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As the population continues to increase, the global production of palm oil has soared tremendously. These production facilities are often located in tropical countries and usually in areas with high level of poverty. Palm oil is more popular than other cooking oils because of its productivity in output. For instance, palm oil has a yield of 3 tonnes per hectare, as compared to soybean which yield 0.5 tonnes per hectare. If we were to substitute palm oil with other cooking oil, it will shift the same problem to other parts of the world. In the last 40 years, the number of animals living in the ... Read moreforest has decreased substantially, mainly due to deforestation. Even so, the demand of palm oil is expected to continue rising in the coming years. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, RSPO, has a set of principles and criteria which comprises of legal, economic, environmental, and social aspects that members must adhere to. This defines how the production of palm oil is to be done in a sustainable manner. However, the challenge often, is to incorporate conservation with development. As nations develop, there are bound to have a negative impact to the environment. The objective is to conserve the existing environment as nations progresses. Read less

RSPO acts as a third-party certification body that links the businesses with the producers that are practices sustainable production. This is especially helpful as the demand for sustainable palm oil has been growing. With a credited certification body, businesses will be assured that the producers deliver the product as per specifications. Moreover, there is a growing number of businesses who are also working towards ‘deforestation-free’ supply chain, whereby they only purchase from palm oil producers who no longer practices deforestation. However, because RSPO is yet a mandatory requirem... Read moreent, it is difficult to prevent the non-RSPO producers from deforesting. As a consumer, we can make the change by supporting sustainably-sourced palm oil, so that producers would be obliged to join RSPO and to adhere to the rules, minimizing global deforestation. Moreover, government policy on land use can make a huge impact to the industry, especially on palm oil producers who are not a member of the RSPO. This allows the producers to carefully select the areas of plantation under a specific set of criteria, preventing the inferior areas from being deforested and being left unused. In addition, conserving plots of land to protect the endangered species. Read less

As the RSPO-certified palm oil tends to cost higher, food operators can control their costs by purchasing palm oil in bulk (high volume), achieving the economies of scale. Alternatively, food operators can partner with local suppliers to introduce the sustainable products to the consumers. Government intervention such as the Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification, is a regulation in Malaysia. This makes it mandatory for the producers to ensure that they comply to the criteria of the MSPO, otherwise their license will be revoked. Although MSPO may not have the same set of criteria a... Read mores the RSPO, it is still a step for producers to achieve a sustainable production of palm oil. In the past, RSPO certification is something foreign to the producers. As the demand for sustainably-sourced products grew, this certification has now become a default for businesses in pitching for projects/contracts. Since the certification requires some operational tweaks for the palm oil producers, businesses can work hand-in-hand with producers towards achieving the RSPO certification. Read less

The Zero Hunger Pathways Project (ZHPP) is a collaboration that applies a systems approach to end hunger in the United States. The collaborative aims to chart equitable, resilient, and sustainable pathways to profoundly improve availability, accessibility, utilization and stability of healthy food for all. Dialogue 4: Taking Innovations to Scale sought to focus on the hunger crisis in the United States by engaging participants in identifying innovative anti-hunger initiatives from across the U.S and discussing what is necessary to scale these innovations. Examples of innovations taken to scale... Read more that were explored in the dialogue include the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty Meals-to-You program, and the World Hunger Relief, Inc. Produce Prescription Project. All action tracks are included in this exploration. Read less

