Prof Glenn Denning

What would it take to achieve a genuinely food-secure world—one without hunger or malnutrition, where everyone consumes the right quantity and quality of food to live a healthy, active, and productive life? In 2015, 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) signed on to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a commitment to a more prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable world. SDG 2—one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) embodied in the 2030 Agenda—committed to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” Ten years on, hunger and malnutrition persist, and our agricultural systems are far from sustainable. Climate change, conflict, and complacency have undermined food security to the point where an estimated 673 million people are hungry (calorie deprived) and 2.6 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Disruptions to trade have further exacerbated food insecurity, especially in food importing countries.

A food-secure world requires transforming how our food is grown, managed, and distributed. Our food systems must be more productive, profitable, inclusive, healthy, sustainable, resilient, and ethical. In his keynote presentation, Professor Glenn Denning draws on the most relevant literature, expert opinion, and decades of personal experience as a scientist and practitioner to lay out five key priorities for achieving universal food security: sustainable intensification, market infrastructure, postharvest stewardship, healthy diets, and social protection. Intelligent, coherent investment across these five areas in local context will enable food systems transformation toward a food-secure world.

As we approach 2030 with no prospect of achieving SDG 2, Denning concludes that universal food security will not be achieved by incremental, business-as-usual approaches. We will not end hunger by extending the SDG 2 deadline by another 5 or 10 years. Instead, he encourages all governments to step up and explicitly recognize food security as a human right, an economic investment, and a matter of national security. With a clear vision of healthy diets for all, from sustainable food systems, governments individually and collectively, through the UN and other multilateral entities, should partner with business and third sector organizations to prioritize investments in infrastructure, research and development, and smart incentives and subsidies that address market failure. A well-nourished society provides the foundation for peace and prosperity. It’s time to deploy the considerable know-how and do-how we have to achieve universal food security.

Successful transformation of food systems inevitably involves decisions by large numbers of individual people. These individuals make decisions on behalf of their households, their communities, their governments, their firms, and other organizations that play a role in transforming food systems. This brings us to a crucial question: Who will make those critical decisions and take actions that will lead to positive outcomes at the international, national, and local levels? The answer is people who are willing and able to lead—we need bold and informed leadership across public, private, and third sectors, at all levels. Denning outlines the essential characteristics of transformative leadership and how we can prepare and nurture a new generation of practitioner-leaders.