Earlier this year, I received an unusual invitation. Sharon Citonepopped up in my inbox, a longtime food and agriculture tech executive who I had never crossed paths with before. She asked me if I wanted to come to a food systems summit, her new events and consulting company Edible Planet Ventures lodged with the central Italian region of Umbria.
I would spend four days meeting 150 food and agriculture experts from around the world, dreaming up a new charter to work towards a more sustainable and equitable food system, and visiting sustainable producers in the region.
I am rather skeptical of initiatives focused on drafting new sustainability charters and frameworks. To me it seems like we have a lot of roadmaps and we should be spending our time implementing the big changes around regenerative agriculture, food waste, diet change and food justice that many of them agree.
But since a key part of my role at GreenBiz is understanding industry trends and challenges, this seemed like the perfect learning opportunity. So I answered with an enthusiastic “yes”! in Sharon and I went there last week.
The group included activists, artists, entrepreneurs, investors, journalists, farmers, politicians and consultants. We work across the entire food system – from biotechnology to food sovereignty, regenerative agriculture to indoor farming, foodservice to policymaking, and plant-based protein to food waste.
While Cittone spoiled us with magical culinary experiences and stunning locations, she also gave us plenty to work with. We dug into what each segment does well, where it’s missing, and uncovered cross-pollination opportunities.
It will take a few more weeks to compile our discussions into the final charter, but I’ll be sure to share it when it’s ready. Even though we made a good faith effort, I don’t expect this to be the framework that will finally fix the food system. Still, it was a powerful (and sometimes painful) process that left me with three big takeaways.
1. Stop fighting
As a food systems generalist, I have painfully observed the growing hostility between groups working on different food and agriculture issues. These tensions were also real in Umbria.
I have witnessed a serious confrontation between indoor agriculture and soil health. Some regenerative beef advocates canceled trips altogether because they thought the plant-based crowd was overrepresented. Health experts have challenged cultured meat investors to raise their food safety standards.
While some of this skepticism is healthy and the discussions had valid points, many disagreements stem from the siled and competitive nature of the food industries. People are focused on their own work and don’t engage enough with peers outside of their immediate networks.
A feeling of scarcity also fuels tensions. Attention from funders, policy makers and consumers is scarce. Instead of positioning a catalog of solutions – from reducing food waste to growing carbon – as essential to creating a better global food system, each side seems to be fighting for its own survival. Yet, coming together for systemic advocacy and education can make everyone better off.
2. Let’s be honest about our contributions
More collaboration will require less bragging. Neither cows, vertical farms, composters, smallholders nor food scientists alone will be able to reverse climate change or save the world. Yet today, the single hero story prevails in the hundreds of press releases that flood my inbox each week, as well as on news sites, social media chats, and industry webinars. .
It was refreshing to witness a much more nuanced debate in Italy. At the end of our two-day workshop, each group made a brief presentation of their lessons learned. Many started by articulating a more concrete and collaborative vision of their roles.
For many, regenerative agriculture contains too many ifs, cans, and cans to serve as a serious alternative to the status quo.
The cultured meat group dismissed the narrative of wanting to completely replace animal agriculture, realistically stating that the sector is unlikely to achieve more than 20% market share. The plant-based group has brought more nuance to the dietary change they are working towards. They spoke out against the overhyping of protein in the United States and other Western countries, instead emphasizing the cultural and nutritional value of their products.
I would love to see more nuances and demystifications like this. We need to articulate the potential, uncertainty and limitations of each solution. This will create a friendlier and more collaborative food systems community and help outsiders distribute their support more effectively.
3. Let’s establish more complex measures of success
Yields and profits have dominated today’s mainstream agricultural ambitions at the expense of harder-to-measure metrics critical to human and planetary health. These new measures include biodiversity, resilience, community well-being, workers’ rights, local pollution and food sovereignty. The hyper-focus on yields has silenced the contributions of food and agriculture practitioners to more holistic traditions, worldviews and experiences, including indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers in the Global South.
Because the climate crisis is looming, adopting alternative practices seems scary and risky. Agroecology illustrates this challenge. Compared to intensive agriculture which results in high yields and profits, it promises a multitude of social, economic and environmental co-benefits that are more difficult to quantify. But it tends to have lower yields. Common carbon logic says that we must first preserve yields to prevent the encroachment of farms on native ecosystems, as their conversion to cropland releases large amounts of carbon.
Visiting a 2,000 acre organic and growing regenerative farm on the last day of the summit provided food for thought on this issue. After suffering severe drought-related crop losses for the past two years, owner Marco Minciaroni is working towards resilience and circularity as primary farm management goals.
Minciaroni acknowledges that agroecological practices such as planting biodiversity strips, hedgerows and cover crops, using traditional seed varieties and reducing tillage tend to reduce his yield per acre and his harvest. But he believes his investments in soil health, water retention and pollination services will improve his long-term success in more extreme conditions.
He is also experimenting with intercropping – meaning he grows wheat and lentils in the same field and plans to integrate chickens and wild asparagus into his olive groves. Once incorporated, these practices could increase the overall productivity of his farm.
For many, the regenerative agriculture experiments of Minciaroni and other farmers contain too many ifs, mays, and powers to serve as a serious alternative to the status quo. What if their hopes don’t materialize and we end up with global famine on top of the climate crisis?
I have this fear too. But I also think about what will happen if we don’t. What are the risks and costs of not investing in these options? Like many other summit participants, I don’t think we’ve done enough analysis on what happens if we don’t maximize co-benefits, or at least take into account account all the evidence. Agroecological approaches will not be the right option for all farms around the world, but many will benefit from a review and restructuring of their measures of success.