Presentation of FAO’s flagship report “The Future of food and agriculture” in Brussels

FAO Brussels and Ghent University organized a presentation of the flagship FAO report “Future of Food and Agriculture: Drivers and Triggers for Transformation” by the report's lead author FAO Senior Economist Lorenzo Bellù to some 80 master’s and doctorate degree programme students as well as professors of the faculty of Bioscience Engineering. Over 50 participants connected to follow the presentation online. 

The event was moderated by Prof. Dr. Ir. Marijke D’Haese, head of the Department of Agricultural Economics.  

In his opening remarks, Director of the FAO Liaison Office in Brussels Raschad Al-Khafaji, expressed his satisfaction with having this event take place in cooperation with Belgian academia and highlighted the significance of the report and the need for future-oriented thinking, as global hunger, malnutrition, and poverty continue to rise.  

Lorenzo Bellù started his presentation with a description of the socioeconomic and environmental factors that significantly affect agrifood systems and presented the report’s four alternative scenarios and the related triggers for transformation. The event that was hosted by Prof. Dr. Carl Lachat, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health, included a lively Q&A session.  

Al-Khafaji also gave closing remarks highlighting how the young people in the audience would contribute to the future of agrifood systems, and the importance of strategic forward-thinking efforts as the one presented. He conveyed FAO's message of hope that the youth will play their role in transforming the agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable. 

During his stay in Brussels, Lorenzo Bellú also presented the flagship report to a number of partners in the European Commission, where he had in-depth discussions about the methodology and findings of the study. Presentations were held at the JRC, the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) and the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI).  At another engagement on the following day, Bellù exchanged on the report with members of the Study Group on Sustainable Food Systems of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). 

The report aims at inspiring strategic thinking and actions to transform agrifood systems towards a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future, by building on both previous reports in the same series as well as on a comprehensive corporate strategic foresight exercise that also nurtured FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31.   

Download the full report here.

The future of food and agriculture (FOFA) is an FAO series that portrays long-term analyses of food and agricultural systems within the social and economy-wide context.  

You can consult the FOFA series here.