Join the Parliament for the Faith + Food Dialogues Series
Don’t miss the upcoming Faith + Food Dialogues which are contributing to the UN Food Systems Summit. The Dialogues are hosted in partnership with Center for Earth Ethics, Bhumi Global, Islamic Medical Association of North America – IMANA, Interfaith Public Health Network, The World Evangelical Alliance, Tzu Chi USA, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
The series has highlight Food Security, Access, and Justice; Healing the Earth, Healing our Bodies; and Regenerating the Earth. And will feature additional programs on Farm and Food Worker Rights and Empowering Local Communities.
Food Security, Access, and Justice
| Food insecurity is on the rise in some of the world’s most developed countries and yet in these same countries an overabundance of unhealthy food options is driving rates of high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. |
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There is an immediate need to improve food quality, reduce waste, reduce marketing of unhealthy foods and ultra-processed foods in low-income communities and developing countries. Simultaneously there must be an increase in equitable access to nutritious, culturally appropriate foods that are produced agroecologically and minimize climate change impacts.
Healing the Earth, Healing our Bodies
| The globe is facing a dual health crisis: hunger and poor diet. Both are functions of an imbalanced system that creates scarcity to foster excess. |
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The global adoption of a heavy diet of salt, sugar, and red meat creating with it mass ecosystem destruction and global health issues. Healing will only come from balance and by moving away from global extraction that poisons the water and land we depend upon. Due to the ubiquitous influence of the industrialized food system, there is also more need for education and awareness about ways to prepare healthy foods.
Regenerating the Earth
| Our appetite is overwhelming the planet. Increased global demand for animal proteins and sugars and other crop types all part of the “cheaper food” production paradigm is driving ecosystem loss globally to make way for crops and pasture lands. |
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This dialogue, sponsored by the Parliament of the World’s Religions, examines the intersection of food production, biodiversity, and ecosystem health.
Farm and Food Worker Rights
| COVID-19 has been especially challenging for frontline food and farm workers who are expected to maintain global food systems with limited protections or compensation. |
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The pandemic exacerbated working conditions for individuals who were already vulnerable to systemic inequality and exploitation. The focus of the Faith and Food Dialogue for Action Track 4 engaged the question of how our food systems need to change in order to be more just, equitable, and humane for the workers who keep food on the world’s table.
WHO Health Week – Faith + Food Reflections
| To contribute to the UN Food Systems Summit, the Faith + Food Coalition hosted five separate interfaith, multi-stakeholder dialogues corresponding to each of the five Action Tracks. |
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The objective of the dialogues was to explore how faith communities – including Indigenous communities – can support the transformation of global food systems to being sustainable, accessible, equitable, and regenerative. This panel will reflect on the dialogues and offer insights into increased faith engagement leading up to the Food Systems Summit and beyond.
Empowering Local Communities
| As the world has globalized the hubs responsible for providing basic needs have become monopolized, less diverse, and more dispersed to such a degree that just five countries are responsible for 60% of the world’s food supply. |
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Building resilience to climate shocks means directing financing for local agro development, increasing equitable access, and engaging local Indigenous and community growers to produce bioregional appropriate foods that can be supplemented by world markets.
