advertising, reformulation, food based dietary guidelines and, plant-based diets

1. Is there anything we have missed or that can complement these propositions?
   I think what's missing here is an effective narrative. Since consumption is the end-mile of supply chain, it revolves around consumer choices. Consumer will react based on their existing knowledge and also food affordability and accessibility. Often times, consumer are spoilt with choices but has limited understanding on how their choices may impact the environment which in turn will impact their health.  
2. What concrete actions are you, your youth organization, or your community ready to take to ensure sustainable and healthy consumption?
   My suggestion for this are
   1. Capacity building on food provider and food advocate. As a clinical nutritonist, i've been working on advocating for flexitarian and planetary diet where it is a plant-based diet with some felxibility. I inform my client about the impact of their choices not only to their health but also to the planet. This form of advocacy can be replicated to nurses, other healthcare workers, canteen workers, cafe workers etc. They just need a tool to advocate for a better consumption.
   2. Human-centered campaigns. Alot of climate campaigns used alien languages. The audience can't relate hence the adoption is poor. Human-centered campaign should start from everyday things such as fashion, food, sleep, exercise, and meditation. Together with my organisations, Global Shapers Community and Climate Reality Project, I have led several campaigns on fashion upcycling, food waste and upcycling and also nature walks to let more people appreciate and bond with nature. 
3. How do you think Governments and other stakeholders can support youth in achieving the actions identified
   1. Taxing the carbon. This may affect imported foods, specialised/exotic food and many more unsustainable food production. With higher price, it is not affordable and accesible to the mass market hence the demand will slowly diminished after sometime.
   2. Business should choose their partners. Government and businesses has the power to shift how business is done. With the right policy and strong sustainable business coalition, we can redefine business practice. The involvement of youth as business stakeholders can be a very contagious agent of influence as the younger generations now will follow 'trends'.
4. Supposing there were coalitions formed around any of these, which one would you be interested to join?
   1. I formed a coalition of youth who are working on the relationship between health and climate called MYCAP. There is a growing interest in planetary health but the emphasis of sustainable consumption is still not as strong. A better agent of change is to include food provider or advocate to shape a more wholesome coalition. Lets make it a trend!

I think our colleagues above mentioned a lot of relevant points!

to add, healthy food is also about good quality food. That is, food that has quality assurance, that is safe from bacteria, from pesticides and herbicides, that is not sold after expiring, that is stored accordingly and properly. In short, it is food that is clean and safe. 

Also, sustainable consumption starts when there is sustainable supply. Without achieving equal food access among members of society and bridging the gap between the Northern hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere, sustainable consumption will remain an individual habit and not a collective movement.

*What concrete actions are you, your youth organization, or your community ready to take to ensure sustainable and healthy consumption?

- I would say enhancing the level and developing new ways of advocacy to have this precise picture of what happening, which will be direct or indirect messages that can be done by anyone because advocating positive things, is not made only for a category of people but everyone, since it is the whole world's responsibility! and social media and even reality is actually playing a huge role in spreading that mindset, like what Mr Younes, the Algerian guys who didn't accept the fact that his neighbourhood is not being as beautiful as it used to be in his childhood so e cleaned it all, and he noticed that the beauty that he used to see is actually appearing now, just by implementing very simple action that made him smile take picture and post, and then boom everyone started imitating him, so he decided to take this action into another neighbourhood, then another city then another country, and challenge everyone to the same, this advicasy was not even meant to get that fame and to get rewarded by the UN buut it was meant to just see things beautiful again, but nature, and life always gives repay you back for your good deed.

*How do you think Governments and other stakeholders can support youth in achieving the actions identified.

-Funding was and will always be a problem that most youth suffers from, we always get very brilliant, fascinating ideas that can do a lot, but such ideas always need funding, so we have to make sure that the government is set under pressure that youth are trying to do things, but you are not doing your duty hat requires you to be supportive in this situations, so raising our voice which "MY PROJECT WILL FIX IT", which is a campaign that we will release on September, where we will be asking the government, to appreciate our ideas and thoughts that will lead into a huge change an that will fix what the government is struggling from.

