Author: Kat Horvath

Food is such a central and powerful connector between people. We all eat. Most of us cook. And frequently we socialize and bond with friends and loved ones as we prepare and enjoy meals. The food we eat also has a significant impact on our earth. It’s estimated that half of the planet’s usable land is utilized for food production through direct or indirect methods [1]. The agricultural industry, and other associated industries, are responsible for producing roughly 25% of the global greenhouse gas emissions [2]. Currently, between 25-30% of total food produced is lost or wasted before it can be consumed. Nearly 14% of food grown or raised is lost to post-harvest impacts (i.e. rotten, never harvested, wrong size/shape for sale, etc.) [3]. It is also estimated that 821 million people are undernourished and hungry while over two billion adults are overweight [4].

Many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations, aim to address hunger, human health, agriculture, and land use. Climate change will continue to make it increasingly difficult to meet the global demand for food as the population continues to expand. Global leaders will need to enact creative and alternative measures to feed the world while preventing the worst impacts of climate change. The non-profit Slow Food has been working to address these issues by advocating for progressive policy reform and educating populations about sustainable food production and consumption since the late 1980s. Slow Food believes that everyone should have access to good, clean, and fair food, with an emphasis on local food, cultural and traditional practices, and move towards slower, deliberate growing, cooking, and eating. I interviewed a former employee of Slow Food USA to gain insights about the type of reforms they are advocating for in collaboration with federal and international politicians and policy makers.

Slow Food, like many non-profits, closely tracks policies that are moving through Congress. They actively engage with policymakers, congress members, and the general community to garner support for particular bills or initiatives. Frequently, Slow Food will emphasize federal level policy and generate support for particular bills across the country by having chapters of Slow Food sign on in support of legislation. Recently, Slow Food USA has been working to promote the Farm System Reform Act (S.3221) calling for an immediate moratorium on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and their environmentally detrimental waste lagoons. Slow Food USA also works closely with the public to educate them on topics related to food access and environmental impacts of agriculture in order to generate public support for federal and state-level policies.

Slow Food employees that work in the policy division write and distribute policy memos and briefs that are distributed to other chapters of Slow Food USA, partner organizations, and policymakers. Slow Food does not have experience with introducing or crafting custom legislation but they are interested in expanding into this sector and would like to work with congress members to introduce legislation together. Additionally, as of now, they are not employing any lobbyists to advocate for particular legislation. While Slow Food doesn’t currently participate in many international climate policy negotiations, they do hold annual international conferences that focus on developing ways to engage local communities as well as big banks to divest from the animal agricultural industry. Slow Food has not officially participated in a COP to date; however, it’s my opinion that organizations like Slow Food would provide a unique and helpful perspective in the global context of hunger, food production, and climate mitigation.

In class thus far, we’ve discussed how international protocols, goals, and agreements have been negotiated and adopted. I wanted to gain context around the implementation process for achieving these metrics and how the U.N. was leading this. I attended the discussion, Interconnected and Indivisible: Strengthening Post-secondary Education for Sustainable Development with Interdisciplinary Ideas hosted by the SDG Academy. This session was a part of the virtual International Conference on Sustainable Development aimed at providing a cross-disciplinary forum for stakeholders to discuss ways to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs were established in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly as a part of “The 2030 Agenda,” the same year the Paris Agreement was adopted. The U.N. explains that the “Implementation of the Paris Agreement is essential for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and provides a roadmap for climate actions that will reduce emissions and build climate resilience.”

Having been entrenched in post-secondary education for seven years, I’ve only come across a few departments at progressive universities that have made sustainability education a pillar of their instructional goals. I was curious to hear what the panelists, established educators, business people, and a Co-Chair of the U.N.’s Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, thought about strengthening sustainability education and how that tied into the SDGs and ultimately reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement. This session, focused on incorporating sustainability development components to areas of study outside of traditional environmental or sustainability courses at post-secondary institutions. Distinguished educators shared in the introduction video the importance of educating instructors in sustainability development so they can teach to push students to achieve the SDGs. Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University poignantly put it, “If every teacher and educator was trained in sustainability, we would have a very different outcome [in regards to climate change]. But we don’t have that because we have to argue with people over whether or not it should even be taught.”

The discussion continued with background about the SDG Academy which is a free, online education platform whose goal is to produce high quality educational resources about sustainable development for the world. Courses offered through SDG Academy cover interdisciplinary topics related to all 17 of the SDGs. In this session, panelists shared their efforts and experiences from their respective institutions in promoting mandatory sustainable development education. Panelists shared that most universities weren’t interested in adding new sustainability requirements unless the request was coming from students or future employers. Additionally, most of their colleagues were dismissive of the benefits of incorporating sustainable development education into a breadth of coursework; seemingly, because they didn’t gasp the importance of it. I believe there is a strong case for incorporating sustainability trainings and problem solving exercises into most courses because all modern challenges are now influenced by worsening climate change. The panelists’ struggles generating support did not surprise me as I have often felt like a lone wolf seeking interdisciplinary coursework that solves real-world problems within my engineering studies.

My main takeaways from this discussion were that there’s an abundance of free, publicly available, U.N. curated, resources to bridge the global education gap and integrate sustainable development into all aspects of education. Specifically, in post-secondary education, conservative universities will not change unless students unite and demand cross-disciplinary, sustainability training and problem solving. Negotiating with universities to add sustainability training will require pressure from the bottom up (student led). We know the SIDS nations push for the most aggressive goals and positions on climate change and that is not by accident. They have the most to lose and least to gain from intensified climate change, similar to the youth.

We, students, activists, future educators, and leaders, must step up and demand the dominant institutions that “supply” us with an education change. The days of memorizing equations, theorems, and formulas are behind us. We can reference nearly any tidbit of information instantaneously. However, one cannot simply google how to think and analyze complex datasets through a systems level approach. Nor, can we google “how to solve climate change” and expect a procedural “how to guide.’ Our modern world is challenged with extremely complicated, interconnected issues that require both board understanding and specific expertise. Our classrooms must adapt to teach to the level of the crisis that we are living in. We are fooling ourselves if we think that our current education system is preparing students to think at the level that is necessary to maintain a livable planet for generations to come.