Proposed question: As the UN agency tasked with eradicating hunger and malnutrition, your agency has but forth the 4 Betters: Better Production, Better Nutriton, Better Environment, and Better Life. Can you tell us about how we can transform our food systems to achieve these 4 betters, including achieving zero hunger and environmental sustainability?

• Firstly, thank you to the organizers to inviting FAO to this event on this very relevant topic.
• Our agrifood systems are faced with profound challenges posed by climate change. These systems, the backbone of global food security, are severely threatened by climate change impacts, jeopardizing millions of livelihoods. By 2030, climate change could push over 100 million people into extreme poverty and elevate the number at risk of hunger to 183 million by 2050.
• The annual losses from disasters in crop and livestock production average USD 123 billion, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable, including women, youth, and marginalized communities, particularly in LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS.
• At the same time, agrifood systems contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, necessitating urgent and comprehensive solutions. Despite this, climate finance allocated to agrifood systems remains critically low, receiving only 4.3 percent of total global climate finance. This declining trend is alarming and represents a missed opportunity to harness agrifood systems' immense potential for building resilience, adaptation, and emission reduction.
• Transforming agrifood systems can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect natural resources, and preserve biodiversity. Agrifood systems can also help ensure that nutritious food is available, accessible, and affordable globally.

How can we transform these systems?

• First, FAO calls for increased investment in science, technology, innovation, and data to inform policies and actions. Scaling up innovative financing mechanisms, such as risk management and results-based financing, is crucial for attracting private investment to accelerate climate action in agrifood systems.
• Also on the financing front, a recent policy brief of FAO emphasizes the critical importance of leveraging domestic resources and effectively reallocating subsidies to amplify their efficacy in addressing food crises and fostering the transformation of agrifood systems. Agricultural producer support needs to be repurposed to bring about food systems transformation and to achieve the SDGs. This presents governments with an opportunity to optimize the use of scarce public resources to support food systems in ways that make them not only more efficient, but also more supportive of human health and the environment.
• Second, countries must adopt holistic and integrated national policies and strategies across sectors to address interconnected challenges of climate change, environment and food security. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) should align seamlessly with other national commitments, such as National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), National Water Roadmaps towards the 2030 Agenda and the National Action Plans to combat desertification and degradation.
• Thirdly, manage natural resources sustainably and restore ecosystems: One-third of the world's agricultural land is degraded. Therefore, making agricultural systems (i.e., crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture) more productive, efficient and sustainable is critical to managing and protecting the environment and the natural resource base and to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems and biodiversity.
• Some examples are sustainable forest management, agroforestry, efficient livestock systems, improved cropland management, ecosystem restoration, afforestation, reforestation, and enhanced water use efficiency.
• Additionally, shifting to healthy diets and reducing food loss and waste are essential strategies. Reducing food loss and waste will be a triple-win opportunity with an immediate impact on food security, climate benefits and the increased availability of nutritious food while improving the overall sustainability of agrifood systems. It will minimize pressure on natural resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate climate change and preserve biodiversity within agrifood systems.
• The conservation and enhancement of soil health is also critical for increasing agricultural production and productivity.
• And finally, empowering small-scale producers, women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and other vulnerable groups is essential for a just transition. They should be supported through social protection policies, financial incentives, and capacity-building initiatives to enhance their adaptation capabilities.
• In closing, solutions exist in agrifood systems to simultaneously address the challenges of food security, climate change and biodiversity loss. Such joint solutions can deliver multiple benefits, encourage the efficient use of limited financial resources, help to manage risks and uncertainties and improve long-term resilience.