The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) today welcomed the United Nations (U.N.) Food and Agriculture Organization’s announcement of a new roadmap outlining how the world can attain global food security by 2050 without breaching the global warming temperature target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“BIO applauds the iterative approach outlined by the U.N. Defining specific milestones and setting realistic — yet ambitious — goals to transform agri-food systems will allow us to address climate challenges without endangering food security or agriculture-based livelihoods,” said BIO Chief Policy Officer John Murphy.
The U.N. report highlights the pressing need for innovative and sustainable approaches to agriculture, aligning closely with BIO's mission and membership. Biotechnology plays a pivotal role in enhancing agricultural productivity, improving nutritional content, and fostering environmental sustainability — key elements essential to addressing the complexities of global food security, which climate change exacerbates.
Specifically, BIO supports these elements of the roadmap:
- Recognizing the important role that livestock plays in nutrition and employment, while committing to reduce harmful emissions from livestock production through improved genetics, better feed, and other actions;
- Enhancing the sustainability of aquaculture, a “nutritional powerhouse” according to the FAO that is already low in greenhouse gas emissions;
- Improving soil health and water quality through regenerative farming practices, reduced chemical usage, better irrigation management and other changes;
- Reducing deforestation;
- Decreasing food loss and waste across the value chain from farm to consumer;
- Lowering emissions from crop production and protecting crops from climate impacts through improved crop breeding and genetics, among other actions;
- Accelerating bioenergy production, distribution, and adoption; and
- Protecting an open and rules-based global trading system while avoiding unpredictable or nontransparent trade policies.
Earlier this week, BIO — along with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and other industry partners — co-hosted a panel discussion on the future of biotechnology as a potent force in achieving climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience at COP28. The discussion was part of a series hosted within Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas Pavilion.
