The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability

Policy makers and a wide range of professionals and researchers whose interests relate to all aspects of the global food system: including governance at all scales, food production and processing, the supply chain, and also consumer attitudes and demand. It is also relevant to policy makers and others with an interest in areas that interact with the food system, for example: climate change mitigation, energy and water competition, and land use. The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) would like to thank the Project's Lead Expert Group who oversaw the technical aspects of the Project, who were involved in much of the work and in producing the Project outputs. They were led by GO-Science would particularly wish to acknowledge the contribution of Professor Mike Gale FRS who was also a member of the Lead Expert Group, but who sadly died during the course of the Project. Thanks are also due to the UK government departments Defra and DFID who provided support throughout the Project, the Project's High Level Stakeholder Group, the Project Advisory Group and the Economics Advisory Group, as well as the many experts and stakeholders from the UK and around the world who contributed to the work, reviewed the many Project reports, and papers, and generously provided advice and guidance. A full list is provided in Annex A of the Final Project Report. 4 The case for urgent action in the global food system is now compelling. We are at a unique moment in history as diverse factors converge to affect the demand, production and distribution of food over the next 20 to 40 years. The needs of a growing world population will need to be satisfied as critical resources such as water, energy and land become increasingly scarce. The food system must become sustainable, whilst adapting to climate change and substantially contributing to climate change mitigation. There is also a need to redouble efforts to address hunger, which continues to affect so many. Deciding how to balance the competing pressures and demands on the global food system is a major task facing policy makers, and was the impetus for this Foresight Project. Foresight has aimed to add value though the breadth of its approach which places the food system within the context of wider policy agendas. It argues for decisive action and collaborative decision-making across multiple areas, including development, investment, science and trade, to tackle the major challenges …