2030 Agenda, health and food systems in times of syndemics: from vulnerabilities to necessary changes

ABSTRACT

This article, an essay, and narrative review, analyzes the relationship between the 2030 Agenda, food systems, and their relevance to global and collective health. The concept of syndemics contextualizes the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to poverty and social injustice, as it also reveals the synergy with other pandemics related to the advancement of the global food system malnutrition, obesity, and climate change, which all have strong influence of the dominant model of agriculture. We also use four strategic concepts to think about the transition towards healthy and sustainable food systems food system, food and nutrition security (FNS), human right to adequate food (HRAF) and agroecology. Then, we gather international reports and data that systematize studies on the growing threats imposed by the dominant agricultural model, often denied by powerful economic sectors and neoconservative groups. We also highlight challenges imposed at different scales, from global to local, so that public policies and social mobilizations developed in the last two decades can resist and reinvent themselves in the construction of fairer societies.