Evidence-Based Research

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 will take major transformations of the agricultural sectors of developing economies. These transformations of food and agricultural systems—or delays in carrying them out—will have direct and indirect implications for multiple SDGs. An important first step is overhauling countries’ policy systems and reorienting them towards evidence-based policy making.

Fourteen percent of the food produced globally is lost during the post-harvest production stage before reaching the retail stage of the food system, according to the newly-released FAO 2019 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report . While significant, this figure is less than an earlier FAO loss estimate of one-third of all food. Some regional losses are higher, reaching over 15% in North America and Europe and over 20% in Central and South Asia.

Over the past century, enormous progress has been made in improving human welfare worldwide, thanks to quantum leaps in technology, rapid urbanization, and innovations in production systems. Yet immense challenges remain. Billions of people still face pervasive poverty, gross inequalities, joblessness, disease, and deprivation. In addition, the impacts of this progress on the environment, specifically those of climate change, are already being felt and will continue to intensify.

Last week, global leaders met in Davos, Switzerland for the 2019 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting . The conversation centered on globalization, climate change, and technology use, all of which play a role in food systems across the world. Technology in particular holds significant potential to transform global food systems into drivers of inclusive, sustainable development, according to the WEF’s new report, Innovation with a Purpose: Improving Traceability in Food Value Chains through Technology .

The world’s agricultural monitoring systems provide up-to-date information on food production to decision makers that is crucial to global and national food security. When prices become dangerously volatile—as they did during the food price crisis of 2007-2011—these systems spread critical information quickly that can reduce the risks of market and supply upheavals.