| dc.description.abstract | This report presents a food systems perspective
on the production, distribution, and
consumption of food in India. The report is a
result of five years of research conducted
under the Sustainable and Healthy Food
Systems (SHEFS) programme. The SHEFS
programme consists of a consortium of
institutions in India, South Africa, and the
United Kingdom, that conduct research
on food systems, with the aim of providing
policymakers and practitioners with current
and novel evidence. This report presents five
insights from SHEFS research, and five policy
actions to address the social and environmental
sustainability of food systems. The insights are
oriented to answering two urgent questions
that face policymakers, namely:
1 How to ensure equitable nutrition
and health in the face of rapid
urbanisation?
2 How to meet food demands in the
face of climate change and limited
land and water?
Research under the SHEFS programme was
conducted by various collaborating institutes
across different sites in India, using different
methodological approaches, from economics
to ecology. The five insights include:
i. socioeconomic inequality is limiting
people’s access to healthy and nutritious
foods;
ii. urbanising lifestyles are changing people’s
aspirations and choice of food to purchase
and consume;
iii. producing and consuming locally adapted
crops, can improve farm sustainability and
the health of farmers;
iv. educating consumers on food footprints,
safety, and wastage can curb negative
impacts and inequity of food systems; and
v. empowering localised food systems and
sharing best practice across regions can
accelerate innovation in food systems.
Based on the research insights above, the
current report recommends that:
i. environmental sustainability is more
explicitly and synergistically tied to policy
objectives across all food policy areas: from
agricultural production to nutritional health
and social welfare;
ii. nutrition awareness and education is
mainstreamed to reduce food and
nutritional inequalities across
socioeconomic gradients and gender;
iii. farmers are supported by extension services to
develop capacity to produce food sustainably;
iv. fiscal and market instruments are used to
incentivise sustainable food production
and reduce a reliance on unsustainable
agricultural inputs; and
v. land use policies are adapted to enable
sustainable food production and protect
livelihoods.
Throughout this report ongoing policies and
programmes have been highlighted that can
channel these recommended actions to promote
sustainable and healthy food systems in India. | en_GB |