*Supposing there were coalitions formed around any of these, which one would you be interested to join?

-I would go for them because I think they are related and it would be great to just work on all of them at once.

Some great comments today/yesterday! Special thank you to Daniel Mahadzir for the mention of planetary health diets and to Rayan Kassem for discussing the need for not just individual action, but a sustainable consumption movement! As young people, are we ready to shift to more sustainable diets and tell our networks about it? What actions do we need from government and other stakeholders to support sustainable consumption? Would love to hear more views!

Hello all I'm happy to join this conversation however with brief interventions

Towards a nature positive food system, we must consider key components that act in symbiosis

• Planetary Health
• Biodiversity Conservation
• Human Health and
• Population densities (both plant and human)

As we seek to grow food systems in healthy and nature positive way, we need to understand that there are variants to maximizing benefits for human activities as it relates with our food systems. Hence, ascertaining the level of damage caused to our food systems by human action would help to certain extent in understanding better how the same humans can recall the damages through restoration of biodiversity and follow strictly the nature positive way of growing food responsibly.

One of such damages were introduction of inorganic and non bio based practices which so far had endangered both human health and soil/ plant health invariably

Hi all, this is such an important area - I am glad that this discussion thread is taking place. I think one key action we can take is to meet with our local government representatives to discuss the importance of sustainable consumption to meet national health and environmental goals. I look forward to the discussion!

Hi everyone! I am Laurence Jeangros and I co-manage the Bites of Transfoodmation, a group of young people that decided to create a vision for the future of food systems in the form of a manifesto (and much more..). 

This last week of consultation, I will take on the role of moderator with the great support of Lana Weidgenant  and Kim Anastasiou. I look forward to reading your thoughts on the questions above and your engagement in transforming food systems!

This last day we had some great comments from adunreke.sam on nature positive production and organic agriculture, which joins very much the point that @Rayan Kassem made on the quality of food.  It also makes me think of Action Track 3 " Nature Positive Production" where nature-positive production is an important theme, right Pramisha Thapaliya ?

Thanks also to Luke Spajic who underlined the importance of engaging the local level of governments. On this a question: What could undertake local government representatives to reach healthy and sustainable food systems?

As A Youth,It Is My Responsibility To Spread The Importance Of Environmental Friendly Food Systems Since It Makes A Society Increasingly  Strong.The Responsible People In  Action Must Arrange Various Webiners,Competitions, Mentor Youth About The Importance Of Food Systems To Create An Informed Population.Thank You.

Thanks Ishan Ganguly for your comment on the need to spread information on sustainable food systems and the role that the youth and governments can play in this regard. It reminds me Pramisha Thapaliya 's comment on the need to raise awareness and share knowledge using, among others, the considerable potential of social media.

These input come from the "Indigenous Youth Global Declaration on Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems" issued during the Global Indigenous Youth Forum 2021:

1/3) We urge Member States to develop Intellectual property legislative frameworks recognizing and protecting Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge systems. We urge Member States and United Nations Agencies to guarantee Indigenous Peoples’ control over our Traditional Knowledge for effective intergenerational transfer of our knowledge, without the risk of misappropriation or misuse by third parties.

1/3) We assert that the Indigenous and biocentric ecological restoration must be urgently prioritized by Member States and relevant stakeholders, as it is the insurance for our collective future on the planet and the surest way to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We call upon the Private Sector and all parties to cease practices causing destruction and contamination of our waters, forests, air and lands.

1/3) We call upon the Private Sector to create spaces for Indigenous Peoples to sell our products.

1/3) We ask Governments and funders to commit to investing in infrastructure and capacity building for and by Indigenous Peoples’ communities to build accredited processing centres for foods, community gardens/growing areas for traditional foods, and connecting to composting, recycling systems and networks to reduce waste.

