Better Food and Land Use Practices: CEEW, IIM, TERI and WRI joins hands with FOLU

The Better Growing Report,2019 a FOLU India Initiative was done as a joint collaboration with its partners Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Water Resources Institute, India (WRI).

FOLU India Initiative will work towards developing knowledge on long term pathways to help those involved in economic and political decision making to follow pathways for sustainable food and land use systems in the country,said the Stakeholders at the Country Launch of the Report on Friday 10 January,2020.

Burgeoning World population and Mass migration due to climate impact, related hazards and associated risks are happening everywhere. In order to strengthen resilience, adaptive capacity, and adaption, we need to have a greater role in the local development of natural resource planning and management, with broader access to resources and a more decentralized governance structure. Current food systems are being challenged because they fail to provide permanent and reliable access to adequate safe, local, diversified, fair, healthy and nutrient rich food to host over half the world’s population.

According to the Better Growing Report, 2019 there are Ten Critical Transformations to Transform Food and Land Use  like Healthy Diets, Productive and Regenerative Agriculture, Protecting and Restoring Nature, A Healthy and Productive Ocean, Diversifying  Protein Supply, Reducing Food loss and Waste, Local loops and Linkages, Harnessing the Digital Revolution, Stronger Livelihoods and Gender and Demography. Increasing the number of more local supply food chains are the best way to diversify food supply, reduce the environmental pressures, and expand consumer access for affordable and healthy food.

The above Ten transformative changes are utmost important to achieve the targets for the Sustainable development and climate mitigation set by the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

FOLU will study India’s potential to develop more resilient and long term food and land use systems, said Kumar.

After Independence we were too much pressurized to fulfill our  food production to combat rising poverty and now we have come up to a stage where we need to pause, hold our breath and reflect on the current method of agri production on our Health in India, said, Ramesh  Chand Member, Niti Aayog. Even an inch below the current food production quantity will lead to increasing pressure of severe food shortages, he said. He also emphasized on the production decline after resorting to practices like ZBNF and Organic and also emphasized on effective researches to be carried out in alternate systems of agriculture in Universities.

In the Concluding session, Mr O.P. Agarwal focuses  finding new ways of transporting storing  and marketing the food that the waste is minimized. In this process we should appreciate initiatives like FOLU which could help the nation transition to a sustainable, clean and rewarding economy while delivering health to the people.