Transforming food systems to reduce global inequality and improve food safety and health

Food lies at the heart of human, ecosystem and animal health and well-being. The way food is harvested, processed, transported, marketed, consumed and disposed of contributes significantly to malnutrition and disease, and is  unsustainable.

Food systems negatively affect health through unhealthy diets and food insecurity, animal–human disease transmission, increased antimicrobial resistance, unsafe and adulterated foods, environmental contamination and degradation, and occupational hazards (see Figure 1). In turn, food systems are affected by and respond poorly to shocks. The COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated inequalities in access to healthy and safe food, worldwide. Therefore, to achieve universal health coverage, food systems must be transformed as a matter of urgency.