At the United Nations’ World Committee on Food Security (CFS) meetings at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy, on 15 October 2018, the World Future Council’s Future Policy Awards for 2018 were given. The annual awards recognize some of the best laws and policies that create better living conditions for current and future generations. Championing and spreading effective, future-just policy is the principal goal of the Council.
For 2018, the Council focused on legal frameworks and policies that feature important elements of agroecology. After a call for nominations from intergovernmental, non-profit organizations, academic and research institutions, governmental agencies, development banks, and other organizations from around the world, 51 policies from 25 nations were nominated. With the help of more than 100 experts, the policies were evaluated and awards are chosen. The top award, a gold award, was given to Sikkim, India, for developing policy that allowed for the state to declare itself the first organic state in the world. It took the vision of the state’s chief minister to help create the initiative for change in the early 2000s, leading to an action plan to implement the policy under the term “Sikkim Organic Mission.” Silver awards were given to policy promoting agroecology in Ecuador, Brazil, and Denmark, and honorable mentions to policy projects in Los Angeles (USA), Senegal, and The Philippines. A special Vision Award was given to TEEBAgriFood for the development of a comprehensive evaluation framework which allows assessment of impacts and externalities of food systems, which will be of special use for policy makers of the future.
Most importantly, the Future Policy Award calls attention to the importance of agroecology for supporting the transformation to more sustainable food systems. It clearly points out how agroecology must be understood as a set of principles and practices that are grounded in local conditions and local knowledge. It points out how agroecology is a scientific discipline that links local expertise with scientific knowledge. It calls attention to how agroecology facilitates the co-creation of knowledge for transformative social and economic change that involves all parts and people in the food system. The Award emphasizes how important it is that policy action is urgent, and that policies must be enacted globally that contribute to scaling out and up of agroecology for deep food and agriculture change.
For more information on the World Future Council, visit www.worldfuturecouncil.org.