The global food systems that keep more than 8 billion people fed come at a huge cost to public health and the environment in terms of climate change, wasteful and unsustainable production practices, and diseases of overnutrition, undernutrition and malnutrition. These costs will only rise as the global population continues to grow. To ensure that nourishing food is accessible and available to all while staying within planetary limits, the world must transform how food is produced, distributed and consumed.
The School of Public Health (SPH) at Washington University in St. Louis hosted the FARM Food Futures Forum on October 9 to discuss the future of food. The inaugural convening of SPH’s Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM) Innovation Research Network, the event brought together leading voices from academia, government, civil society, and the private sector to engage in critical dialogue on transforming food systems to support human and planetary health. See here for a recording of the day’s events.
“The idea of launching a food and agriculture research mission within a school of public health goes to the very core of some of the things we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but nobody has had the courage to do them,” said Agnes Kalibata, PhD, who is recognized internationally for her work in food insecurity and was one of the keynote speakers at the forum. “Putting public health at the center of discussions about food systems creates an opportunity. Only when we do that will we be able to reduce the burden on health and on the environment, and the waste of resources. We need to step back and integrate, really integrate, food and agriculture so they work for public health.”
“The idea of launching a food and agriculture research mission within a school of public health goes to the very core of some of the things we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but nobody has had the courage to do them.”
Agnes Kalibata, PhD, keynote speaker and founder and chair of Connect for Impact Advisory Group
Kalibata is the founder and chair of Connect for Impact Advisory Group (C4Impact), the past president of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and was the special envoy of the U.N. secretary-general for the 2021 Food Systems Summit. She delivered the opening talk at the WashU Public Health forum for a session titled, “What is Required to Achieve Sustainable Food Systems Transformation?” In her address, she noted that food systems impact every pillar of sustainable development — health, climate, biodiversity, poverty, equity and others — and warned that the world is fast approaching the point where food systems must be transformed or risk undermining global progress toward sustainable development goals. But, she emphasized, these transformations must be done thoughtfully, rooted in solid evidence.
”Science must lead. We cannot lead with emotion. We must make sure that whatever policies are implemented are anchored in science,” Kalibata said. “I want to encourage scientists to bring rigor to their work and be prepared to combat misinformation, because there’s a lot of misinformation out there. I want to encourage funders to support long-term research and also to provide the seed capital that allows innovation to happen. I want to encourage all of us to take advantage of the international commitments that have been made at COP28 (the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference) and other meetings. The flag has already been planted by countries on this. Now it is up to us to follow up. Together we can create an innovation ecosystem that allows great ideas to come up so we can meet the challenges of the day.”
In the discussion that followed, panelist David Spielman, MSc, PhD, director of the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., commented on the importance of viewing agriculture policy from the perspective of public health.
“The nice thing about a public health school taking the lead on organizing these conversations is that you’re starting from the consumption side — ‘What are we putting in our bodies?’ — and then working backwards to the farm,” Spielman said. “Traditionally, much of our research has started at the farm, and we’ve said, ‘How do we produce more?” whether what farmers are producing is good for us or not. Now we’re saying, ‘How do we get more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff, in a way that is remunerative for farmers?’ It’s a whole new way of looking at it.”
The second keynote address was delivered by Jason Clay, PhD, the senior vice president of markets and food and executive director of the Markets Institute, World Wildlife Fund. Clay was unable to attend in person, so he provided a prerecorded video address and then joined the panel discussion remotely. In his talk, Clay named the global food system as the biggest human-made threat to the planet, and said that addressing the interwoven problems of food production and climate change required a forward-looking focus.
“It’s a little bit like Wayne Gretzky said: ‘We need to skate to where the puck will be, not to where it is,’” Clay said. “So, in terms of things like subsidies, can we anticipate issues and then figure out how to subsidize the future we want, as opposed to maintaining the past that we’re trying to get rid of? We need to explore whether there are ways that we can change basic business models. Can we grow, in greenhouses, a lot of food to take pressure off some of the land? We also need to understand that, with climate change, production is going to shift, and the more that we can think about that ahead of time and transition the shift so that it is smoother (the better off we’ll be).”
The third keynote speaker, Robert Bertram, PhD, chief scientist at the Food Security Leadership Council in Washington, D.C., and former chief scientist for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, focused on the persistent issue of global hunger. He noted that rising food prices this century are increasing pressure on the poorest people in the world, and emphasized the critical role of science and research and development (R&D) in driving agricultural productivity, reducing poverty and improving food security.
“We have to think big, but let’s not forget that context matters. We can think globally about the challenges, but the solutions have to work locally.”
Robert Bertram, PhD, chief scientist at the Food Security Leadership Council in Washington, D.C.
“We’re a quarter way through this century, and we still have 700 million undernourished people and more than that who are not getting adequate micronutrients,” Bertram said. “What we need in this setting are good ideas. WashU is sitting in a hotbed of innovation here. You’ve got lots of companies, agricultural research powerhouses, real global players, and the potential is great for WashU to complement them in the public health dimension and bring some fresh insights to elevate the issues.”
The forum closed with the announcement of the first two FARM Cultivate grant awardees. The grants are designed to support research into practical, scalable innovations that contribute to sustainable transformation of agricultural and food systems and improved public health. Track 1 is aimed at early-career investigators and provides up to $40,000 for one year; Track 2 is designed for more established interdisciplinary teams and provides up to $250,000 of support over two to three years.
Stephanie Mazzucca-Ragan, PhD, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health, received a Track 1 grant for a project titled, “Growing Minds, Growing Communities: Enhancing the Reach and Impact of Farm to Early Care and Education,” in collaboration with SPH’s Ross Brownson, PhD, the Steven H. and Susan U. Lipstein Distinguished Professor, and Maura Kepper, MPH, PhD, an assistant professor of public health.
Dan Ferris, PhD, an associate professor of practice at the Brown School, received a Track 2 grant for a project titled, “Network for Operationalizing Upstream Responses to Improve Systems and Health (NOURISH): A Cross-Sector Hub to Improve Food and Nutrition Security in Missouri,” in collaboration with SPH’s Todd Combs, MA, PhD, a research assistant professor; Rachel Tabak, PhD, RD, an associate professor; and Sarah Moreland-Russell, MPH, PhD, an associate professor.
“The challenges we face are enormous. And yet, there was a fair amount of optimism today, including from me. There are good things going on, and we need to really focus on those.”
Panelist David Spielman, MSc, PhD, director of the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C.
Writer
Tamara Schneider, MPH, PhD, is the senior science writer and assistant director of communications for WashU School of Public Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics & biochemistry and in sociology from Yale University, a master’s in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in biomedical science from the University of California, San Diego.