2) We, Indigenous Youth, are ready to make an international call to Indigenous Youth in the seven socio-cultural regions to prioritize their consumption, preferences and demand for local and traditional foods generated and produced in our Indigenous Peoples’ food systems. We must appeal to the importance of our traditional Indigenous food as an instrument of effective expression of our food sovereignty in action. We call for coordinated efforts of Indigenous Youth around the world to reduce and eliminate the consumption of ultra-processed foods and junk and fast food, which is having devastating effects on the health of our peoples and the maintenance of our ancestral food practices.

2) We, Indigenous Youth, are ready to strengthen community partnerships to localize our food systems with producers, harvesters, herbalists and economies, in order to protect our traditions and create engagement for Indigenous Peoples’ food systems among multiple stakeholders. We must also strengthen global networks between Indigenous Peoples at all levels to ensure the survival and dissemination of our knowledge systems.

2) We, Indigenous Youth, are ready to draw attention to the need to incorporate our voices into all policy discussions at the national, regional and global levels in the spirit of leaving no one behind.

EN Indigenous Youth Global Declaration on Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems_2.pdf189.32 KB

Very precious comment today by @Ida Stromso representing the Indigenous Youth Global Declaration on Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems, which demands food systems to be based on local and traditional knowledge, urging Member States and UN agencies to protect and support them. The declaration also calls the private sector to take accountability by stopping unsustainable practices and creating space for Indigenous People's food systems. 

Is there anything we have missed or that can complement these propositions?

While we are striving to achieve this propositions, it's always important to keep in mind  the social and cultural differences in the countries that we work in. For example, the meat industry being one of the biggest of brazil's economy, it would be unrealistic to expect a change coming from the government. Additionally, families with little monetary power may struggle to find non-animal based products that fulfill their cultural and dietary preferences and at a reasonable price, while in the states, meat and animal product substitutes are much more accessible. 

Hello all!

Thank you all for starting this very important initiative to move towards more sustainable and equitable food systems for all! Here are some of my thoughts and ideas.

I strongly support the ideas that a shift towards a plant based food system will ultimately have the greatest benefits and achieve maximum impacts when it comes to health, sustainability and equality. 

I think it is very important to encourage the school systems to educate youth from a young age around their food choices and what impacts they can have on the world around us. Personally, I never received any education on nutrition or food choices, especially when it came to how these choices contribute to climate change and sustainability etc. Moving towards a more transparent education system will overall benefit youth and their families as well as the environment in the short and long term.  

I believe it is very important for schools to start promoting to youth the benefits of a plant based diet and more plant based foods and recipes, including some common myths around the ideas that we need meat and dairy products in our diet to be healthy. Promoting more protein and calcium alternatives would be very beneficial as well as expanding youth's knowledge around their eating patterns.

Providing youth and individuals with plant based dietary guidelines is also an important step to take to ensure everyone is educated and ready to take on more sustainable and ethical food practices to ensure we are moving in the right direction.

Shifting towards a plant based food system will require much less land and resources and enable us to focus on restoring the Earth and reversing climate change for the planet and future generations to thrive. Promoting a plant based whole foods diet will also help our youth with the current health crisis and enable them to live long and healthy lives. Beginning this education at a young age is important, so youth can develop healthy habits early on.

Promoting things such as home cooked meals and home gardening will also be very beneficial.

Seeing these switches being promoted by our health systems and workers such as doctors, nurses dieticians, nutritionists and GPs will help the public in their education and making the shifts.

A plant based food initiative in hospitals will also be incredibly beneficial to promote the health of patients as well as educating them around sustainable food practices. 

It is also very important to work together with Indigenous peoples and all cultures to listen to their views on sustainable and ethical food consumption on a global scale. 

In conjunction with this, I believe it is very important for governments to get on board with promoting food systems that work inline with nature. Things such as eating locally and reducing the amounts of imported foods, eating with the seasons and supporting organic agriculture will help our ecosystems as well as our overall health. Switching to organic agriculture and reducing the amounts of toxic chemicals we use on our crops will promote soil biodiversity and bioactivity and biological cycles, as well as minimising the amount of harmful chemicals and pesticides being produced and released into the atmosphere. This will in turn, increase soil fertility and allow c02 to be captured, as well as encouraging consumers to eat with the seasons and increase our health.

