Changes in climate, biodiversity, and human wellbeing are closely connected and all have effects on each other. This is particularly clear when looking at agriculture, which plays a critical role in our food, land, and water systems. The global food system currently causes about one-third of greenhouse gas emissions and drives huge biodiversity losses, while still leaving 2 billion people with unhealthy diets, even as 40% of all food produced is wasted or goes uneaten. Ironically, many farmers around the world are some of the most vulnerable populations struggling to make ends meet and are often themselves without access to nutritious diets, even as they play such a pivotal role in producing foods and managing landscapes for the world’s population. In short, the way we currently feed ourselves is unsustainable for both people and the planet.
Our food, land and water systems thereby also offer a huge opportunity space to act upon these multiple challenges simultaneously, and global and local movements around the world are calling for food and agricultural systems transformation to help solve some of these critical issues. The interactive learning modules here highlight and reflect on insights, tools, actions and ways forward for how we can actively strengthen co-benefits (synergies) and better anticipate and manage conflicting goals and unintended negative consequences (trade offs) between social and ecological goals of food, land and water systems.
Learning modules
The case studies, lessons learned and discussions included in the learning modules bring together insights from more than 40 contributors located across the world and are built to encourage a collaborative co-learning space and support new ways of problem-solving in our food, land, and water systems. The modules include multimedia presentations as well as short readings, examples from the field, innovative tools, approaches, and insights to help uncover more equitable, holistic and resilient pathways for the transformation of our food and agricultural systems.
We invite you to explore the learning modules and “choose your own learning adventure” as fits best with your interests and perspective in the food system space. You can start at the most relevant entry point for you (click on a section of the flower figure), and from there explore content and topics beyond your comfort zones, and at different scales – from the farm to the global level or the other way around. In bringing together flexible and relevant insights and toolkits, we hope to support you to actively anticipate and manage synergies and trade-offs between people and nature in our food, land, and water systems.
Contributors
As we all continue learning together in this space, we invite you to become a contributor if you’d like to share your own perspectives, experience, and tools. Please contact us to get involved.