Identifying best practices and successful, scalable community-based interventions is a useful approach to combating hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity. Experts at the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty have many examples of doing just that, and provide a blueprint for building scalable models. For an issue as complex as hunger and poverty, it would be difficult to solve alone. No one organization or even one single sector is going to be able to address the effects of hunger and poverty by themselves. While scalable models are built and interventions are identified, there may be ... Read moremissing steps that prevent it from moving to scale. Crucial to scaling interventions is that these projects are multi-sectoral and collaborative, often including government, NGO, non-profit industry, or faith based stakeholders. Additionally, there are three keys to scalability: research, practice, and policy. 1. Research must be informing and evaluating the intervention, and retrieving up-to-date information on a daily basis to determine the worthiness in scaling to different communities. 2. The area of practice needs to be committed to embed work and test in close proximity to communities on a daily basis in order to accurately identify the problems and the contributing aspects of hunger and food insecurity. Solving hunger and food insecurity from a distance does not work. The component of practice when scaling innovations highlights the importance of being embedded in communities and having the work to be in conversation with researchers in real time. 3. As most large-scale interventions to end hunger are influenced by various policies, it is critical to make policy a core component. The area of policy needs to look at specific federal or global policy, or develop new policy focused initiatives. Experts from the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty highlighted a project of theirs called Meals-to-You, which began as a Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty pilot program in 2019 to provide nourishing, shelf-stable meals through the mail to families in rural areas across Texas to address rural hunger or hunger in very remote areas in the country during the pandemic.The Meals-to-You model led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to call on Baylor’s assistance during the COVID-19 public health crisis. In partnership with the USDA, McLane Global and PepsiCo, the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty scaled the program nationally providing 5 million meals to rural schoolchildren in 38 states and Puerto Rico. The organization World Hunger Relief Produce Prescription Program also presented their model, which provides community members with healthy produce. Starting off as a pilot, the program now collaborates with four Waco Family Medicine clinics. Doctors at these clinics can connect those who could benefit from the program with boxes full of fresh boxes of produce twice a week. These boxes are filled with seasonal veggies and a recipe in English and Spanish. Read less

The overarching discussion topic was answering the following questions: What innovative anti-hunger initiatives address equity, healthy diets, resilience, and sustainability? What needs to happen to scale these initiatives? What are challenges to addressing intersecting issues in one initiative? What is needed to encourage innovation and interdisciplinary approaches? Answers included the following, framed by the 3 three keys to scalability: research, practice, and policy. Anti-hunger initiatives need to ground their work within practice. Participants advocated for those partaking in anti-hunge... Read morer initiatives to do this by building relationships with external and internal partners and the populations hunger and food insecurity initiatives seek to support. The areas of research, practice, and policy are key components when looking to scale solutions to end hunger. Research must be informing the initiative, evaluating different initiatives, and retrieving up-to-date information to determine the worthiness in scaling to different communities. The area of practice needs to be committed to embed work in close proximity to communities on a daily basis in order to accurately identify the problems and the contributing aspects of hunger and food insecurity. The area of policy needs to look at specific federal or global policy, or develop new policy focused initiatives. Co-creative efforts are needed. It is vital to empower those who have experienced hunger and food insecurity by seeking out their expertise and stories. Identify who the story tellers are to create effective science policy communication. The best storytellers are not the academics and experts of the field, but the people who live within and experience the systems. Initiatives need to empower communities and give those impacted the opportunity to take ownership of their intervention. Increasing local efforts and incentivizing local agriculture to support their surrounding communities can empower those experiencing hunger and food insecurity. Growing locally will help local health and the local economy. Community efforts can include implementing biodiversity, engaging the youth with agriculture, creating community gardens, and installing peer groups so that those impacted have easy access to learn about food systems and listen or share lived experiences. Gaps in hunger and health, as well as hunger and policy, need to be identified. Connections between biodiversity, sustainability, and long-term health and wellbeing should also be made more clear. Individuals and families impacted would benefit from being able to implement diet-related changes by understanding that health-related issues are possibly contributed to what they are eating. Participants highlighted the disparities in income spent on food and income spent on healthcare and if healthcare is addressed, income and health can be allocated to healthy food diet habits and change in patterns in food desserts. Equity with hunger and food insecurity should be addressed by getting to the root causes such as systemic racism with farmers of color. Participants highlighted and advocated support for the SB. 300 Justice for Black Farmers Act that aims to address historic discrimination in federal farm assistance and lending within the U.S. Department of Agriculture that has caused Black farmers and their families to lose millions of acres of farmland and billions of dollars of intergenerational wealth. Creating projects with the four pathways (equity, health, resilience, sustainability) in mind is important for achievement of SDG 2. However, there will likely be tradeoffs between these pathways. While some innovations maximize one core value, innovative opportunities may not maximize all values simultaneously, but as efforts and evaluations are made the balance of core values will be more identifiable. Read less

Though these innovations are essential for community members and can provide short term solutions to the long term problems of food insecurity and malnutrition, dialogue participants still pointed out that root causes of hunger still need to be addressed in order to create interdisciplinary pathways to long term resilience, sustainability, health, and equitability. The Zero Hunger Pathways Project continues to develop a systems approach that also takes into account poverty, health outcomes, and other factors. However, many dialogue participants see value in local innovations and interventions,... Read more and promise in scaling these innovations to reach more people and increase effectiveness. The dialogue also included discussions of planning projects with the core values in mind and how to tackle such tradeoffs during project development and management. Some dialogue participants shared the thought that “you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”, as ensuring all core values are met can create roadblocks and slow down progress. Read less

