Environmental health

Food systems are a major driver of the unsustainable use of the planet’s increasingly fragile ecosystem. Water, land, forests and the biodiversity they contain are precious, yet finite, natural resources. Agriculture and food systems account for up to 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, and yet will be profoundly affected by the more rapidly changing climate that those emissions cause. Agriculture is driving the loss of the world’s forests and productive land, with 5 million hectares of forests lost every year and a third of the world’s land already classified as degraded. Agriculture accounts for about 70% of water withdrawals globally, is a major cause of water stress in countries where more than 2 billion people live, and water pollution from agricultural systems poses a serious threat to the world’s water systems.

CGIAR and the Sustainable Development Goals

CGIAR research to improve natural resources and ecosystem services contributes strongly to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and targets for the 2030 agenda, to address: