Under the auspices of this year’s World Food Summit, Denmark together with GAIN are organizing a National Food Systems Summit Dialogue. The Summit dialogues are important stepping-stones leading into the UN Food System Summit in New York in the autumn of 2021 and offer a purposeful and organized fora for stakeholders to come together to share their roles in food systems, consider their impacts on others and find new ways to come together in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Danish National Summit Dialogue will discuss pathways to unleash the power of food to deliver progress on the SDGs through game-changing innovations. Emphasis will particularly be on game-changing innovations in the areas of:

• Food loss and food waste: One third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted in the process from production to consumption. We are producing twice the amount of food needed, while too many people are starving. Food lost and wasted accounts for an estimated 8 pct. of greenhouse gases emitted. A reduction of food loss and waste can play a significant role in reducing the environmental footprint. This requires a shift in consumption patterns and actions of all, from food producers to food supply-chain stakeholders, food industries, retailers and consumers.

• Healthy and sustainable diets: Malnutrition in one form or another affects every country, whether it be undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, or overweight and obesity and some countries are struggling with multiple issues. Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) can be powerful drivers for healthy and sustainable food consumption and production. Private-public partnerships have the potential to support and accelerate a sustainable development.

• Prudent use of antimicrobials and prevention of resistance: Antimicrobial resistance is a great threat to health, society, and economies worldwide. Over- and misuse of antimicrobials in many aspects of food production accelerates the global threat. Prevention of antimicrobial resistance is essential to ensure safe food for all and effective antimicrobials for the future. This also requires prudent use of antimicrobials in food production and monitoring of antimicrobial resistance.

• Deforestation-free value chains: Deforestation and forest degradation is closely connected to production of agricultural commodities. Ensuring deforestation-free value chains requires action from many actors at all levels in order to ensure the benefits for biodiversity, the fight against climate change and needs of local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on forests. Countries around the world must address illegal and legal deforestation and ensure that the production of all agricultural commodities is undertaken responsibly and deforestation-free.

A collaborative backcasting tool

Food system transformation requires urgent actions across many sectors and, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals time horizon. A diverse range of stakeholders is invited to identify the most game-changingl ways to make food systems stronger and more equitable.

Using a structured backcasting approach will ensure that the Summit dialogue will identify creative pathways-to-uptake for game changing solutions within the four themes defined for this Summit dialogue. These pathways can help to identify the needed stakeholders, immediate next steps to take, barriers for the uptake of the solution and to identify creative strategies to achieve this solution by 2030 and concrete commitments towards the UNFSS.