HYBRID POLICY SEMINAR
Tackling the Hidden Costs of our Food Systems
Co-organized by IFPRI, The Food System Economics Commission (FSEC), and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
JUN 6, 2024 - 9:30 TO 11:00AM EDT

Food systems provide important benefits to the global population, not only providing food but also supporting livelihoods for more than one billion people around the globe. However, food systems also encompass hidden environmental, health, and social costs, estimated to be at least $10 trillion per year, as mapped out in two separate seminal reports from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC).

Please join us for a discussion on these hidden costs of food systems and the remedies to reduce this economic burden, while moving toward more sustainable, health-promoting, and socially inclusive food systems.

Speakers include experts involved in FAO’s report, The State of Food and Agriculture 2023, and FSEC’s Global Policy Report, The Economics of the Food System Transformation. Additional food system experts will delineate the hidden costs of food systems and examine transformative approaches for reducing them.

Open and Welcome Remarks | Setting the Scene
Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI and Managing Director, Systems Transformation Science Group, CGIAR
Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

FAO SOFA report
Andrea Cattaneo, Senior Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 

FSEC Global Policy Report Findings
Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi, Director, Food System Economics Commission (FSEC)

The Role of Diets in Reducing Food System's Hidden Costs
Jessica Fanzo, Professor of Climate and Food at Columbia University

Addressing Obstacles to Food Systems Transformation
Danielle Resnick, Senior Research Fellow, Development Strategies and Governance Unit (DSG), IFPRI

Moderator
Charlotte Hebebrand, Director of Communications and Public Affairs, IFPRI

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Tackling the Hidden Costs of our Food Systems

Introductory Remarks by Geraldo B. Martha Jr., Coordinator, Embrapa, Labex-USA
 
Successful agricultural transformations around the world provide critical lessons and offer insights into opportunities for other countries seeking to take this step forward.

 
At this special event, we will learn about Brazil’s agricultural transformation from Embrapa’s President, Maurício Lopes. IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan will share insights from Asian countries, ERS Administrator Mary Bohman will review the experience of the United States, and Asia-Brazil Agro Alliance President Marcos Jank will discuss the role of the food industry in agricultural transformation.

IFPRI Special Event:  Transforming Agriculture - 5/15/2018 - GMartha

Speaker: Marcos Sawaya Jank, President, Asia-Brazil Agro Alliance and IFPRI Board member
 
Successful agricultural transformations around the world provide critical lessons and offer insights into opportunities for other countries seeking to take this step forward.
 
At this special event, we will learn about Brazil’s agricultural transformation from Embrapa’s President, Maurício Lopes. IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan will share insights from Asian countries, ERS Administrator Mary Bohman will review the experience of the United States, and Asia-Brazil Agro Alliance President Marcos Jank will discuss the role of the food industry in agricultural transformation.

IFPRI Special Event:  Transforming Agriculture - 5/15/2018  - M.Jank

What happens when a child is malnourished? Can such a child ever “catch up” later in life? Why does urbanization and obesity seem to go hand in hand—and what does this mean for food production? We’ll explore big picture food system questions today on the Leading Voices in Food with our guest Dr. Shenggen Fan.

The Leading Voices in Food

Shenggen Fan on Hunger, Climate Change and the Hope of Innovation

Speaker: William A. Masters, Professor, Tufts University

Interventions and innovation can lower the price of individual foods, but healthy eating depends on access to a mix of foods from diverse sources. How has the overall cost of meeting dietary needs changed over time worldwide, and in Africa and South Asia specifically? What determines the cost of a healthy diet? And how does affordability affect dietary intake and health status in different locales?

To answer these questions, Changing Access to Nutritious Diets in Africa and South Asia (CANDASA) (https://sites.tufts.edu/candasa) has been using new food price indexes that account for food substitutions to meet nutritional needs to evaluate food systems all over the world, including in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Malawi, and Tanzania.

This seminar will present the outcomes of CANDASA’s work to date, with a panel discussion featuring field researchers from each country to discuss the local and global implications of their results.

Research by Tufts and IFPRI on this topic is supported by UKAid and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

IFPRI Policy Seminar:  What is the Cost of a Healthy Diet? - 5/29/2019 - WMasters

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 50 countries. It is a research center of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.

Tackling the Hidden Costs of our Food Systems

International Food Policy Research Institute

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