Food systems, Land use and Deforestation
Channel: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Date: 2021-06-08

The event “Food systems, Land use and Deforestation” was held on 2 October 2020 as a part of the 7th World Forest Week - a series of meetings and events hosted by FAO and its partner organizations and institutions – held back-to-back with COFO25.

Increasing demand for food, population growth and shifting dietary preferences have caused intense pressure to expand agricultural land. The conversion of forestland for the production of commercial commodities such as beef, soy, palm oil, cocoa, coffee as well as subsistence food crops make up an estimated 73% of deforestation in tropical countries. This is a vicious cycle as forests provide essential ecosystem services that can ensure agricultural productivity and contribute to climate change resilience of production. Despite this interconnection, action on land use, land use change and deforestation has been largely secondary in the discourse surrounding transforming food system paradigms compared to other important aspects such as nutritional quality, food safety, and food waste.
Transforming food systems demands concerted efforts, thinking and acting beyond sectoral boundaries to address the main drivers of unsustainable practices and adopt cost-effective targeted interventions. Policy coherence – in particular across agriculture, forestry, climate, biodiversity and economic policies – is a critical lever to enable change at scale to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Speakers
Presenters:
·         Mr Tim Searchinger, Research Scholar at Princeton University, and Senior Fellow, World Resources Institute
·         Mr Per Pharo, Co-director, International Climate and Forest Initiative, Ministry of Climate and Environment, Norway
·         Mr Agus Justianto, Director-General, Research, Development and Innovation Agency, Indonesia 
Discussants:
·         Mr Jamie Morrison, Director, Food Systems and Food Safety Division, FAO
·         Ms Leslie Lipper, Visiting Fellow, Cornell University
·         Ms Saswati Bora, Head of Food Systems Innovation, World Economic Forum
Moderator: Ms Astrid Agostini, Coordinator, REDD+/National Forest Monitoring, FAO

More information is available at: http://www.fao.org/about/meetings/cofo/en/ 

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