Federal and local governments should be supporting and promoting these shifts by giving more jobs to people to work in the fields of organic agriculture and plant based nutrition. We should see a decrease in price in local organic fruit and veg by minimising shipping and tax rates and instead putting those taxes on highly processed foods which are now, the most cheap and readily available foods to buy in the supermarket. This would help people of all ages and socio economic statuses to have easy access to healthy plant based foods. 

Additionally, I would like to see better global systems to manage our food waste. Setting up neighbourhood composting bins is a great idea to use up old fruit and veg and minimise wastage. Having a composting bin to go along with our garbage, recycling and green bin is an easy tool that most people can get on top of. This compost could then go to local fruit and veg farmers to feed their crops, local gardens, nature reserves, or could even go to animal sanctuaries to help feed the animals.

Food transparency is another big issue that needs to be addressed. As consumers, it is our right to know where our food comes from and how it is made. It would be good to see more transparent advertising practices, especially when it comes to animal based foods and animal agriculture. Most people do not know the extent to which animals and nature is exploited in able to produce meat, eggs and dairy products. Instead, we are bombarded with advertisements, articles and images of so called 'happy farms' and 'ethical' and 'humane' practices to make consumers feel better about their food choices. This false advertising needs to change to encourage consumers to switch to a more eco friendly and healthy diet, and put in place more sustainable food practices. Plant based foods and recipes should be forefront in our minds and be promoted more often, including the benefits that they serve.

I am seeing such great ideas to put more pressure on local and federal governments to support us in these sustainable food practices, however, it is also so important that we, as consumers, set the example and put the pressure on the current supply and demand statuses, and take action right away to lead the way in this movement. 

Hello everyone,

Thanks for making this consultation! I would like to contribute as well.  

I can already see a concrete action to take to ensure shock-resilient food systems. This would be unlocking the potential of plant-based innovation and/or alternative protein sources (for example, it would help prevent future pandemics due to zoonotic diseases or reduce malnutrition in the world as we would have more protein sources available). Through my work and my involvement, I would be thrilled to help achieve that: Spreading the word, raising awareness, collaborating with other organizations and initiatives, etc. 

Your actionable solutions look very good to me and I am happy that the Youth formulated so many ambitious proposals. I think governments and other stakeholders can support youth in achieving the actions identified in several ways as you already drafted it: 

• Provide subsidies for farmers and sustainable innovation companies to enable the shift to sustainable food systems (subsidies for alternative protein sources innovation, subsidies for switch to sustainable and resilient farming)
• Switch to fair taxation of food products (taxation on animal products from intensive agriculture as well as on unhealthy food)
• Create working groups on specific topics (plant-based innovation, alternative protein sources, investment, and divestment, etc.)

To conclude, what I think is the most important to note is that more plant-based and cultured alternatives would indeed make our production and consumption patterns more sustainable (SDG 12).

I would be interested to join working groups on a shift towards more plant-based diets, plant-based innovation, or alternative protein sources. But I also find the investment/divestment questions really interesting and would really like to dig more into it.

Thank you!

Thanks to Bruna Weidgenant, Greta Cuthell and Juliette Tronchon for their excellent comments, all of which highlighting the need to move to plant-based food systems and diets. Thanks to Bruna for reminding us that we are not all the same when it comes to this transition, depending on our socio-cultural context. Thanks to Greta for detailing some precise actions to be taken to lead this consumption shift and highlight other areas to be tackled such as food waste and food transparency. Lastly, thanks to Juliette for underlining the role of innovation in promoting a shift in consumption, in particular regarding plant-based proteins. Governments are asked to promote local food systems , organic agriculture, unprocessed food and redirect taxes and subsidies to create a fair and sustainable food environment. Lastly, Greta recalled the role of consumers in making informed and sustainable choice. 

