The food system is becoming a central nexus with our future, encompassing a broad range of societal challenges, from food security, nutrition, and social and economic inequalities to climate change, biodiversity, and land and ocean ecosystem services. In order to guarantee the future of human kind, food systems have to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly urbanized population while avoiding harm on the environment. At present, food production is falling short of meeting nutritional requirements and guaranteeing long-term health for almost one third of people worldwide. Agriculture and food production account for a very substantial share of climate-altering emissions and are intensely consuming water and land. The 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) adopted by the world leaders in September 2015 at the UN Sustainable Development Summit have food at their very core. This is a first major argument made in this book aimed to reach researchers, policy-makers, businessmen, and practitioners in all sectors crosscut by food. The SDGs provide a framework to mobilize efforts toward sustainable development, reducing poverty and inequalities, fostering economic growth, and at the same time addressing climate change issues and environmental conservation. This implies urgent and far-reaching changes in the way we produce and consume food.

The COP21, held in Paris in 2015, became the first conference to establish a concrete, long-term plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to involve not only the most advanced countries but also the developing countries. For the first time in 20 years of negotiations in the United Nations, a legally binding, universal agreement on the climate was signed, with the ambitious goal of keeping global warming below 2 C and, in longer term, below 1.5. The IPCC report released in October 2018 clearly showed that we need to stay well below 1.5 C for dramatic impacts on ecosystems, health, and economic growth associated with this rise in temperature to be avoided.