The Dialogue explored the theme of climate finance opportunities to foster forest-positive supply chains. This focus corresponds directly with Action Track 3 of the Food Systems Summit – Boost Nature-Positive Production. The Dialogue was guided by 4 expected outcomes: provide an overview of opportunities to use climate finance, including REDD+ results-based payment mechanisms, to develop forest-positive agriculture; provide an overview of how carbon finance can de-risk and incentivize private sector investment in forest-positive agriculture, conservation and restoration of forests; provide a... Read moren overview of the innovative financial opportunities to improve access to forest-positive finance, including concessional finance and blended finance; share experiences and lessons learned from countries’ efforts to utilize climate and nature-based finance as a catalyst for scaling ups and implement forest-positive agriculture, and demonstrate how this supports national climate ambitions and transformational change. Read less

The Dialogue concluded that there is an urgent need to scale up finance into nature-based solutions, and the promotion of ‘forest positive’ agriculture is critical to addressing the interlinked challenges of climate change, biodiversity, food security and global health. Country experiences, and the lessons shared by countries and subject matter experts alike, demonstrated forthcoming finance opportunities to halt deforestation. The Dialogue found six main actions to scale up public and private financial efforts to mitigate the negative consequences of commodity production on forests: 1) Po... Read morelicy coherence, including fiscal reforms, strategic investments, and repurposing of subsidies; 2) Innovation by pursuing new investment mechanisms; 3) Strategic use of national/international public investments to strengthen enabling conditions; 4) De-risk private investment and mobilize additional finance; 5) Carbon market/REDD+ results-based finance to foster positive agriculture; and 6) Redirect private sector investments to forest positive agriculture through addressing/eliminating deforestation risks in the existing investments of corporate and financial institutions. The Dialogue further concluded that all stakeholders, and governments in particular, should keep in mind the following lessons for effectively using financial opportunities to halt deforestation: Concessional finance and Blended finance opportunities to de-risk and leverage private sector investment; Pursue innovative financial mechanisms, including combining various financial instruments (e.g., grant, loan, green bonds, revolving fund, subsidy, taxation, etc.); Partnership and platforms for the common agenda are key to coordinate various stakeholders, with competing objectives, working in the same landscape; Seek carbon farming and environmental market opportunities to support smallholders and local governments (e.g., carbon market, result-based payment, payment for ecosystem services, etc.); Finance activities that strengthen the enabling conditions to foster forest-positive supply chains (e.g., sufficient regulatory, legal, and financial systems and commitments, clear land ownership, traceability system, etc.); and Redesign and redirect national budget and private sector investments into sustainable supply chains. Read less

The survey conducted between 2019-2020 has shown that the number of chronic diseases in Singapore has rose compared to the last survey in 2017. The number of Singaporeans suffering from diabetes has increased to 9.5%, while 1 in 3 Singaporeans have hypertension and 4 in 10 have high blood cholesterol. Unfortunately, obesity rate across all age group has also risen, while majority were contributed by the male population. The focus of this independent dialogue seeks to understand the awareness of Singaporeans towards good nutrition and how the stakeholders in various industries can contribute to... Read morewards building a healthier nation (Action Track 1). Read less

From the poll results, majority of the respondents pointed out that they have increased usage of food delivery platforms and a substantial number of audiences also practices cooking at home during the pandemic. Manufacturers pointed out that there is a surge in demand for products to improve personal hygiene and healthier foods, along with supplements. Nutritional supplements continue to be a fast-moving product during this period and consumers are constantly searching for food items that can increase their immunity, such as Vitamin C. Plant-based products has also become a trend as there is a... Read moren increasing number of individuals who wants to be healthier and consuming in a sustainable manner. While food delivery is on the rise, many Singaporeans began cooking their meals as they get inspirations from social media platforms. This is also aligned with the poll results. Some of the food operators have already began emphasizing on nutritious food before the pandemic. While many may have put on weight during the pandemic, there is another group of people who started practicing a healthier lifestyle. Many realized the importance of nutritious food and there is an increased demand for vegetables, grains and plant-based food. However, there might still be a lack of food knowledge among Singaporeans. For instance, fruits are often perceived to be healthy but excess sugary fruit juices in actual, is not favorable to the body. The government took a well-rounded approach to bring the population towards a healthier nation. Food programs are targeted at children to adults and the seniors, specifically. For instance, food programs target at seniors emphasizes on increasing calcium and protein intake. The government also works with the manufacturers of packaged food to introduce the Healthier Choice Symbol program (HCS), which is widely recognized by the public. Moreover, the government also offers grants to food manufacturers and food operators to promote the research and development on nutritious food and encourage them to offer healthier food options. To reduce the sugar intake among Singaporeans, the government will be introducing new regulatory measures for pre-packed sugar-sweetened beverages which includes a grading system and advertisement restrictions. Read less

