Planetary Health & Food Security: Earth System Change, Food and Health

The interlinkages between planetary health and food security appear to be of crucial importance under the conditions of a changing Earth and the accelerating dynamics of global societies. While food production trigger planetary boundaries transgression, Earth system change and societal dynamics affect global food security and just nutrition, with impacts on human health. Industrial agriculture and food production together with high-trophic diet lead to One Health issues such as amplifying climate change, biodiversity loss, etc. on the one hand and malnutrition, lifestyle diseases and infections on the other. Intensive agriculture furthermore occupies land for the production of low-trophic food necessary to achieve food security and adequate nutrition worldwide, also considering poor and vulnerable populations.

Against this backdrop, the aim is to assess and monitor key interlinkages between the Earth and food in order to identify tipping points and explore transformation pathways for One Health. This addresses one prime challenge, namely, how to integrate knowledge on Earth system change with knowledge about agriculture, food and nutrition, and their impact on human health. This knowledge integration requires interdisciplinary approaches that involves earth and environmental sciences, agricultural, nutritional and health sciences, as well as social sciences and economics. Transdisciplinary collaboration with societal organizations and actors across sectors additionally needs to foster the science-society interface and to co-create systemic innovations ranging from technological to economic, social and political interventions for advanced prevention and resilience. Therefore, the workshop will discuss the following guiding questions, with pulse talks by renowned speakers as listed below.