Food Systems, Nutrition & One Health

What we grow shapes what we eat, what we eat shapes our health, and how we farm shapes the health of animals and ecosystems too — these connections are inseparable, yet they are too often studied in isolation. A food system that produces calories in abundance can still leave people malnourished; an agricultural practice that boosts yield can spread disease between animals, people, and the environment. Food Systems, Nutrition & One Health is the session that insists on seeing these links whole.

The One Health idea is deceptively simple: the health of humans, animals, and the environment is one interconnected system. A pathogen jumping from livestock to people, antibiotic resistance moving through the food chain, a diet shaped by what farms find profitable to grow — each shows how agriculture, nutrition, and health are bound together. Approached as sustainable food and nutrition systems, the goal becomes producing not just more food, but the right food, in ways that protect health across the whole web of life.

This session gathers nutritionists, public health experts, food-system analysts, and agricultural scientists to think across disciplinary boundaries. The programme covers food system structure and resilience, nutrition and dietary quality, the One Health interface linking human, animal, and environmental health, food safety across the chain, and the policy levers that steer systems toward better outcomes. Participants at this Agriculture Conference will examine how agriculture can be reoriented to deliver nutrition and health rather than mere output — confronting hidden hunger, diet-related disease, and zoonotic risk as connected challenges that demand connected solutions.