Posted on September, 12 2024

What we eat and how we produce it is the number one threat to nature. Food systems are the biggest driver of biodiversity loss and produce around a third of all greenhouse gas emissions.

We produce more food than ever before, but one in three people lack regular access to adequate food and more than 800 million people go hungry each day.

On the other end of the scale, poor quality food is leading to more than two billion people being overweight or obese. 

These are global problems, but they can’t be solved with a global approach.

Food systems around the world are very different, with unique food cultures, traditions and dietary habits.

At the same time, although food systems currently harm nature they are entirely dependent on healthy functioning ecosystems. Clean air. Plenty of water. Healthy soil.

These environmental factors also shape national food systems.

See also:
The Great Food Puzzle tool
High-impact solutions for food systems around the world
Food Practice at WWF

Sustainable food systems can provide everyone with enough healthy and nutritious food, while also supporting an increase in nature and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

To unlock this potential, we need to apply the right solutions in the right places.

Tailored solutions for each food system

To help decision makers around the world solve The Great Food Puzzle, WWF has categorized countries into six different Food Systems Types, based on their unique social and environmental characteristics, and identified the solutions with most potential for each.

Twenty solutions have been ranked in each Food System Type and, although all can deliver some positive impact, each group of countries has the potential to enjoy most success by applying a different set of solutions. An interactive tool helps uncover these priorities.

For instance, adopting high-tech methods could deliver more impact in countries that are food secure, have highly industrialized food production and severe water risk – like Mexico, China, South Africa and Spain.

These solutions could optimize existing production while also protecting access to clean and safe water, which could be particularly threatened by climate change.

On the other hand, supporting smallholders will deliver most impact in countries whose food production is not heavily industrialized – like Kenya, Paraguay, Philippines and Viet Nam.

And focusing on strengthening national commitments and their implementation rather than developing new commitments is of more importance in countries who have environmental policies in place and heavily industrialized production systems – like the UK, Netherlands, Germany or Japan. 

Common solutions

There are some consistencies across all Food System Types, the biggest being the importance of improving natural resource management, by adopting food production practices that optimize yields while preserving ecosystem services, restore biodiversity alongside farming, and increase the diversity of foods produced.

There is also a critical need for all countries to redesign finance and trade, particularly redirecting subsidies and de-risking investments. Presently, governments spend US$470 billion annually on agricultural subsidies that harm nature.

There is also widespread potential to improve education and knowledge on healthy and sustainable consumption. Increasing public awareness, with an emphasis on changing behaviours, is a major opportunity in the all Food System Types.

To deliver impact at the scale and urgency required to address the global biodiversity, climate and health crises, we need a way for countries to learn from and replicate the success of others who operate in similar contexts.

The Great Food Puzzle provides this and can help everyone across food value chains to design, fund and implement more impactful solutions – for people, climate and nature.