The session “Scaling Up Climate Response through Agrifood Systems: Sustainable and Resilient Agrifood Systems to Deliver Better Production, Better Nutrition, Better Environment, and Better Life” was an opportunity for leaders from across the world to meet and discuss how agrifood systems changeover can contribute to the solution to the climate crisis and, simultaneously, to the agenda for improving the nutritional status and the lives of millions of people across the world through the FAO’s Four Better’s agenda or the agenda of the ‘2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference’ as in the case of the meeting that brought the First Lady of Brazil, the prime ministers and ministers from various countries, the Indigenous representative, the Former General, Helina Teklu, the Young Member from the WFF Ethiopia Youth Chapter, all providing their personal thoughts on how their nations address agricultural changeover on the one hand and the FAOs Four Better’s agenda or the agenda regarding the 2025 United Nations Climate Conference on the other.
As far as the connection that can be made with GEM’s “Perspective Taking + Empathy” is concerned, the type of speakers that were invited was relevant because it demonstrated that there are several debates involved in agrifood transformation and that the solution needs to cater to different perspectives rather than reducing all of them into one “technical” solution.
I am interested in this event because I’ve always had an interest in our climate and how we can reduce the destruction from human production better. I’ve interned for three summers with an eco-friendly business in South Korea and researched eco-friendly buildings (LEED). This project of mine has led to further investigation into our climate, not only from a business perspective and how we build, but also how we live. This impressed me because I saw how science and value intersected there. I am interested in learning more about how this connects to the agricultural industry and how this connects to the climate and value. It also impressed me to learn how speakers such as Janja da Silva speak on the value and morals of how the agrifood industry can further issues of justice and value, not only for efficiency. I appreciated how she emphasized the value of compassion and inclusion for a business industry that counts on science and not humans for their decisions.
Via GEM’s “Applying Knowledge to Contemporary Global Contexts,” I can recognize my own experience with sustainability (LEED/buildings) as a part of a much bigger picture: “green” outcomes are not merely a function of design, but of who is or is not well-positioned for access to resources, whose livelihoods are impacted, and so on.
What struck me was the encouragement to “notice the gap”—to observe inequalities in development and who gets left out when policies are put into place. The notion of considering the entire spectrum of development in relation to food systems with a systems thinking approach has really helped me shift my paradigm on sustainability. I see that climate resilience is not just about making things differently, but about changing underlying structures of who gets to have access to resources, to tech, to decisions.
This is immediately related to GEM’s “Understanding Global Systems,” where it challenged me not only to think about “what needs to change?” but also “what system is creating the gap?”
One of the more inspirational speeches was by Helina Teklu. Her plans for the coming year, outlined in her chapter’s vision for 2025 to 2026, to train 200 young people, develop startups, inspire digital literacy, and conduct art festivals, outlined a clear way to be innovative and reach all people. The comment about partnership, not investment, as the take-away from her address, spoke strongly to me: it challenged the way I think about development projects, which must be transformative when considering the partnerships, not the beneficiaries, of the projects.
I left the meeting feeling both hopeful and overwhelmed. Hopeful because it has given me a glimmering realization that, yes, there are leaders out there who are dedicated to a sincere and resilient agrifood future—but overwhelmed because it has shown me, yes, I am right: this is a tough changeover. I am certain, as I left, that the way forward is through linking global action to local empowerment, and by having our youth, along with our Indigenous communities, lead the charge. That is what I will take away—that we, in developing sustainable agrifood systems, have to deal not only with climate change, but also equity, culture, and voice.
As a follow-on step (and in keeping with GEM’s emphasis on informed action), I would like to continue to move from inspiration to analysis: to follow what happens in practice to “partnership” (deciders, doers, and accountables), and to assess the consequences of our actions for those communities who are most affected by the solutions to the climate crisis, even when those solutions risk reproducing inequality in the guise of efficiency.
