FaithInvest recently attended a two-day TABLE workshop on the politics and economics of food system transformation at Oxford University. TABLE is a research platform involving several universities which convenes dialogues around food to support better decision making and action.
Why were we there? The invitation might seem odd; after all, what does the global food and farming system have to do with faiths or faith-consistent investing?
In fact, there is a long history of faith engagement on food and farming issues. Not only have faith groups been deeply involved in 'feeding the hungry' for centuries, in recent years they have grown increasingly concerned about the impact of food and farming on the planet, people and poverty, as well as about the growing market and political power of the agri mega corporations.
'The gravest challenges'
As the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC) pointed out in its January 2024 Global Policy Report, 'the recent evolution of food systems has fuelled – and continues to inflame – some of the greatest and gravest challenges facing humanity, notably persistent hunger, undernutrition, the obesity epidemic, loss of biodiversity, environmental damage and climate change'.
The FSEC went on to say that the cost of transforming our global food systems far outweighs the cost of doing nothing:
The economic value of this human suffering and planetary harm is well above 10 trillion USD a year, more than food systems contribute to global GDP. In short, our food systems are destroying more value than they create.
A recent study by the Jesuit European Social Centre found more than 150 organisations from different demoninations were actively involved in promoting and practicing sustainable agriculture across Europe. JESC is planning to create a new network called Our Daily Bread to coordinate faith-based advocacy on food and farming at the European level.
So faiths are concerned about the impact of food and farming – and they are also investors, with billions of dollars of assets.
At our Bold Plans conference in 2022, we heard Olav Kjorven of Eat Foundation call on faith-based investors to support efforts to shift funding out of industrialised agriculture, where the bulk of investments currently go, into supporting more sustainable and just farming systems.
His comments generated a great deal of discussion among participants afterwards. The problem, some people said, was working out what they should be investing in. How do non-food and agriculture experts understand what a more sustainable and just farming system looks like?
It was partly to address some of these concerns that Eat Foundation became one of the convenors of the Good Food Finance Network (GFFN). It brings together banks, insurers, investors and capital market influencers to catalyse capital and create an enabling financial environment for the transition to sustainable and just food systems.
The Good Food Finance Network says the transition to sustainable food systems represents a $350 billion investment opportunity and could generate $4.5 trillion in new market opportunities each year.
The Oxford workshop
For all these reasons, when we got the invitation to attend last week's Oxford University workshop, we were excited to learn more and to be able to bring a faith perspective over the two days of what turned out to be both intensive and fascinating discussions.
We signed up to Chatham House rules so I am not able to share either the names of the people or the organsations who attended. But I can say that the attendees were a mix of NGOs, food activists, UK government officials, community growing networks, investors and funders.
The aim was to explore different visions for the future of food and to bring people with a wide range of expertise and perspectives together for dialogue. Three different visions were presented:
A market-led vision which believes in the transformative potential of the market to create a food system that rewards and values businesses based on how they regenerate nature, and can scale up new innovations and techologies fast;
A state-led vision, in which governments leverage their power to restructure the food system with regulations ('guardrails') to prevent abuses such as damaging the environment, greater nationalisation of essential services and the goal of feeding people rather producing profit;
A bottom-up vision where communities work together to produce a more diverse, decentralised, multi-scale and equitable food system that is healthy for people and planet, and where power is distributed across a wider range of organisations, rather than being held tightly by a few mega-corporations.
We had some intense debates discussing the merits and downfalls of the three visions, and the truth is that we need an element of all of them.
But it seemed clear to me that most people felt the bottom-up vision needed expanding greatly; the state had to provide support and 'guardrails' to help it do so; and investors had a crucial role but, as one speaker said, 'the market on its own is going to take us to completely the wrong place – it's already taken us part-way there. We need guardrails'.
I emerged from the two-day workshop feeling very inspired, but also very conscious of the immense complexity of the global food system and the urgent need for change.
However, I was also highly energised by the comment from one speaker who said: 'A fundamental rewiring of the economic system [for food and farming] is the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes.'
In the global food system, as in crime novels, it seems, it is good to be reminded to focus on where the money is. Applying faith-consistent investing principles in this area to move funds to support more sustainable agriculture is essential if faith groups want to help transform the global food and farming systems – for the benefit of people and planet.