Through funding to the United Nations Environment Programme and to New Venture Fund, the foundation has supported the publication and dissemination of an interim report of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food project. This week, co-authors Pavan Sukhdev, Peter May and Alexander Müller write in Nature about the need for improved accounting of food production’s costs and benefits:
“We contend that a sustainable food system has three key attributes. It should deliver adequate nutrition and health across all levels of income and societal development. It should avoid significant negative ecological and environmental impacts. And it should ensure equitable access to land, water, inputs (such as seeds and fertilizer) and technical and financial assistance for the roughly 1 billion people who still depend on small farms for their livelihoods.
To achieve this, policymakers, researchers and citizens need more reliable and integrated information on the hidden costs and benefits — the 'externalities' — of the whole agrifood system, not just parts of it.”
Read their full opinion piece here.
Find their call for interest to authors, in order to help synthesize experience and learning from numerous practitioners in policy, farming and agribusiness, here.
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