Miller Magazine Issue: 140 August 2021

50 COVER STORY MILLER / august 2021 zation of the United Nations (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Although progress towards the SDGs is expected to be made in the coming decade - assuming a fast re- covery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, and stable weather conditions and policy environments - the past year of disruptions from COVID-19 has moved the world further away from achieving the SDGs. This calls for ur- gent attention to the factors and forces driving perfor- mance in agri-food systems. To achieve the food security and nutrition goals, it is im- portant to approach the challenges in a systems-based way and adopt a holistic view. That means recognizing the interconnectedness of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the world’s agri-food systems, looking for synergies and trade-offs in policy solutions. Evidence must guide how to prioritize policy actions and investments. The pay-off of doing this can be tremen- dous, including an array of solutions to reduce carbon food print and ensure environmental sustainability, while making healthy foods more affordable for everyone and addressing inequality. A systems-based approach could also help policymakers manage trade-offs. Making agri- food systems more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient is essential in ending hunger and malnutrition. Agri-food systems are the major driver of climate change and the planet’s unfolding environmental cri- sis. Agriculture uses about 40 percent of the Earth’s land and emits more greenhouse gases than all cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes combined. Runoff from fer- tilizers pollutes waterways and coastal ecosystems. Agriculture also consumes 70 percent of all fresh wa- ter on earth. And it causes approximately 80 percent of forest loss. The coronavirus pandemic is a wake-up call on the urgent need to transform agri-food systems. This is because COVID-19 and climate change are intimately linked. COVID-19 and other diseases are rooted in envi- ronmental change. Sixty percent of all infectious diseas- es are zoonotic, and 75 percent of all emerging diseases are zoonotic. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030 pro- vides policy-makers with a consensus assessment of the ten-year prospects for 40 main farm and fisheries prod- ucts at regional, national and global levels, analysing the drivers of performance in the agri-food markets and helping to inform forward-looking policy analysis and planning. The Outlook baseline projections describe ex- pected trends based on existing policies, highlighting ar-