Thank you Doc Zinke for teaching me the enduring power of science

The only photo I have of Doc Zinke from my high school year book…

My relationship with science began with struggle. As a student raised outside the scientific milieu, I found myself grappling with the core concepts of biology and physics. Yet, my trajectory shifted unexpectedly during my junior year of high school, thanks to Doc Zinke, my chemistry teacher. Despite his diminutive stature, he possessed an extraordinary ability to animate the often-abstract world of chemistry. Through engaging stories and real-world applications, he revealed science as a lens through which to view and understand the world. Although my grades did not immediately reflect a profound grasp of chem, Doc Zinke instilled in me a lasting appreciation for scientific inquiry.

Since that pivotal moment, science has remained a central theme in my life. My academic pursuits led me to a bachelor's degree in agriculture and a Ph.D. in nutrition. As a professor, I am privileged to be constantly immersed in the world of science. My partner, a mathematician, physicist, and writer, shares my conviction that data, evidence, and the relentless pursuit of scientific understanding are the primary drivers of progress.

I recognize that skepticism toward science is not unfounded. History is replete with examples of scientific advancements being misused, resulting in detrimental impacts on individuals, societies, and the environment. However, to reject science wholesale due to past transgressions would be a profound error. The current climate of widespread skepticism and the dismantling of scientific institutions, particularly universities, is deeply troubling. Do we not still seek innovative treatments and potential cures for cancer? Are we not compelled to advance agricultural science to feed a growing global population? Do we not recognize the importance of preventative medicines in safeguarding children's health? Does the exploration of space not ignite our imagination and expand our understanding of the cosmos? And, perhaps most urgently, do we not have a moral imperative to understand how to protect the health of our planet and its inhabitants?

Support for scientific endeavors and scientists is paramount, enabling us to describe the world around us and to understand its underlying mechanisms. Science is critical because it empowers us to solve complex problems and to make evidence-based decisions that can improve the quality of life across diverse domains, including food systems, healthcare, environmental conservation, technology, and communication. The cultivation of knowledge and the refinement of critical thinking skills are essential, and we rely on institutions—particularly universities—to nurture these skills in the next generation of scientists.

While science may not hold all the answers or provide an entirely objective representation of reality, it remains one of humanity's greatest collective endeavors. Science contributes to the strength of democracies by generating knowledge and informing solutions in the face of unprecedented challenges. Now, more than ever, we must safeguard science, scientists, those who teach science, and the institutions that support them. Higher education institutions, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation are crucial in ensuring that scientific advancements continue to benefit humanity and the world at large.

It seems in all of this freezing and firing chaos, we have forgotten that people are at the root of scientific endeavor, and I want to thank all the teachers and professors out there like Doc Zinke — Thank you for teaching me the enduring power of science.

Barriers to a just, sustainable dietary transition

As world leaders meet to discuss grand global challenges, like climate change, over champagne cocktails this week here in NY, my friend and colleague, Chris Barrett and company asked to write about what I think are the main barriers or challenges to a just, sustainable dietary transition. Hmmmm. Where to even start?

The overarching major challenge is the inequities in the ability of many people to access (physically, economically, and socially) what is considered healthy, safe, and sustainable diets. Ironically, many of these same people are the food producers for the world. Accessing these diets and adapting will only get more complex if we stay on a business-as-usual course in the context of climate mitigation and adapting to climate-related extreme weather events.

There are many reasons for this lack of access that could cut across inefficiencies across food supply and environments and demands for specific kinds of food that put the world on a dangerous course. However, there are a few barriers that I would like to highlight. This summary focuses on food systems. However, many systems and sectors are responsible for meeting this goal, such as health, economics, education, and urban/rural development.

The first challenge is unrealistic goal and recommendation setting. Goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals provide a universal road map for how we want the world to be in seven years. Still, not every goal is relevant, meaningful, or a priority for every country. Recommendations for food system transformation are often made as generalities, not articulating who is responsible, for what, and by when. They also do not indicate how these recommendations can be translated into action ‘on the ground’ in the context of established interests and constrained budgets.

The second challenge is data gaps. High-quality analytical methods and tools to collate, curate, and analyze data across food systems; integration of data sets across disciplines; and new empirical research to solve the grand challenge of sustainable development (Fanzo et al., 2020). These data gaps bring about difficulties in navigating unintended consequences or trade-offs. While there are many gaps across food systems science, I focus on diets here.

We remain unclear on what people consume, why, and their barriers to accessing healthy, sustainable diets. Global dietary intake data that are nationally and subnationally representative remain sparse. Most countries do not consistently and systematically collect individual dietary intake data, and the existing data are often based on models relying on household expenditure and consumption survey data, food balance sheet data, or data from subpopulation nutrition surveys. Although these modeled estimates may give us a sense of dietary intake and patterns of consumption, they are an uncertain substitute for robust, representative individual dietary intake data reflecting recent consumption patterns at a national level, particularly in low- and middle-income contexts. Collecting robust longitudinal dietary data would allow researchers and policymakers to understand better how diets change over time and why.

