BCFN FOUNDATION U.S. MEDIA TOUR - Media Briefing at the Foreign Press Association

Media briefing with BCFN Foundation executives at the Foreign Press Association.

June 19, 2018

Barilla Foundation Briefing at the FPA.
2030 AGENDA: UNLEASH THE FULL POTENTIAL OF THE FOOD SYSTEMS TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR ALL
 
On 19th June, 2018, the Foreign Press Association hosted Luca Di Leo, Head of Media Relations at Barilla, and Valentina Gasbarri, Communication Officer at the Barilla for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) Foundation.

Founded in 2009 by the Barilla family, the BCFN Foundation was conceived as a source of inspiration to guide the company and its mission. The BCFN Foundation is a multidisciplinary and independent think tank that analyzes the complexity of current agri-food systems and fosters change towards healthier and more sustainable lifestyles in the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
 
Through a multidisciplinary approach to food sustainability, the BCFN Foundation promotes also an open dialogue between science, politics, business and society. Its initiatives and programs are geared towards promoting awareness, informed food choices and provide concrete solutions, while protecting our planet. Through the scientific research, such as the Food Sustainability Index; Food and Migration; public initiatives, such as our signature event, the International Forum on Food and Nutrition; and programs like the Food Sustainability Media Award, BCFN YES! different stakeholders are brought together in the food and sustainability realm, and foster a global dialogue to achieve a sustainable food future for people and the Planet.
 
Today, the global food system faces unprecedented challenges and paradoxes:

• Hunger vs. Obesity – Today, 815 million people around the world are starving while 2.1 billion people are obese or overweight.
• Food waste and loss – One-third of global food production is wasted or lost as it moves along the food chain, from field to table.
• Competition for natural resources – Despite widespread hunger, a large portion of crop and food production is funneled into animal feed and biofuels rather than feeding people. 

 
Addressing these three paradoxes is critical and complex. It requires a globally coordinated and unified dialogue to identify and implement concrete solutions that leverage existing resources and knowledge.
The time is now to make a significant progress and transform on sustainable food systems to achieve the SDGs by 2030, so we can feed a rapidly growing population, provide healthy, nutritious and affordable food for all, and reverse the adverse effects of climate change.  
 
From raising awareness on these challenges, the BCFN Foundation is now working to to trying to fix them towards a dramatic unified change across all aspects of the food value chain, through a solution-oriented, multistakeholders dialogue.
 
Every year, the BCFN Foundation organizes the International Forum on Food and Nutrition to provide an open space for interdisciplinary discussion and to address these global food challenges.
 
On September 28, the BCFN Foundation, in partnership with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network will convene a wide range of stakeholders – from governments to civil society organizations, research, science and the private sector – for the International Forum on Food and Nutrition in New York, during the United Nations General Assembly.
 
Almost all SDGs relate to global food and nutrition, including the goals that relate to poverty, gender equality, water and sanitation, responsible production and consumption, and climate change.
 
The global food system needs to be radically reshaped and transformed to achieve a whole range of SDGs, in order to be sustainable, nutrition-, environmental- and health-driven, efficient, inclusive, and business-friendly.
 
The Food Sustainability Index, a flagship of the BCFN Foundation, realized in collaboration with the Economist Intelligence Unit, proposes best practices and key policy options at a country level, to achieve the SDGs through a threefold approach on sustainable agriculture; nutritional challenges; food loss and waste.
The Food Sustainability Index is a model to analyze the progress of 34 countries vis-à-vis three main challenges with which the global food system is currently confronted. It analyzes how countries are performing in relationship to their policies and best practices on:

• Sustainable agriculture. The world is running out of cultivatable land. More sustainable farming techniques are needed.
• Nutritional challenges. Developing countries are facing the double burden of hunger and “premature” obesity.
• Food loss and waste. Almost one billion people suffer from hunger, but a third of food is lost or wasted. Food loss and waste are rapidly moving up the policy agenda.

 
The Barilla Foundation will also be presenting the Index during the BCFN Forum in New York. 
 
The global top performers in the 2017 Index was France, followed by Japan and Germany, Spain and Sweden. In 2017, the U.S. was in the third quartile, along with countries such as Argentina, Mexico and China.
The U.S. earned a high score for the food loss and waste pillar, performing strongly in nearly all the relevant indicators. However, the country’s score for sustainable agriculture was average.
Despite a broadly positive showing in the water resources category, the land category saw repeatedly low scores across indicators such as impact on land of animal feed and biofuels, agricultural subsidies and diversification of agricultural system.
Much more has to be done in terms of nutritional challenges, with a poor score for over-nourishment, physical activity, diet composition and number of people per fast food restaurants mitigated somewhat by a strong score for the prevalence of malnourishment, micronutrient deficiency and healthy life expectancy indicators.
 
The International Forum on Food and Nutrition is a testament to the BCFN Foundation to bringing diverse voices together to plant the seeds to concrete changes for healthy and sustainable life for all, leaving no one behind.

The Food Sustainability Index, created by the Economist Intelligence Unit with BCFN, is a tool designed to highlight international policies and best practices relating to global paradoxes and to the main SDGs for food, climate change, sustainable cities, responsible production