The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative, hosted by UN Environment, has published a report titled TEEB for Agriculture & Food: Scientific and Economic Foundations. The report advocates for the need for a more holistic systems approach to agri-food systems that takes into account the impacts with and interactions between nature, humans, and agri-food systems. The analysis addresses the conflicts that exist between the agriculture and food production sectors with biodiversity and ecosystem services, highlighting some of the major human and environmental health externalities of current practices.
WLE researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Bioversity International have been working on these kinds of systems based approaches, primarily through the work done on Ecosystem Services and Resilience, a previous core theme of the program. Specifically, Wei Zhang of IFPRI was the coordinating lead author of the second chapter, titled Systems thinking: an approach for understanding eco-agri-food systems. Additional contributions came from researchers Sarah Jones, Sylvia Wood and Fabrice DeClerck of Bioversity, among others.
Learn more on the TEEB AgriFood website.
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