Food manufacturers have been working on offering nutritious products to the consumers. By ensuring that the nutritional values of the products adhere to the global standards, consumers can make better choices and have a positive impact to both their health and well-being. The company emphasizes heavily on plant-based products since it promotes a sustainable consumption pattern. Some of the food operators have proven that nutritious food can remain to be tasty. The in-house dietitian can work closely with the Chef team to tweak both the ingredients and the recipe to ensure that the dishes meet ... Read morethe dietary requirements of the consumers. Food operators are encouraging consumers to consume less animal protein, to move towards a plant-forward diet by replacing them with plant-based protein. However, this must be performed progressively since the population has been accustomed to animal protein. A good way to introduce plant-based protein is to incorporate them into local dishes since they are more widely acceptable. It is challenging for manufacturers to reduce the nutrients of concerns such as sugars and fats because of the limitations in the current technology. These nutrients have chemical properties that contributes to the food item. For instance, sugar allows ice cream to have its structure. Manufacturers will need the support from external parties to continue to offer nutritious food to the local community. Partnerships are essential to make this positive change. Partnerships can also be in the form of training to educate other food operators in promoting nutritious food. Read less

The government programs aim to inculcate healthy dinning from young. By increasing the accessibility of healthy food in school, students can start the habit of healthy consumption. Through offering grants, the government incentivizes businesses to reformulate their products and menu in attempt to increase the accessibility of nutritious food to the nation. By adopting the government initiatives, food operators can rethink and innovate new menu to excite its consumers. While ‘Work from Home’ has become the new norm and snacking at home becomes inevitable, food manufacturers can help the con... Read moresumers in the portion control by ensuring that the products meet the nutritional standards. Food operators can review the current recipes and substitute the ingredients with other sources that are higher in nutritional content. With the increase in demand for quick meal options, the fast-food chains have been growing substantially. Even though they are often perceived to be ‘less nutritious’, they can still be consumed moderately by selecting the correct combination. Fast-food operators can also offer more options for the consumers such as pairing with food items such as salad for a set meal. Read less

The major focus of this theme are 1. Proper database of Student youth across the Globe 2. Empowerment of Student youth in terms of Knowledge, sense of social awareness 3. Motivation of the student youths 4. scope for Agri-preneurship in addition to study 5. Involvement of student youth in every decision making process of Government

The main findings are 1. Student youth are the backbone of any country 2. They should be empowered with proper knowledge and techniques 3. They should motivated properly 4. Student youth can be given priority in all decision making process

The outcomes are 1. All participants, mainly students and local people put forth their concerns about the awareness of various themes among people of civil society and particularly farmers and indigenous people. 2. Role of student youth is a major resource 3. Student youth can be game changer in food security process 4. Energetic youth are the need of the hour

There is no specific diverged opinion on the theme

The major focus of this dialogue are 1. on recycling of waste resources 2. improved technology to be developed Globally 3. Holistic selection of the waste resources to be chosen for recycling 4. To improve the economy of farmers 5. Policy to be framed by Government with regard to familiarize the circular economy

As far as this dialogue is concerned farmers and agroecological researchers put forth their views on recycling of various agro-waste and other related items in a sustainable way so as to prevent loss of resources. As the data shows more resources are wasted than the production, so more focus was given on the recycling of useful portion of agro-resources for improving the circular economy.

The outcome of the dialogue are 1. All participants lay stress on reuse of resources sustainably for a strong economy 2. In this process wastage will be less 3. The selection of waste material to be recycled should be carefully choosen so as to avoid any health hazards 4. More focus are given on recycle of nature based products 5. Circular economy is the need of the hour