Change Needed: Five Challenges Facing Food and Agricultural Industry
The worldwide food supply will be under intense strain, as the population is anticipated to grow to nearly 10.5 billion by 2100. A new position paper released by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) stresses the need to address five key challenges confronting the food and agricultural industry:
- Food nutrition and security
- Climate change
- Environment
- Health and safe food
- Inequality
WUR is maintaining the position that the Common Agricultural Policy, an initiative of the European Union, should be revised to emphasize an urgency for sustainability rather than agricultural productivity goals. It identifies the following innovations, which would also lead to a more integrated agricultural and food policy, to address the above challenges:
- Genetics
- Digitization and big data
- Energy and bio-based transitions
- Chain redesign
- Social innovation
“We need a policy that addresses the consumer concerns on the food chain and admits that the actors in the food chain are much bigger than in the past, including most farms,” said Krijn Poppe, Research Manager & Senior Economist at Wageningen Economic Research in a press release.” ‘One size fits all’ will not do in a more complex Europe; to keep it simple and affordable we need a combination of several targeted instruments.”
WUR also proposes five new pillars for a successful Common Agriculture & Food Policy:
- Income support and risk management to guarantee food security
- Public issues and eco-system services
- Rural development to support innovation and quality of rural life
- Consumer food policy and consumers themselves, retail and food industry in effort to push a healthier diet and healthier climate
- Monitoring, reflection and research