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Report
Fixing food: the Mediterranean region. Building sustainable food systems through capacity-building and co-operation
Year:
2017
Author:
The Economist and Intelligence Unit
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The 12 Mediterranean countries included in this study are by no means a homogenous group. The five northern Mediterranean countries (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) are all EU members. Their average per-head income is nearly fivefold the average for six southern and eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMCs), including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey, but excluding Israel. There are also wide variations in population size between the countries in the region—ranging from 91m in Egypt to just over 6m in Lebanon among the SEMCs, and from 65m in France to a little over 10m in Portugal in the northern economies. Population growth in the five EU members was stagnant between 2007 and 2016, but expanded at an average rate of 2.5% a year in the SEMCs (excluding Israel) over the same period. These significant income and demographic differences are, in turn, key explanatory factors for the wide variations in food sustainability and nutritional standards that exist between the northern countries and those on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Food sustainability also depends heavily on the effectiveness of national public institutions, both at the central and local levels. In this respect, weak governance and a lack of institutional capacity are longstanding constraints in the SEMCs. Recent political instability in a number of countries, such as Syria, has added to these difficulties. Despite these divergences, the Mediterranean countries also face a common set of challenges, such as climate change, soil and environmental degradation, water shortages, rural depopulation and rapid urbanization, global tourism, and significant migration flows. In addition, a sharp rise in obesity rates across the region has coincided with the demise of the traditional Mediterranean diet. Against this backdrop, there is a growing realization that a shift towards more sustainable practices is urgently needed, together with a more energetic approach to tackling food waste and nutritional challenges. Food represents a common thread linking the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by UN member states in 2015. The UN strategy (officially titled Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) incorporates a number of far-reaching goals, including an end to poverty and hunger, improvements in health, and the protection of the environment. The agenda sets the targets that all countries in the world are called on to achieve by 2030. With the major food-related challenges in the region in mind, the Food Sustainability Index (FSI) can help shed light on the environmental, societal and economic sustainability of food systems in the Mediterranean. The FSI’s ranking is not intended to be judgemental. It offers instead a tool to understand and monitor performance and progress of countries vis-à-vis the main challenges confronting the global food system. By measuring progress over time, the FSI therefore provides a valuable tool for policymakers and experts to orient their actions. The FSI also performs an educational role: by providing a detailed insight into the dynamics of complex food systems, the FSI can help inform the wider public debate. As a result, this will make it easier for governments to explain and justify their policy interventions (such as official attempts to reduce food waste or controls on advertising unhealthy foods). Chapter 1 discusses the main food sustainability issues facing the region, including climate change. Chapter 2 provides a summary of the broad FSI results for the region. Chapter 3 (sustainable agriculture), Chapter 4 (nutritional challenges) and Chapter 5 (food loss and waste) will then examine each of the FSI’s main dimensions, followed by a conclusion summarising the report’s key findings.
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