DUBAI (December 10, 2023) - The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a roadmap on how to transform food systems to achieve the 1.5 degrees C Paris Agreement climate goal and zero hunger. The roadmap comes on the heels of the Emirates Declaration, in which over 150 countries committed to integrate food systems into their climate mitigation and adaptation plans.

The Roadmap is an essential affirmation and complement to a flagship report from WRI which also lays out a menu of solutions for achieving global food security and climate goals: World Resources Report on Creating a Sustainable Food Future. 

Following is a statement by Craig Hanson, Managing Director of Programs, World Resources Institute:

“How to feed the planet by 2050 without destroying it in the process is one of the grand challenges of our time. This roadmap is a welcome reminder that the answer involves sustainably boosting crop and livestock yields, reducing food loss and waste and shifting diets—all amidst a changing climate. 

"Building on WRI’s Creating a Sustainable Food Future and Growing Better report, the FAO roadmap adds to the growing chorus that the solution to the world’s food system involves sustainably boosting production, reducing food loss and waste, restoring degraded areas and protecting the nature that remains. 

“Now each country will need to forge a path toward a more sustainable food system. Rich countries will need to nudge people toward less meat-centric diets, and advance technologies and practices to drive down agricultural emissions. Low-income countries will need to sustainably boost crop and livestock productivity, even in a changing climate. All countries will need to tackle food loss and waste. Smallholder farmers will need far more assistance to adapt to extreme weather, such as droughts and floods, which means wealthy governments need to step up. And all these changes will need to happen without further sacrificing forests for agriculture.

“Despite many caveats and conditions imposed on bioenergy use in this roadmap, dedicating land to bioenergy is inherently inefficient and inevitably undermines the world’s goals of meeting rising food demands and preserving native ecosystems and their carbon.

“As this roadmap continues to evolve, countries should view this as an opportunity not only to strengthen their own food plans, but to work together toward a more inclusive, resilient, sustainable global food system.”