Food systems innovation: the real food crisis?Michaela Cosijn• Food Systems Innovation18 August 2015

Food systems are experiencing change

• Food production systems need to adapt to climate change

• Globalization of food systems driven by regional and international trade patterns.

• Changing dietary patterns and demands associated with rising incomes (in emerging economies,) urbanization, lifestyles and demographic changes

• Vertical integration of food value chains, often with power dynamics skewed in favor of large large corporates

• The increasing multi-functionality of agriculture and food systems (see next slide)

Multi-functional agriculture and food systems.

• Demands arising from global population growth outstripping increases in agricultural productivity

• Demands for ethical (human and animal) standards in food production.

• Demands for shared value business models in food value chains.

• Demands for environmentally sustainable food systems.

• Demands for the reduction of food waste and losses

• Competition between food and energy uses of agricultural production

• Food related health concerns (over and under nutrition, food safety)

Food crisis or innovation crisis.

• Historically national and global food systems have innovated and changed in response to the changing needs of society.

• Current demands for food systems changes often articulated as a food crisis: “a broken food system”

• In reality it is an innovation crisis: can we innovate quickly enough to reduce the social and economic pain of transition from the food systems that served us well in the 20th century to the food systems needed for the 21st centaury and beyond?

What is food systems innovation?

• Food systems innovation encompasses both technological change dimensions and institutional and policy change dimensions.

• Technological changes include: improved production technology to deal with climate changes; new post-harvest and process technology; sustainable pest management approaches.

• Institutional and policy changes include: new modes of business and trade practice; mechanisms to better articulate consumer and farmer needs; new patterns of partnership between public and private sectors and between agriculture, food, health and environmental stakeholders; policy coherence, regulation standards and norms

• The rate limiting factors are rarely at the technological frontier, but usually in the institutional and policy environment that enables the use of new technologies and other information and ideas.

What triggers food systems innovation?

• Historically public policy instruments have included: regulation, research and education, but often with little coherence between agricultural policy and wider food systems concerns particularly health.

• The market in the developed world has been a key driver in adapting food systems to changing consumer demands and concerns: necessary but not sufficient, requires strong civil society (food movements etc), needs to be complimented by long term perspectives and investment by the public sector in education, health and an appropriate set of regulations and incentives

• Both routes are necessary, but neither are sufficient.

How could food systems innovation be accelerated?

• Obviously research , but there are other preconditions needed to make this effective.

• Research will only be useful if it is embedded in and framed by a constructive dialogue between public and private sectors and civil society.

• This is needed to: set short and long term priorities, identify critical partnerships, co-develop appropriate institutional and policy regimes, identify practical operational schemes and intervention that can be implemented collectively.

Challenges and where to go from here?• This meeting is part of the way forward: It’s about starting to build a constructive

dialogue across the food and health domains.

• However there is much work and capacity building needed to create the necessary conditions and trust needed to develop a stakeholder platform that can not only agree on priorities but start to actively address them.

• This is challenging enough and necessary in the domestic context of Australia. • However more challenging is that Australia’s food system is intimately connected to

regional and global food systems.

• Understanding how Australian domestic food systems stakeholders can effectively engage in dialogue and innovation with their regional counterparts is thus critical in charting a path forward.

• We are no longer in an era where stakeholders or countries can go it alone.

Black Mountain, Action ACT 2601 Australiahello@foodsystemsinnovation.org.auwww.foodsystemsinnovation.org.au

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