Displaced Somali women carry firewood past a donkey carcass in the scrubland near Doolow, Somalia. The worst drought in four decades is imperiling lives across the Horn of Africa. Photograph: Giles Clarke/The New York TimesSixty years ago a number of countries in Asia faced the threat of mass starvation. Famine in India was averted through large-scale imports of food aid from the United States.
Now in the early 2020s, we have reached another turning point, which requires a new level of political commitment and policy direction for the next 30 years. Food and nutrition security has been pushed up the international political agenda in recent years by the Covid pandemic; the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increasingly frequent extreme weather events with their impact on food production. The UAE presidency of the UN process has prioritised the link between climate and food policies for the Cop28 meeting in December in Dubai.
At Cop28 the US Government will launch its “Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils ” initiative. It aims to boost agricultural productivity and better nutrition by developing diverse climate-resilient crops and building healthy soils, with a particular focus on Africa. This is the type of long-term and strategic approach for the next 30 years which is reminiscent of the main policy initiatives taken in the early 1970s which transformed the then-critical food situation.
Ireland has two key government policies – the Climate Action Plan 2023 with its ambitious emissions targets and other measures and Food Vision 2030 with its commitment that Ireland should be an international leader in sustainable food systems by 2030, which – if delivered upon – will position Ireland as a leader within the climate/food policy space.