The third challenge is the politics across food systems governance. As one example, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and its stock take in July 2023 is not without uncertainties and controversies, with rumblings of it all being grandiose political wonk talk. With summits, there are always questions about impact. Will all stakeholders be included? Will the needs of the vulnerable and marginalized be prioritized? Will there be a sense of urgency to scale up investment? Will there be any accountability mechanism to track commitments and hold those to account who fall behind? If this is the mechanism for food systems change and for governments to engage, these questions are critical to understand and act on.

While addressing effective governance is a sticky issue, more and more, we as researchers must engage in this space if we are to see evidence come to bear in policy- and decision-making.

Generating knowledge, dutifully and honestly

“Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”

— Haruki Murakami

This quote by Murakami really speaks to researchers and scientists: Keep focused. Crowd out the noise. Discover. Be dutiful and honest.

But as Tony Fauci, head of the National Institutes of Infectious Disease of the United States gets the cold shoulder from our dear Potus, with attempts to undermine his evidence-based warning calls of a worsening COVID-19 pandemic here in America, it is hard to ignore the last part of that quote - the falling apart bit.

As researchers, we often keep our heads down and dig deep into the details with laser sharp focus to keep generating data and evidence for the greater good of science and knowledge. But we can no longer sit quietly behind our benches and laptops and blissfully hope that someone, anyone, will read that peer reviewed paper that you just published in Journal X. We need to be attuned to the political climate.

Speaking of publications, I was asked to contribute to an exciting, upcoming Johns Hopkins University Press publication COVID19 and World Order. In my piece, I make a series of technical recommendations on what it would take to achieve resilient food systems and potential measures to address our current pandemic and avoid catastrophic future zoonotic pandemics. I bring up this publication because none of the recommendations to fix food systems I made in the paper will stand on two legs with the current fractured and sclerotic global political enabling environment. In order for food systems to function effectively, equitably, and sufficiently during the pandemic and long after, the political environment must be one that embraces global cooperation and inclusion and minimizes political polarization and geopolitical competition. And we, as scientists and researchers, cannot remain silent, disengaging from the political process, however dismal it may be.

Politics matter for the world and for science, and now more than ever. Frank Fukuyama wrote: “Countries with dysfunctional states, polarized societies, or poor leadership have done badly, leaving their citizens and economies exposed and vulnerable.” It is not surprising that states led by populist, inward-facing leaders such as the United States, Brazil, and Mexico are not sufficiently addressing the pandemic. This has led to dire consequences for the citizens living in these countries with many who are struggling with food insecurity and high COVID-related morbidity and mortality.

The COVID-19 response has also displayed the weaknesses of the multilateral system and existing institutions. Within this, the “global food architecture” is often slow, outdated and needs 21st-century support and strategic know-how. One of those entities - the World Health Organization - has tragically and sadly just lost its support from the United States during a time in what may be one of the most crucial global health issues of the century. Multi-lateral cooperation looks perilous and science and the data that it bears is being undermined.

However, cooperation can happen in times of crisis - we have seen it before. Perhaps the UN Food Summit in 2021 can be a moment to create a global strategy for food governance that is nimble, modern, and inclusive, backed by an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-like body that provides evidence and science to support actions.

As the Editor-in-Chief of the Global Food Security Journal, my co-editors and I share our perspectives on the food security challenges that face humanity and lay out our vision and call for stronger food systems research and science in the 2020s. I think this piece comes at a critical moment in food policy with COVID and climate change, because the challenges and opportunities for food systems research that lay ahead are significant, requiring that high-quality science be translated into policy faster than ever before.

“Our vision is one in which research and science, and the evidence stemming from their application, not only inform food and environmental policy, but are adopted and mainstreamed into actions at the national, regional, and global levels.”

In the paper, we write: “At a time when facts, science, and evidence are under ever greater scrutiny, and even openly disregarded as suspect by some political and business leaders, the rigors of research have never been more critical. It is also important not to become disheartened by the slow speed of change in policy and practice, even when the appropriate course of action is clear ‘to us.’ Research can and does bring about wholesale changes in attitudes, political thought, and action, but change takes time.”

We argue that the food systems have transformed, but with that transformation, we are left with profound and widening gaps to address sustainability and equity. These gaps will make future food security and continuity of life on the planet difficult to say the least. As researchers, we will have to fill in those gaps to ensure we meet the demands of a growing population sustainably while co-existing in amity with the planet.

We also need to find the stitched pockets of progress and small glimmers of hope as the basis of our knowledge to move forward - dutifully and honestly.