Hi all, I completely agree with all the comments above, thank you for that! To add:

 - Besides focussing on plant-based diets, also focus on nature positive diets. Plant-based could also be the highly processed plant-based products that are sometimes even worse than meat.
- In conjunction with alternative protein sources, more research is needed on mixed agricultural and farming models, delivering not only different alternative protein sources but also more resilience to loss of harvest of one particular product.

- To continue on education, I believe the medical curriculum could play a major role in this as was mentioned above by educating nurses, doctors and medical staff about the importance of food on the body as well as on the planet. However, I also believe food system awareness should not only be limited to the most obvious studies. For instance, economy students should also learn about the natural capital, besides only the basic capital system.

Fiscal policy measures to improve food environments including taxing unhealthy food
- As was mentioned before, very important to have a good understanding of what we define as unhealthy food. I strongly agree with the idea of looking at processed food in combination with added fat, sugar and salt.

Ensure every child receives healthy food at school and college
I completely agree with this one, however, I also see now from closeby the lack of prioritization on this point by governments or municipalities with the argument 'this is the job of the parent and not ours'.

How do others believe this could be addressed?

Ensure food is never wasted or lost
- Community cold storages should be available in every city, to prevent waste and losses, but also diseases.

- Prioritize short chain food networks (from producer to consumer). Binging food closer to people could help on several areas such as: limit food waste, bridge the gap between producer and consumer (give face to your food), improve fair pricing for producers (and thereby a better foundation to focus on shifting to nature positive production), and make the chain more transparant. 
- Look at policy barriers that limit the reduction of food waste per country or region. 

Accelerating diversification of proteins and Improve the acception process of Novel Foods

In addition to all of above, I believe it is important to look more closely to initiateves that are already focussing on different areas of change and help them to scale-up and fight the current system. There are great examples out there that are often overlooked due to lack of awareness. One thing could be to make a global repository on food system transition examples and best practices based on theme (cold-chains, GFT, waste, education, community building, local food chains etc.). If this already exists, I would be happy to hear! 

Thank you all!

Thank you Lisanne van Oosterhoud for your contribution today highlighting, among others, the importance of nature-positive diets, which include (non-)processing of food and transport distances. . On the question of the global repository on best practices in food systems, I have not heard of such thing (which would be great), have you Kim Anastasiou and Lana Weidgenant ?

The following comment is made on behalf of our youth-led group "Bites of Transfoodmation", in which we have created a vision for the food systems we want in the future in this manifesto.

1. We intensively talked about some aspects related to sustainable food consumption that may complement the above-listed propositions. Indeed, we consider crucial to link and bring closer production and consumption, as well as urban and te rural areas, by breaking down the invisible walls that currently divide these sectors and spaces. The idea would be that by linking and connecting them (by consuming local, creating hubs, digitalisation,...) consumers can make better-informed choices since they know the origin, the process, the nutrients, etc. of the food they consume. A second point we talked about was personalized diets, which are and probably will be an important driver of consumption in future years. We consider that diversification should be at the heart of the food chain in order to allow consumers to have access to personalized nutrition while respecting their personal cultural, social, health, and environmental constraints.
2. Our group commits to support local initiatives and demand governments to act on the policy level to bring consumers and producers, as well as people from rural and urban areas closer. Moreover, the group commits to support initiatives putting diversification at the center of the food chain. Lastly, we discussed the need of regulating the private sector at an international level on the basis of the true cost of food (encompassing social, environmental, health, cultural aspects). 
3. Governments can support through education and legislation the redefinition of waste, allowing it to be used and seen as an opportunity and resource (e.g. not destroying the food wasted in supermarket). Defining the true value of food loss and waste would also push towards an important reduction of it. 
4. Members of our group could be interested in participating in most of the propositions. In particular, the following propositions are the most in line with our discussions: ensure every child receives healthy food at school and college (2); ensure food is never wasted (4); introduce food-based dietary guidelines (8); promote plant-based diets (9).

Given the influence the youth have, different youth-led organizations at the grass-root should be identified and brought to light and be supported through hybrid partnerships by entities that people recognize and appreciate to implement the actions mentioned above.

