The overall aim of the Knowledge Hub on Food and Nutrition Security is to foster transnational and multidisciplinary collaboration and networking in order to accelerate, further characterise and manage the impact of climate change on nutritional make-up of food, and to propose adaptive strategies to secure food and nutrition.
Through the SYSTEMIC project, researchers working on crops, livestock, seafood production, nutrition and climate science collaborated and have now published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and gave 27 conference presentations on how climate change influences the quality of the food and how that in turn influences human health. The project was established because there is not just an issue of knowledge, but an issue of connections and seeing the whole picture. For the past three years, these researchers have gathered the most updated science to fill this gap.
On Tuesday 12 March 2024, both project partners of the SYSTEMIC project, representatives from JPI HDHL (Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life), FACCE-JPI (Joint Programming Initiative for Agriculture, Climate Change, and Food Security), JPI Oceans (Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans) and members of the JPI HDHL Management Board gathered in Madrid, Spain, to listen to the three coordinators present the preliminary results of the project. After the presentation there was a discussion on impacts, outcomes, financing and the challenges of running a large project during the pandemic.
The project will finish in July 2024 and will also conclude with the publication of a white paper on the policy needs for food and nutrition security in Europe. The ambition is that this white paper will contribute to advance the knowledge on nutrition, food production and climate nexus. The food system contributes to more than 30% of GHG emissions and it is an important driver of biodiversity loss. Balancing environmental impact and feeding a growing human population is one of the key challenges of our time.