Humans Use 80% of the World’s Land to Feed Animals that Produce 18% of Calorific Value Food, Forest and Climate was panel discussion considering how to transition current global agricultural standards to maintain a future sustainable food system. Having seen a steady transition towards industrial agriculture, the question now is: how do we change these habits?

WWF International focuses on three aspects: sustainable production; food loss and waste, and sustainable diet. The scale of the impact of food production, it was argued, can also be a major part of the solution. Perception is the key. Most people don't see food production as a threat to nature. There is no awareness of where food comes from, how it is produced, how it is sourced. The need, therefore, is to educate young people and raise awareness.

The Global Forest Coalition highlighted that the motive behind deforestation is largely to produce livestock and livestock products. Low tax rates and subsidies are used to attract foreign investment. The consequences of deforestation, however, often leads to the displacement of local communities, adding to human rights concerns as well as environmental degradation.

The duty of civil society, it was suggested, is to keep these issues on the agenda, and make consumers aware of how the products they use are sourced. The Coalition added that a first step could be policy reform to promote local products and a more sustainable diet.

The FAO climate division shared perspectives on sustainable food systems. FAO highlighted some food inequality statistics: 821 million people do not have enough to eat;2 billion people are malnourished, and 2 billion people are obese or overweight.

FAO indicated that the quality of food is similarly unequally distributed. The FAO team indicated that we need to change from producing food to feed, to producing food to nourish. Awareness and education are very important issues to develop, they added, if buying and consuming habits are to change.