Facilitate technological transfer that enables people, particularly in the Global south to develop an process healthy foods that are affordable.

We should make indigenous traditional grains attractive especially for millennials who scorn and shy away from them. In this way, we can reduce overdependence on the importation of such foods reducing food miles. 

Hello everyone!

It is important to say that we can produce and consume animal protein without being negative for the environment.

We have practices in the field that contribute more to sequestering carbon than to emitting, such as the recovery of degraded pastures and integrated production systems.

Livestock is a democratic means of producing food at low costs and promoting animal welfare and care for the environment.

As an example in Brazil, where producers have different certifications, proving sustainability, and also need to maintain and care for 20 to 80% of their areas with native forests.

Hello everyone!
 
Respectfully allow me to share some notes about the Brazilian Food Production. For being a professional in the Brazilian Agribusiness sector, i want to show you some technical data about our production system. 

Here in Brazil food production has been responsible for the increasing of the soil fertility and conservation. The major areas that are occupied by soybeans and corn right now, were degraded pastures in the past. In addition, has been improving year by year the use of precision agriculture, which uses high technology during the fertilizers application, saving the soil, carbon and money.

We can´t fail to mention the forward speed of the ICL- Integrated Crop-livestock in Brazil.

Since 1996 the Embrapa, Universities, Research Foundations and Farmers have been studying, testing and proving this technology. Brazil has more than 12 million hectares of ICL.

Many benefits were discovered, for example accumulating soil C and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Soil quality was improved in integrated systems with larger numbers of components and greater interaction between these components (ICLS) compared to traditional systems. Based on soil attributes, we can affirm that in this long-term, ICLS system is agronomically and environmentally efficient and sustainable.

Therefore, beef cattle and crops walk together in Brazil, both are concerned about the soil health and indeed also transforming the way they produce.

Below follow some sources to access more information about this topic. Embrapa has a book published in english that explains and shows the numbers and the process of ICLS in Brazil.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880913003332

https://www.bdpa.cnptia.embrapa.br/consulta/busca?b=pc&id=1017315&biblioteca=vazio&busca=autoria:%22BUNGENSTAB,%20D.%20J.%22&qFacets=autoria:%22BUNGENSTAB,%20D.%20J.%22&sort=&paginacao=t&paginaAtual=1

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renewable-agriculture-and-food-systems/article/abs/assessing-the-economic-viability-of-integrated-croplivestock-systems-in-mato-grosso-brazil/B3146D09A5B5B61567CDC4E1874E7988

https://www.redeilpf.org.br/index.php/rede-ilpf/ilpf-em-numeros

Everybody in Brazil, including the farmers, is concerned about the environmental problems, mainly fires and increase of the illegal deforestation. However, we should not generalize, not all beef cattle producers are directly related with illegal deforestation or fires, and those who are, must be punished by the law.

We must say that in the Amazon Biome, according to the Brazilian Forestry Code (2012), each farmer can take only 20 % of their land to use with pasture or crop, totally legal. In this form, it is necessary to differentiate the legal deforestation and the illegal deforestation, they are totally different.

Despite recent sensational reporting around the globe, more than 84 % of the Amazon is covered with native vegetation, at the same time, Brazil has more than 66 % of its territory covered with native vegetation. All this data, measured by the brazilian oficial institutes, was confirmed by NASA.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Best regards,

José Pádua.

Ensure every child receives healthy food at school and college

Not only should we ensure that every child receives healthy food, we should combine this with education programs on better nutrition and agricultural practices.  With this in mind, this recommendation should be combined with Action Track 4's recommendation on School-Based Agricultural Education (SBAE). SBAE combines livelihood skills (hard skills) with life skills (soft skills).  Young people gain confidence, leadership, science, entrepreneurial and farming skills that can serve them in any career.  Additionally, SBAE nudges school-aged youth, as early adopters, to consider and adopt healthier and more sustainable production and consumption patters along the agri-food value chain.  

