The FAO’s flagship report The future of food and agriculture – Drivers and triggers for transformation was showcased during the July 24^th - 26^th United Nations Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment that took place in Rome. More precisely, the report was displayed in an exhibition booth with the title: “Futures of agrifood systems: triggering and scaling up solutions to tackle urgent climate, environmental, and hunger crises”.

FAO headquarters was given one booth by the organizers, the Food Systems Hub, therefore, this exhibition booth was the result of a process of cross-collaboration between five different FAO teams: Agrifood Economics division (ESA), the Office of Innovation (OIN), the Office of Climate change, biodiversity and Environment (OCB), the Office of Emergencies and Resilience (OER), and the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre (CJN). Visting delegates were able to see how FAO is able to work as one on complex systemic issues.

Lorenzo Giovanni Bellù, Senior Economist, Team Leader of the Policy Intelligence Branch - Global Perspectives (PIB-GP) in the FAO Agrifood Economics Division (ESA) and lead author of the report, and Lan Huong Nguyen, Economist for PIB-GP, presented the report and its findings to government officials, FAO colleagues, private sector, academia and civil society that were attending the UNFSS+2. Among those were Global Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network, and Action Against Stunting, and AgriHackaton, and Berytech.

Colleagues addressed the issue of transformative pathways for agrifood systems both in high-income and low- and middle-income countries and the latest futures of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems. In this sense, meeting and conversing with colleagues from all parts of these systems was a positive moment to identify interlinks among these various areas and related challenges that have prevented transformations. Furthermore, colleagues shared the suggested triggers for transformation in the report that aim to help trade-off short-termism for long-term resilience and sustainability.

Lorenzo and Lan Huong also attended a few sessions and took the opportunity to secure a few bilateral meetings with national governments and regional representatives, in view of FAO’s ongoing foresight efforts and preparation to begin implementing the upcoming regional strategic foresight exercises.

This further supports the overarching role of corporate work on future(s) of food and agriculture as a unifying  analytical framework for transformation of agrifood systems and a conceptual platform for actions at all level, being reinforced with the aforementioned regional, sub regional, and country level foresight exercises.