The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems IPES-Food, in collaboration with etc. group, recently published a report articulating two possible futures for the global food system. The report, A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045 first reveals that environmental decline will continue if agricultural businesses do not change their practices. The second path offers remedies to the current food system by mobilizing civil society groups.

IPES-Food is an independent organization of environmental scientists, development economists, nutritionists, and other experts from over 16 countries and 5 continents. To assess the future of the food system, they partnered with the, etc. group, an NGO working to combat the social, environmental, and civil decline.

The report warns that mass production methods, poor supply chain structures, and wasteful consumer habits are increasing greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to the misuse of natural resources and harming the ecosystems humans inhabit and rely on.

Pat Mooney, lead author of the report explains that this extortive relationship with the environment squeezes the planet of its natural resources and has allowed humanity to “cross at least four if not six of the world’s planetary boundaries,” he tells Food Tank.

The nine planetary boundaries, established in 2009, represent thresholds that must be maintained to avoid long-term climate decay. “These climate boundaries are not just mythical things or chalk on a board, they are very real and we haven’t done a good job of doing that,” Mooney tells Food Tank.

But IPES-Food report suggests that civil society organizations have the ability to amend the existing flaws in the food system. Mooney tells Food Tank, “The good news is we now have a civil society which is more coherently organized than it has been in the past, it is capable of getting its messages out more effectively and civil society is able to use modern communication technologies to reach out and create linkages between urban farmers and local producers.”

Read the full article about global food system by Sam Berger at Food Tank.