Diversifying staple crops

26 July 2021, 1:30 – 2:20 pm CEST

As part of the Pre-UN Food Systems Summit, WBCSD will (co-)host a series of sessions to mobilize private sector solutions and actions.

Food systems heavily rely on five key commodities (wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, and soy), with the global calorie production concentrated around a limited set of commodity crops grown using intensive methods in a small number of breadbasket regions.

The lack of diversity in staple crop production and consumption drives a number of negative health, social and environmental impacts around the world and jeopardizes our capacity, especially during the current climate crisis, to provide healthy and sustainable diets to 9 billion people by 2050, within planetary boundaries.

The objective of this WBCSD-OP2B joint session is to shed light on the need for, a deep, rapid and systemic transformation of our food systems and the tremendous opportunity to do so through diversifying staple crop production and consumption.

The session is a call for collaboration across stakeholder groups for urgent action on staple crop diversification.

Session materials:

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