TERI, others join hands to promote better food, land use practices in India

In a bid to promote better food and land use practices in the country, various environmental organisations and think tanks in India on Friday joined hands for the Food and Land Use (FOLU) initiative.

The FOLU India initiative, which comes against the backdrop of climate change threatening food security, is a joint collaboration of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Water Resources Institute, India (WRI).

Other FOLU initiatives are currently going on in Australia, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the United Kingdom.

The India chapter of this initiative will work towards developing long-term pathways for sustainable food and land use systems in the country and inform policy decisions, said the stakeholders.

Speaking at the launch event held in the capital, S Vijay Kumar, FOLU India Advisor, said that FOLU India aims to provide insights to national and state level policy makers and implementation agencies and help fine-tune solutions to local conditions and requirements.

"Transformative changes in the world's food and land use systems are necessary to achieve the targets for sustainable development and climate change mitigation set out in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

"FOLU envisions a sound system of growing and managing food, which will support the nation's nutritional requirements, ensure feeding the entire population and improve the health of agricultural and forest lands simultaneously," Kumar said.

With a population projected to reach 1.5 billion people by 2030, and climate risks threatening food security, livelihoods, water supply and human health, India needs to urgently shift to sustainable food production and consumption to ensure nutritious diets for all, he said.

Climate change is adding stress on the nation's resources today with incidents like changing rainfall patterns, heatwaves, reduced availability of water and other crisis impacting food security, water supply, health, livelihoods and farm incomes.

"In an effort to alleviate these impacts, FOLU will study India's potential to develop more resilient and long-term food and land use systems," Kumar said.

Addressing the event, Ramesh Chand, Member, Niti Aayog, said the time has come to take a pause and reflect on the impact of the current methods of agri-food production on natural resource system and human health.

"We must redesign our food system for better health and satisfaction of human beings and eco-friendly production," he said.

OP Agarwal, CEO, WRI India, said as urban population grows and more land moves to non-agricultural uses, a smaller share of the population has to produce increasing amounts of food from a reducing area of land.

"For this to be possible, reforms in food and land use systems will be critical. Reforms will be needed in how we use agricultural land and what kind of crops we grow to ensure that the nutritional needs of the entire population is met.

"We need to find newer ways of transporting, storing and marketing the food so that waste is minimized. Agricultural practices need to change to ensure efficient use of natural resources like water and soil. FOLU can help the nation transition to a sustainable, clean and rewarding economy while delivering health to the people, Agarwal said.