NOURISHING THE WORLD TO 2050
We are actively engaged with leading innovators globally, working through The World Innovation Network (TWIN), to activate global change and create a platform for multi-stakeholder collaboration around our most pressing global challenges.
We are facing a global health crisis, and the food we eat is at the heart of the problem. We cannot feed 10 billion people in the future the way we are feeding 7 billion people today.
More than half of all adults and 1/6 of all children globally are overweight or obese, and this is just not threatening developed nations - eight of the 20 nations with the fastest rising rates of adult obesity in the world are in Africa. Nearly 11 million people die every year because of unhealthy diets, and diabetes is expected to become a $2.2 trillion problem by 2030, making its impact equivalent to the GDP of a G-8 country.
Today, poor diets pose a greater mortality risk than any other risk factor in the world, yet it is treated like a consumer issue rather than a global healthcare issue.
With population growth expected to rise to 10B by 2050, the future challenges we face are exponential, and will demand exponential thinking, technologies, and solutions. We simply cannot feed 10 billion people in the future the way we’re feeding 7 billion people today, or we’ll create a global public health crisis unlike anything we’ve seen in all of human history—a massive headwind to global prosperity.
TWIN CHALLENGE SESSION: TRUST YOUR FOOD
Empowering human health through food demands the involvement of all stakeholders, including global food players. But today, we face an epidemic of mistrust across our food system—from the core science, to what is produced, packaged and delivered to consumers. This mistrust in our food system is a major barrier to achieving global progress. How can we nourish the world when there’s such a fundamental trust deficit in our food systems? If we are to successfully transform our global food system, we must do so in a way that establishes trust in every meal.
Session Objectives
- Identify the key opportunities and barriers to a vision of greater authenticity and trust in our emerging food systems
- Explore emerging innovations that enable greater transparency and traceability across the supply chain
- Examine why there is such a large gap between food science and popular perception and the role of media in disseminating accurate information
- Reflect on experiences of other sectors to learn how they have tackled this trust deficit
- Identify the role each key stakeholder must play to build greater trust—from farmers, big brands, start-ups, farmers, regulators, supply chain enablers, and retailers through to the end consumer.
TWIN CATALYST: EMPOWERING HUMAN HEALTH THROUGH FOOD
Nourishing the world means getting the right nutrition to the right people in the right ways to help empower health, improve longevity and reduce the incidence of preventable diseases. Empowering health through food is an incredible challenge, and demands bringing global leaders together from the food, agriculture, and healthcare sectors in new ways.
Objectives
During the week of October 21st, the TWIN Catalyst Session will convene close to sixty senior leaders from across these sectors around the world to explore and mobilize around how to nourish the world by empowering health through food over the next thirty years. By providing a neutral, trusted platform for honest discussion and multi-stakeholder collaboration, we will forge a new path and achieve what no one organization can accomplish alone.
We will bring together the worlds of healthcare, agriculture, and food to investigate emerging challenges and opportunities in making healthy food:
- Functional: Improving the nutritional value of food, and making it more targeted to the individual health needs of consumers
- Accessible: Addressing inequality, security and affordability of nutritious food options
- Scalable: Increasing the productivity of existing and emerging agriculture and production methods
- Sustainable: Reducing the negative impact on water, land and air
- Desirable: Resolving the structural and personal barriers that inhibit consumer adoption of healthy food into their lifestyles
- Trustworthy: Bringing together stakeholders in new ways to overcome the trust gap in food science, food information, food brands and businesses