Food Systems Summit 2024: Marketplace of Ideas was held as an in-person event from 15th to 17th October at India International Centre, New Delhi. The Summit aimed at encouraging exchange of ideas and collaboration among all actors and stakeholders, especially the civil society organisations, of the food systems sector. Organised as a series of presentations across four themes over three days, the Summit was interspersed with high-level plenary sessions on cross-cutting sectoral issues that ranged from unlocking financing to ensuring gender inclusivity.
The four key thematic pavillions were as follows:
Supporting sustainable agriculture production
• Facilitating rainfed area management
• Improving nutritional outcomes
• Driving sustainable food distribution systems and consumption behaviour
The first edition of the Food Systems Summit aimed at encouraging experience exchange from across the length and breadth of India. In view of this, more than 50% of the states – about 19 of them – were represented at the Summit. Delegates also participated from other countries, including online and in-person representation, bringing in international perspectives to the food systems discussion. Below is a snapshot.
Here is a glance at the total number of participants under various categories at the Summit.
Number of presenters – 81
Number of overview speakers – 23
Number of plenary speakers and moderators – 19
Total number of attendees – 126
This is a day-by-day presentation of the participants.
Number of thematic sessions – 23
Number of plenary sessions – 7
The Summit had a significant number of female participation, with panel representation by females being higher than male speakers. The image below shows the gender-wise break-up of participants’ profiles.
Several key messages and opinions emerged around important aspects of the food systems during the three days of the Food Systems Summit. All of these were curated and shared in the form of textual and audio-visual media with the wider stakeholders through the social media handles of FOLU India
Here is an overview of the Summit’s social media reach in the first few weeks following the event through the LinkedIn and YouTube channels. These include about 50 videos presenting rich ideas and insightful data available for immediate viewing.
There is need to share knowledge and build consensus on common issues related to agriculture, ranging from water resource management to access to agri finance. It is also important to widen the reach of best practices on sustainable agriculture, from its local region to across various landscapes and among all actors, including through platforms like Food Systems Summit.
Water being the central theme of rainfed area agriculture, there is need to manage this valuable resource through co-creation of water sources and their management with local communities and governance bodies. To achieve this, it is important to unlock large-scale investment, which has dwindled over the recent years.
Adopting a lifecourse perspective to nutrition while planning policies around health programmes can enhance nutritional outcomes of individuals and even influence the health status of the future generations. Along with this, it is also important to draw on insights from various indigenous knowledge systems for optimal results.
One of the ways to improve the efficacy of public distribution systems is to demarcate the most vulnerable population group and support them with a variety of foods with wide range of micronutrients instead of the limited food group that are currently provided to them.
