The first world center dedicated to sustainable food is in Spain

Spain has since Monday the first world center dedicated to sustainable food, promoted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The center opened its doors in the city of Valencia, whose City Council has collaborated with FAO for its launch in March and was inaugurated by the Queen of Spain, Letizia, ambassador for Nutrition of that international organization.

The institution wants to be a tool for active cataloging, archiving and orientation of the policies, strategies and actions of the cities of the world and their territorial environments in order to achieve sustainable local food systems in a rights framework.

The first issue to be addressed, obesity

During the first year, the new agency will focus on the problem of obesity due to the lack of quality in food and what are the challenges of feeding large cities in the 21st century, and in 2021 its activities will coincide with the United Nations celebration of the international year of citrus and vegetables.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva highlighted Valencia’s role as an “increasingly important agent of change” in the battle against poor diet, while highlighting the “urgent” need for the implementation of healthy and nutritious food systems that preserve natural resources at the same time. ”People increasingly eat worse and that is because the systems have led to ultraprocessed products, cheaper, more accessible and easier to prepare”, and this habit is leading to the pandemic of obesity and affects mostly importing countries with fewer resources, such as Africa or the Caribbean islands.

For her part, Indian activist Vandana Shiva vindicated the role of women, especially in rural areas and appealed to the “wisdom of grandmothers” and to her traditional economy model of “sharing and caring”, in her opinion, a dignified attitude If followed.

Shiva maintained a colloquium with the Nobel Peace Prize 2007, Edward Rubin, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who requested a “credible and valuable” political and social leadership to help in the task of explaining the influence of current food production on climate change and sustainability.