Food System: Collapse or Disrupt!

Food System: Collapse or Disrupt!: From farm to fork plus waste, the world’s food system is in crisis. Agriculture is the biggest water user and accounts for a 1/4 of global GHG emissions. Throw in climate change and it turns into a viscous cycle. Does this cycle mean an imminent collapse? People, business & investors are waking up to the new reality and big disruptors to cut water & carbon are coming to the table & markets.

One such disruptor is Beyond Meat, which sent shockwaves around the world with its record breaking IPO. David Yeung, Founder & CEO of Green Monday, shares 5 reasons why he thinks plant-based food will be unleashed in Asia and soon.

Adapt & disrupt, is the path existing companies have to take. We look at circular food shopping & zero water facilities. Loop has launched its “circular shipping platform” dubbed the “21st Century milkman” to help companies on this path but is it really the solution to our plastic plague? Corporate Knight’s Adria Vasil explores. Even Nestle is looking inwards and is innovating towards zero water milk facilities. Find out more on what Nestle & Unilever are doing from Professor Asit Biswas & Dr Cecilia Tortajada.

Pesticides pollute water & soil so they are a big no no but how do we do without? Go organic in some for or another. CEO of Go Organics, Spencer Leung, shows how organic agriculture is so much more than no pesticides and can actually fight against climate change. And CORE Chief Executive, Christopher Rochfort, outlines their recycled organics programme with more than 60 farmers protecting water in Sydney’s food bowl.

As we work to get out of this food system crisis, we need to also look at the bigger dynamics at play. The water-energy-food security nexus is complex. Scarcity in one factor directly affects the other as Miaja Taka, Marko Keskinen & Olli Varis explains with three large Asian river basin examples.

Diet is another key area in the food system, one which we have focused on before – you can see that newsletter here. The path is clear, if we don’t want a collapse we have to disrupt. So go get disrupting, everyone needs to be in if we are going to create a new sustainable food system.