A recent workshop hosted by IIED and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew explored how the way Indigenous Peoples grow and consume food holds answers to the world’s broken food system.

Modern food and farming systems are fundamentally unsustainable. They contribute around a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and are responsible for almost 60% of global biodiversity loss. They are degrading the natural resources – water, soils, genetic resources – needed to sustain agricultural production.

Modern food systems (PDF) are also highly inequitable, with power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a few corporations.

Despite increased yields, food insecurity has been rising in recent years – more than 820 million people are hungry and 2 billion people are food insecure, underscoring the immense challenge of achieving the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of zero hunger by 2030.

The food systems of the world’s 476 million Indigenous Peoples are often branded as ‘backward’ or unproductive – but evidence shows they are highly productive, sustainable and equitable. These systems preserve rich biodiversity, provide nutritious food and are climate resilient and low carbon. And they are already achieving zero hunger for many Indigenous Peoples, as research by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has shown.

This study also found that Indigenous Peoples engaged in traditional activities in remote, biodiverse areas with little reliance on market economies tend to be of normal weight; and that supporting Indigenous Peoples’ food systems and self-determination enhances nutrition and health.