UNEP launches a Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) on agroecology

Launch of the Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) to transform our approach to food.

Over decades, as populations have grown, more people are consuming and wasting more food than ever before. Unsustainable food production and consumption patterns are a common thread, running through many of the greatest challenges facing humanity today.

The demand for food is projected to increase by 60 per cent by 2050. This means that the decisions we make today will have an enormous impact on food security and, by extension, on the environment, economy, health, education, peace and human rights. Specifically, the global food system must be transformed to achieve two purposes. Firstly, it must ensure food and nutritional security and put an end to hunger, once and for all. Secondly, it must reverse the degradation that human actions have caused and restore ecosystems.

In June 2021, on the margins of World Environment Day, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners launched the Transformative Partnership Platform on agroecology : a farming approach that’s inspired by natural ecosystems combines local and scientific knowledge and focuses on the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment.

Agroecology (also referred to as ecological or regenerative agriculture) is one of the most effective ways to make food systems more sustainable; and to build a safer, cleaner, more inclusive post-COVID world. By drawing on natural processes like biological nitrogen fixation, biodiversity and recycling – rather than chemicals, which reduce biodiversity and contribute to climate change. It challenges the ‘business as usual’ agricultural model.

The Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) on agroecology is composed of the ICRAF, CIRAD, Biovision, CIFOR, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), TMG Think Tank for Sustainability and UNEP. Coordinating at international, national and local levels, the partnership connects research and development, science, social movements and local knowledge, to inform donors and policy makers, and foster innovation.

With a view to empower people to advocate for an agroecological transformation of food systems, a memorandum of understanding between UNEP and Biovision (effective 4 June) will facilitate cooperation in private sector development, policy exchanges, and multi-stakeholder dialogues.

Find out more information about the platform here : https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/rethinking-food-systems

Sustainable Development Goals