Over the past several decades, most food systems around the world have evolved to reduce the prevalence of hunger, but many have introduced a new wave of serious dietary health concerns such as obesity. Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat, a new book by Robert Paarlberg, observes that many popular solutions to the world’s food system challenges might not be adequate for human and planetary health.  

In a Feb. 10 book launch, Paarlberg—an Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs—and other experts explored the book’s recommendations for solutions that can benefit farmers and consumers alike. Highlights from the discussion include:

• Common remedies to food system challenges in the United States include increasing consumption of local and organic foods and eliminating farm subsidies but these moves would do little to improve healthy diets. A diet limited to organic and local foods would reduce the availability of healthy fruits and vegetables and increase their price, decreasing consumption.
• Innovations such as precision agriculture techniques and gene editing could have positive global impacts, and there is a growing need for larger investment in such technologies, especially in low-income countries.
• Consumers are increasingly aware of where their food comes from, and the environmental effects of food production. Plant-based meat, ‘clean’ or cultured meat, and increased advocacy were discussed as ways to address the environmental, human health, and animal welfare concerns surrounding livestock industries.
• Agricultural diversification, including irrigation to facilitate fruit and vegetable production, is an important tool to address both nutrition concerns and rural poverty.

Robert Paarlberg stressed the importance of tackling dietary health concerns such as obesity, saying; “Our problem isn’t food deserts, it is food swamps,” that is, concentrations of convenience stores, fast food restaurants, department stores—and even supermarkets—selling unhealthy, highly processed foods. Possible solutions to food swamps include taxing sugary beverages, front of package labeling for nutrition guidance, and reducing the advertisement of unhealthy foods to young people.

Claudia Ringler, Deputy Director of IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division, said new technologies are crucial for improving food systems and addressing nutritional challenges, as is the need for further investment in agricultural research, saying, “these innovations dramatically lack investment… and quite often consumer support. During 2011 through 2016, countries invested an average of only 0.73% of Agricultural GDP into agricultural research globally.”

Robert Bertram, Chief Scientist at the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security at USAID, discussed the intersection of global agricultural challenges and the question of nutrition, saying, “we know that agricultural diversification is a critical pathway out of poverty … this is a means by which smallholder families can lift themselves up, and it’s also a means of supplying nutritious foods to low-income people in both urban and rural settings.”

Honor Dearlove is an IFPRI Communications Intern.