SBAE requires government support through Ministries of Education and Agriculture.  President Kenyatta formally launched 4-K, Kenya's SBAE program, Kenya's SBAE program, last month.  More countries should follow Kenya's leadership.

Other organizations, such as the Future Farmers of America, 4-H Korea, and 4-H Liberia, are among the many SBAE organizations with historic government partnerships.  

My organization has launched The Movement for School-Based Agricultural Education -- a movement intended to bring together youth organizations, donors and agriculture groups interested in creating an enabling environment for SBAE.  

Youth shouldn't just receive healthy food -- they should be educated about growing and eating healthier food.  

Hi everyone. My name is Mirana and I am from Madagascar. You might have heard a lot about Madagascar recently regarding the severe famine affecting the Southern region of the country due to unrelenting drought. That is why I am particularly interested in food security issues. 

However, although some regions of the world are struggling to even find something to eat, some others are not conscious of food waste, and some others have issues with food conservation. So, I want to share what my company SoCool is doing to contribute to ensuring sustainable consumption. We are working on producing an Affordable Solar Filtration and Cooling Technology (SoCool). In fact, the large majority of the households in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford a refrigerator or cannot use the conventional refrigerator due to non-access to electricity. That leads to important food waste. Inspired by local African solutions, SoCool is an affordable ecological double design comprising of a solar-powered refrigerator and water filtration system, allowing users to conserve food with zero energy cost and also enjoy potable water. It is made mainly with clay and uses modern cooling technology. Our project won the first prize of the Pan African University Innovation Challenge 2020 and our company is registered officially in Uganda and we are currently building our prototype. We are targeting at least 50000 African households for the first five years starting from Uganda, DR Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Madagascar. 

In my opinion, governments and international organizations should promote youth's innovation and entrepreneurship related to food security and sustainable food consumption and support start-ups in that fields. 

I would be interested to join a coalition formed around the 4th item: ensuring food is never wasted, since it is more relevant to my company's area.

Thank you.

The two most critical components of shifting to sustainable consumption patterns are:

1. Introducing true-cost pricing,
2. Transitioning subsidy schemes from action-based to result-based.

Finally, I would like to note that we should be really talking about regenerative consumption and not sustainable consumption.

Hello everyone!

Really nice to read the perspective of so many people around the world.

Hope I have understood a little bit more how people outside my community and with different points of view think. Here is what I think about questions:

1. Is there anything we have missed or that can complement these propositions?

I think the 10 actionable solutions proposed approach a great part of the needs to achieve a “Sustainable Consumption”, I would like just to complement that the understand of sustainable and health consumption is not a common to all, as pointed by many here, the different of culture and habits create different points of view of what is acceptable or not, have strong institutions to lead and inspect the food system is essential.

2. What concrete actions are you, your youth organization, or your community ready to take to ensure sustainable and healthy consumption?

As vice-president of the Youth Commission of the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of Mato Grosso do Sul – FAMASUL Jovem, we have the objective to disseminate agricultural knowledge and techniques, topics as sustainable production, environmental management, consumer trends are often highlighted.

Reading the comments gave me a lot of insights to bring to the organization, specially Daniel Mahadzir comment about Capacity building on food provider and food advocate and Human-centered campaigns. I think we can do much more in these areas, thank you very much.

3. How do you think Governments and other stakeholders can support youth in achieving the actions identified?

I see that the performance of the CNA – Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil has been playing an effective role in supporting young people to carry out transformations and in the execution of their actions.

By placing young people in discussions about mains themes of food production and consumption, as encouraging their role in identifying problems and opportunities brings a new perspective on what actions to take and develops the professionals of the future.

I think the best support that Governments and other stakeholders can give to youth is to give them place to speak and learn about their consumption, as you guys are doing with this Forum.

4. Supposing there were coalitions formed around any of these, which one would you be interested to join?

2. Ensure every child receives healthy food at school and college;

7. Incentivize food systems change towards equitable food marketing;

10. Accelerating diversification of proteins

SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION!!

