A new research report – “Beacons of Hope: Accelerating Transformations to Sustainable Food Systems” – launched today by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development showcases 21 initiatives from across the world that are working in diverse ways to achieve sustainable, equitable, and secure food systems. Each contributes inspiring solutions to urgent global issues such as the climate emergency, migration, urbanization, and the need for healthier and more sustainable diets.
Building on the outcomes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Land, which spells out the need for urgent action, the 21 “Beacons of Hope” profiled in the report are evidence that transformation is possible and point clearly to the nature- and people-based solutions available to us.
The Beacons of Hope are regenerating landscapes, enhancing livelihoods, restoring people’s health and wellbeing, reconnecting with Indigenous and cultural knowledge, and more, in order to achieve a resilient, sustainable food future.
They include:
- Climate Resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming, a government-backed chemical-free program that promotes food resilience through traditional farming and agroecological processes. Knowledge and skills are shared through farmer-to-farmer mentoring, with plans to scale from 180,000 farmers today to 6 million in Andhra Pradesh, India, by 2024.
- Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), promoting income generation, biodiversity conservation, and food security in Zambia by training poachers to be farmers. Skilling farmers in agroecological approaches helps generate an alternative income and livelihood to the (illegal) hunting of wildlife.
- EOSTA, a business in the Netherlands that produces and imports sustainable, organic, and fair-trade fruits and vegetables. It provides full traceability of their products and promotes true cost accounting in order to build a sustainable market between producers and consumers.
- MASIPAG, a farmer-led network of civil society organizations, NGOs, and scientists in the Philippines sustainably managing biodiversity through farmer bred and controlled rice production, seeds and biological resources.
- Zero Waste San Francisco, a local government initiative to reorganize waste management in the city by shifting to a circular system. They reduce waste by targeting growers and food businesses with informative campaigns, creating links for wholesalers with food banks, changing consumer behaviors, and more.
Recommendations and guidance for implementation
The report also provides policymakers, investors, funders, businesses, and researchers with a comprehensive Food Systems Transformation Toolkit built on the Global Alliance’s principles of renewability, health, equity, resilience, diversity, and interconnectedness as a guide for collective action. It sets out practical recommendations – gleaned from the experiences of the Beacons of Hope profiled – on how to accelerate meaningful food systems transformations at this critical time.
A detailed methodology developped by Biovision was used to select the top 21 Beacons from an original list of 128. The next phase of Beacons of Hope will be announced later in 2019.
>> Continue to “Food Systems Transformations Report”
>> Learn more and download the toolkit
Press Releases
- Welthungerhilfe: Beacons of Hope: Leuchtturmprojekte für die Zukunft unserer Ernährung (October 2019)
- Finanzen.ch: Global Alliance for the Future of Food Report: 21 Inspiring Examples of a Sustainable Food Future (13.8.2019)
- ETH Zurich: Beacons of Hope (13.8.2019)
About the Global Alliance for the Future of Food
The Global Alliance for the Future of Food is a strategic alliance of philanthropic foundations working together and with others to transform global food systems now and for future generations. We believe in the urgency of transforming global food systems, and in the power of working together and with others to effect positive change. Food systems reform requires new and better solutions at all scales through a systems-level approach and deep collaboration among philanthropy, researchers, grassroots movements, the private sector, farmers and food systems workers, Indigenous Peoples, government, and policymakers. www.futureoffood.org