WS2_Food_Reminder_Lähteenoja

Workshop 2: Reminding the Learnings from the Szentendre Conference

Presented by:Satu LähteenojaUNEP / Wuppertal Institute collaboratingCentre on Sustainable Consumption and Production

CSO Platform on SCP 2

• The focus area food and drink• Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 1 on food and drink

– trends, drivers and impacts• Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 2 on food and drink

– core actions

Contents of the presentation

CSO Platform on SCP

Focus area Food and Drink

3

• Food and Drink encompasses how food goes through agricultural production, how it is processed packaged, transported and finally consumed. This includes the full production and distribution chain ‘from farm to fork’.

• Food and drink cause 20-30% of the various environmental impacts of private consumption. Meat and meat products, in different degrees of processing, are the most important sources of impact, followed by dairy products. (EIPRO, 2006; ETC/RWM, 2007)

Wikimedia commons

CSO Platform on SCP

Flow of the conferences

Awareness raising

1st event,

Szentendre, Hungary,

October 2008

Facilitate funding

3rd event,

Brussels, Belgium,

December 2009

Project concepts

2nd event,

Wuppertal, Germany,

March 2009


• The Conference was organised in Szentendre, Hungary on the 13th and 14th of October 2008

• The topic are food and drink was discussed in two dialogue sessions

• The first session focused on trends, drivers and impacts in the fields of processed food, intensive farming, food miles, food packaging as well as waste and the power of supermarket

• The second session focused on current situation and possible solution in the fields of sustainable technologies, funding for SCP and creative instruments

First conference of the CSO Platform project

All pictures from Wikimedia commons


• The focus area food and drink• Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 1 – trends, drivers

and impacts• Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 2 – core actions

Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 1 on food and drink


Demand for processed food

Trends in demand for processed food

• Percentage of household income spent on processed food is increasing

• Fast food consumption is increasing

• Globalization of taste

• Marginalization of small scale production

• High concentration of retailers

• Health benefits are questionable

• Food sovereignty?

• Food hygiene might be better but not in every case

• Children being early accustomed to processed food

• Convenience

• Emancipation of women

• Shift to fast urban lifestyle

• Higher margin on these products - higher profits for retailers

Drivers in demand for processed food

Impacts of processed food


Intensive farming

Trends in intensive farming

• Loosing the diversity of crops (monoculture production)

• Greenhouse production increasing

• Countries becoming dependent on each other‘s agricultural products

• Reduction of crops stocked for own consumption (loss of food sovereignty)

• Conflicts increasing (food vs. fuel, nature conservation vs. food production)

• Biodiversity loss

• Loss of attachment to nature

• Middle man getting the most value out of the production

• Loss of cultural diversity

• Privatization (small plots merged and sold to large investors)

• Monopolies on raw materials (machinery, seeds, pesticides, other chemicals, etc.)

• Power struggle (small farmer vs. lobby groups)

• Perverse subsidies and/or allocation of subsidies

Drivers in intensive farming

Impacts of intensive farming


Food miles

Trends in food miles

• Buying whenever we like - buying out of season

• Farmer‘s markets are appearing more and more

• Local variety of products dissapearing• Alien species taking over natural environments• Money spent abroad• GHG emissions• Water consumption is increasing

• Existing neo-liberal policy - Open markets

• Easiness of trade between countries

• Economy of a country is based on transport of goods

• Cheap oil

• Cheap resources

• Standardization linked to retailers

• Food processing

• Consumers looking for exotic products

• Advertising

Drivers in food miles

Impacts of food miles


Food packaging and waste

Trends in food packaging & waste

• Amount of waste increasing

• Supermarkets are reusing and recycling but they don‘t have a waste prevention approach

• Not all waste can be recycled

• Environmentally friendly packaging waste emerging?

• Increasing amount of landfill waste

• Incineration leading to more pollution

• Irresponsible shopping behaviour

• Reduction of employment

• No incentives on the producer side

• Consumers‘ lifestyle

• Increasing food production and growth in agriculture

Drivers in food packaging & waste

Impacts of food packaging & waste


Food and Drink: Conclusions

Food and drink trends, drivers and impacts

Loosing the diversity in food culture, while increasing

diversity in food corporate brands & packaging.

Food is a major right, we should not treat it as a market

commodity.

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) health check is urgently

needed!

There is a lot of legislation but implementation is a problem

(e.g. waste).


• Contents of the presentation• The focus area food and drink• Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 1 – trends, drivers

and impacts• Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 2 – core actions

Summary from the Szentendre conference dialogue session 2 on food and drink


Current situation• Sustainable technologies in the area of food and drink are not easy to define.

• It should refer to the overall system of food production and consumption.

• Within the current paradigm i.e. the current product chains, each life cycle stage can adapt different sustainable technologies.

• Explore traditional practices

• E.g. seed banks

• Work on shortening the chain between the producer and the consumer (e.g. labelling for local products or local branding)

• Education and advocation

• Support for local food production

• Experimenting with new initiatives

• Partnerships between local government and suppliers are needed. (e.g. twinning between these two stakeholders)

Sustainable Technologies

Solutions discussed


Current situation• Fact: Different funding opportunities in different countries.

• Sometimes CSOs lack the ability to monitor their own performance.

• Foundations are not so much aware of SCP.

• Lets see what we can do in our project, what our assets are.

• Researchers and CSOs can work together to develop project ideas. For example, at the household level understanding the current issues and making an action plan for change in cooperation with policy makers.

• National Plans on SCP: How can CSOs help implementation? How CSOs can participate in building up the national strategies?

• Agenda setting at funding agencies: Writing a common letter to make the topic known at foundations.

Funding for SCP

Solutions discussed


Actions discussed

• School and education: Greening school canteens, veggie cooking courses, visiting places where products come from, competition on sustainable nutrition, vegetarian recipes in education of cooks, TV programmes on vegetarian cooking

• Policy action: Subsidies for poor people, organizing organic farmers, bike stands and public transport to supermarkets

• Awareness raising: Learning from real life case examples/people, documentaries and films on quality and smaller amounts, tastings of vegetarian food, phone help-lines regarding what to buy, interactive tools for calculating environmental impacts of food

• How to prevent food waste: Diverse package sizes, smaller fridges, sample shopping lists in the internet

Food and drink: Creative Instruments

All pictures from Wikimedia commons.


Food and drink: Conclusion

Competition on project ideas for joint fund-raising

The meaning of sustainable

technologies in the food and drink area needs to

be clarified.

Food and drink

There is a whole range of creative actions that

can be carried out linked to education and

awareness raising.

Working as a CSO has many difficulties (e.g. funding, capacities, institutionalization).

CSO Platform on SCP

What about in Wuppertal?From Dialogue to Action!

17

All pictures from Wikimedia commons.

WS2_Food_Reminder_Lähteenoja

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