Politicians and scientists join forces to transform food systems

True to its triad of "Feed, Care, Protect", Muse is establishing itself as a stronghold for research into food systems. Following an international conference devoted to global food security in December 2020, a day of exchanges on food systems brought together over 450 players in this field on February 4. Their objective: to improve the dialogue between science and policy in order to promote the transformation of food systems. The conclusions will be forwarded to the United Nations in preparation for the World Summit on Food Systems to be held in New York in September.

" The issue of food systems is not just about nutrition; it's a cross-cutting notion that involves the environment, the economy, health, agriculture... And we want to demonstrate that Muse has all the assets to organize collective intelligence around this issue", explains Patrick Caron, UM vice-president in charge of international relations, who over the last three months has overseen the organization of two major international events. The first focused on food security last December, followed by a second on food systems on February 4.

Objective UN summit

To feed the summit's reflections, MUSE organized - virtual - exchanges on the transformation of food systems, and more specifically on the need to bring science and politics closer together to achieve this. By food system, we mean the way in which individuals and social groups organize themselves to eat," explains Patrick Caron. This includes production, distribution, storage, consumer choice...". A notion defined by Montpellier professor Louis Malassis as early as the mid-1990s, but which, in the current global context and the call for sustainable development, has seen renewed interest since 2010.
Nearly 450 people from 62 countries took part in this day whose main objective was to prepare for the United Nations summit to be held in New York next September on the sidelines of the General Assembly. Why a UN summit on food systems? "Obviously, to meet the challenges of food security. But it's not just about Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, it's about all the SDGs." The environmental and economic upheavals underway are raising cross-cutting questions about our food systems, "as are the increasingly frequent health crises that raise the question of the impacts of intensive livestock farming."

Four levers for action

Mechanisms that bring together politicians and scientists are essential to reinforce the sometimes difficult interfaces. "On the one hand, we have scientists sounding the alarm and complaining that they are not being heard, and on the other, we have politicians expressing the need for expertise in order to arbitrate, and who consider that the results of science do not correspond to these needs. We also need to provide better information, from a scientific point of view, on what is blocking transformations and, finally, in a context marked by the prevalence of fake news, mobilize scientific knowledge to facilitate dialogue between stakeholders in these transformations," notes the vice-president. To achieve this, four levers were identified during the meeting. The first is to identify the bottlenecks: "what are the costs, the risks, the potential conflicts of interest that make transformation difficult?" explains Patrick Caron.
The second lever is to strengthen partnerships between academic institutions, which is essential. The third lever concerns collaboration between areas of collegial expertise. We need to "move beyond silos", explains Patrick Caron, by creating collaborative spaces involving, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the High-Level Panel of Experts of the United Nations Committee on Food Security and Nutrition(HLPE/CSA). "They produce a high level of knowledge, but each in their own field and without any organized dialogue between them on the challenges of sustainable development." The final lever identified is to ensure that the knowledge and frameworks available at international level can be mobilized at local level, which is not sufficiently the case today. "To achieve this, we need to invest more in international partnerships between researchers, and in the design of original innovation and foresight mechanisms," insists Patrick Caron. These are all strong messages that will now have to be taken to the UN, but which could also be the subject of reflections and commitments at the Africa-France meetings to be held in Montpellier in July.