Food, Agriculture, and Water Day
By: Ruth Girma
On November 19, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrated Food, Agriculture, and Water Day at the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29). While it may sound like just another themed event on the COP agenda, this issue is extremely important, as it highlights something we don’t appreciate enough: the ways in which all sectors in our society, including food, water, climate and health, are interconnected. Ignoring these connections has historically led to insufficient solutions that fail to address the root of emerging problems.
For a long time, issues within these areas were treated separately, as water management focused on hygiene and access, food systems research focused on food production and distribution, and climate scientists focused on climate graphs and emissions trends. Each group worked in its own silo, with its own priorities, even though the systems they were looking at were deeply connected to others. In separating these issues, we lost sight of the bigger picture and created solutions that lacked efficiency and created unintended consequences, as you can’t anticipate what you don’t know.
Thus, days like Food, Agriculture and Water Day matter, as they push politicians, scientists, and governments to step back and recognize how these systems intersect. Understanding these connections is the first step to something that is urgently needed, the holistic One Health approach. One Health is a framework which tries to highlight the interconnections between human, animal and environmental health. It asserts that you can’t protect one without thinking of the others due to feedback loops within our system. When we apply this way of thinking to global challenges such as food insecurity, climate change, or water scarcity, the solutions become more practical and sustainable.
This is evident in the management of water. Water is important for drinking and sanitation, as well as agriculture, ecosystem health, and general health across all sectors. However, climate change is having a great impact, as it’s directly reducing access to clean and reliable freshwater through rising temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, shrinking snowpacks, and the depletion of rivers and groundwater (US EPA, 2022). These changes mean that many regions now face both reduced water quantity and poorer water quality at the same time, creating a cascade of effects across human, animal, and environmental systems (US EPA, 2022).
The first industry affected by this reduced supply is agriculture. Crops need a consistent supply of freshwater to grow, as without it, yields decline, resulting in frequent crop failures and thus economic instability for farmers. Moreover, climate change impacts quality as well as quantity. An increase in heavy rains, extended heat waves, and other extreme weather events increases pollution and runoff. When farms depend on such polluted water, it takes a toll on food safety, soil and water health, and even the health of the workers and animals in those areas, thus creating a feedback loop where pressure in one system amplifies pressure in another
In addition to these issues, climate change is affecting nutritional quality. The increase in carbon dioxide levels lowers the protein content and essential minerals like zinc, iron, and magnesium in staple crops. Research has shown that “high-yielding fruits such as apples, oranges, mango, guava, banana, and vegetables such as tomato and potato have lost their nutritional density by up to 25-50% or more during the last 50 to 70 years” (Bhardwaj et al., 2024). Thus, even if crop yields stay the same, the nutritional value per serving will drop, thus requiring a greater abundance of food to meet the same nutritional value.
This has serious One Health implications, as lower nutrient density increases malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies in humans, decreases the feed quality for livestock and wildlife, and pushes farmers toward more intensive practices that require more land and water. Through these examples, it’s quite evident just how interconnected the various systems are. Thus, Food, Agriculture, and Water Day is a reminder that global challenges aren’t isolated problems, they are interconnected systems. If we want real progress, our solutions need to reflect that. One Health gives us the framework to do exactly that as it forces us to think about integrated solutions and long-term impacts and resilience that protect human health, animal health, and ecosystem health.
References
Bhardwaj, R. L., Parashar, A., Parewa, H. P., & Vyas, L. (2024). An Alarming Decline in the Nutritional Quality of Foods: The Biggest Challenge for Future Generations’ Health. Foods, 13(6), 877. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13060877
US EPA. (2022, October 18). Climate Change Impacts on Freshwater Resources. Www.epa.gov. https://www.epa.gov/climateimpacts/climate-change-impacts-freshwater-resources