FAO’s Director for Food and Nutrition attends the “Shaping Consumers’ Food Choices” Event in Brussels organized by the Hungarian Presidency

“We are off-track for all nutrition-related SDGs”, was the sobering first message of Lynnette Neufeld, Director of the FAO Food and Nutrition Division, during her intervention at the event “Shaping consumers’ food choices”, organized by the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU).   

In her presentation, she highlighted the Enabling healthy diets for all part of FAO’s Global Roadmap on achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5 °C threshold. She noted that the Roadmap foresees a set of actions that contribute to the four components required to enable healthy diets: capability, opportunity, food availability and food affordability.  

The FAO Global Roadmap presented at COP 28 in the UAE is the first of three publications that aim to unfold a narrative of the global commitment to transform agrifood systems without breaching the 1.5 degrees goal. Accelerated climate actions can transform agrifood systems and help achieve food security and nutrition both today and tomorrow. The second part will be launched at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.  

Neufeld also mentioned FAO’s work to support Members in developing food-based dietary guidelines that are intended to establish a basis for public policies on food,  nutrition, and health, as well as agricultural and nutrition education programmes to foster healthy eating habits and lifestyles.  

She also announced an upcoming FAO/WHO joint statement on the principles of a healthy diet, which will put forward the simple and universal set of principles: adequacy, balance, diversity, and moderation.  

Later in the workshop, she was joined in a panel by Klaus Berend, Director for Food Safety, Sustainability and Innovation at the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), Eva Sali, Senior Policy Advisor at Copa-Cogeca, and Robert Jones, President of Cellular Agriculture Europe. The panel discussed the potential of novel foods to contribute to enabling healthy diets from sustainable production. 

During her visit to Brussels, Neufeld also had a bilateral meeting with Márton Nobilis, Minister of State for Food Industry and Trade Policy at the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture. A number of issues were discussed, including the centrality of healthy diets, the strong partnership of FAO and Hungary through the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia in Budapest, as well as the upcoming joint activities in Brussels and beyond within the framework of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.