- Can isolated efforts lead to sustainable consumption ?

- We believe that it is together, with a united youth that we as a present and future generation will be able to provide solutions in order to have sustainable consumption!!

1- Is there anything we have missed or that can complement these propositions?

- Governments can develop an application on the use of leftover meals and be in contact with NGOs or institutions dealing with the poor in order to recover the leftovers: bakeries, supermarkets, restaurants to better reuse them or refer people in need to its places to help them feed.

- The penalization of food waste to a certain percentage to encourage better use of foodstuffs.

- Create a vast national network of restaurants catering to the local, cooking locally and promoting healthy, balanced and nutritious meals at affordable prices. Offer financing to these companies and tax relief to encourage their sustainable consumption initiatives and encourage the population to consume better. 

- Create days of local, nutritious and healthy consumption. 

- Train and inform the population on the need for sustainable consumption and its impact on nature through documentaries, TV shows, college, high school and university teaching classes. 

2- What concrete actions are you, your youth organization, or your community ready to take to ensure sustainable and healthy consumption?
- KEKA platform, Young innovative leaders for resilient agriculture.  

- Founder of this platform, my team and I, for example, focus our reflections on the use of energy in Burkina Faso and Cameroon for sustainable agriculture and diversified in proteins necessary for sustainable consumption through the following systems: The systems of intelligent solar pumping in isolated site for the irrigation of the agricultural fields; Micro solar power plants for small scale irrigation.

- In the future, we intend to mobilize as many young people as possible around the world to discuss tips and means to develop for sustainable consumption.

https://www.kekaagri.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12539751

- In addition, as a member of the research chair in law on diversity and food security (DDSA), the chair's mission is to carry out a critical analysis of existing national and international legal instruments with regard to the objective of protecting and promote agricultural and dietary diversity for better sustainable global food security. To this end, the chair is working on a project to promote territorialized food systems for sustainable consumption in countries.

https://www.chaire-diversite-alimentaire.ulaval.ca

- As a member of the COOK AFRICA restaurant chain in Côte d'Ivoire, we strive to encourage people to eat sustainably by promoting healthy and nutritious dishes from all regions of the country.

https://www.cookafrica.org

3- How do you think Governments and other stakeholders can support youth in achieving the actions identified?
- States must create practical training schools for young people in the preparation of healthy foods and inculcate them in the values ​​of sustainable consumption.

- Train young experts in sustainable consumption in developing countries and create a platform for access to these experts at free or reduced cost in order to allow them to advise the population and other stakeholders.

4- Supposing there were coalitions formed around any of these, which one would you be interested to join?

- The axes of reflection of the KEKA platform, Young innovative leaders for resilient agriculture are: food systems, food security, climate change and agriculture.

- We are therefore interested in joining all coalitions.

Hi everyone,

As EIT Food, we recently interviewed 2000 GenZ (aged 18-25) in Europe to understand their asks and needs to eat more healthy. I am pleased to share some of the results below. The full report will be published at the end of this week, in time for the Pre-Summit.

• When it comes to how to encourage young people to eat healthily, Gen Z identified "discounted healthy food" as the most impactful option, pointing to the gap between the affordability of healthy versus unhealthy options. 

• Young people think the EU should be responsible for ensuring that our food is healthy, closely followed by national individuals, then farmers or food manufacturers and then national governments.

• Young people also want food brands to step up and be clearer with consumers about the health impacts of their products – in much more detail than they are doing currently. The overwhelming majority would like food labels to have clearer information on the way food is processed, not just the ingredients, while they think food brands need to be more transparent with consumers about their ingredients and processes

There are more insights and findings, and I will be happy to share the full report when available as well as the infographics!

Hello all,

Great discussion and I have learned a lot by reading many of your inputs.

I'd like to share one of the good government policies initiated by the provincial gov't of Gyeonggi in South Korea related to eco-friendly sustainable and healthy consumption by proving a copy of the attached file.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anne

Eco-friendly School Meal Support Project_Dr. Anne HJ Lee.pdf122.01 KB