Food and Philanthropy

Full episode transcription:

Hello everyone, 

My name is Estelle Paulus, and I'm a PhD student at the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University, working on systemic resilience within the food system. I'm happy to be here today and share with you some insights about my work as part of being a Junior Visiting Research Fellow at the Philanthropy Chair at ESSEC Business School last semester. I have just returned from 3 months of intensive fieldwork in Paris researching how French foundations think and engage in topics around food.

I have to say, I've had quite an unusual journey into studying food. For my undergraduate and graduate studies, I majored in Physics. Later on, I decided to switch to Environmental Science because I felt like I could contribute more to our society by aiding to find solutions to the most pressing issues of our time. Like most people, food wasn't the first thing that came to mind when thinking about how to solve global problems such as climate change or nature degradation and biodiversity loss. However, it was the work on a project modelling the hidden costs of food, which I did for a year in my institute after I finished my master's, that made me realize how critical food is for solving these challenges. I strongly believe that food systems are at the heart of a lot of the problems we're faced with, ranging from nature degradation, climate change, and social inequality. At the same time, food offers an entry point for positive change and solutions to achieve sustainability.

What I love about researching food is exactly these tensions that can be found everywhere in our relationship with food. People get very passionate when it comes to the way their food is produced or what they like to have on their plates :  there's so much emotional and cultural value attached to it, it's also so crucial for our health and wellbeing, and it plays such a central role in our everyday life. This makes it hard to change some of the unsustainability we see within food, and when I say unsustainability, I don't only talk about impacts on the environment, but also impacts on our health or our social life. But at the same time, it engages people to act, to want to be involved in the changes, and to advocate for a better future.

In the food group in Oxford, we're taking a systems approach to food. This means that instead of focusing only on one specific part, actor, or problem within the food system, we're trying to understand how the system operates from production to consumption and waste, what values shape it, what rules govern it, why we're eating and producing the way we do it right now, and how we can enable a transition towards greater sustainability. Within this frame, in my PhD research, I focus on the critical examination of food system resilience as complementary to sustainability. For building resilience, the system needs to be sustainable, but to be sustainable over time despite shocks and disturbances, it needs to be resilient.

In my work, I've tried to understand the various definitions, measurement methodologies, and modelling approaches used for understanding global food systems resilience, especially focusing on systemic risks. While my work is usually resting more on the quantitative side of things, I soon understood that it all comes down to understanding the actors. Modelling approaches like agent-based models are representing the properties, values, and decisions of individual agents, and are modelling the macro-scale behaviour of the system from the bottom up, with very promising results. However, this requires understanding the motivations and behaviours of actors within the food system, which are very varied and are ranging from multinational corporations to every one of us when we make our purchasing decisions in the supermarket or snack a Mars bar in the train station. If we want this system to change, we will need to change, and this provides us with a lot of challenges but also an opportunity to imagine a better future for us all.

While each of us can try to do our best to make more sustainable choices when it comes to food, it's critical to shift the system on large scales. One critical component of food systems transformation lies in funding the necessary changes while reducing financial support for unsustainable or unjust practices and relationships. This is what got me so interested in this project with the Philanthropy Chair at ESSEC, as it enabled me for the first time to delve into the motivation and points of view of critical actors in the system. While governments, such as the US, are withdrawing their funding from important aid and development programs, philanthropy plays an ever more important role in achieving this transformation. Hence, my interest lay in understanding how foundations in France see food and engage in this transformation.

Philanthropy and food are surprisingly understudied. While a lot of foundations claim to act on achieving food security or work on making progress towards the 17 SDGs of which 12 are heavily linked to food, there is only very limited academic research trying to understand this relationship as well as the impacts achieved through the programs of these foundations. While academic research is lacking, there are some reports prepared from within the philanthropic sector itself, which highlight some interesting points, as well as the need for increased action.

As I delved deeper into the world of philanthropy and food, I was struck by the sheer scale of the challenge ahead. Philanthropic action for food is still a relatively small area of focus globally, with only 105 million dollars being dedicated to it per year between 2016 and 20201. To put that into perspective, that's only 5.5% of the philanthropic funding provided for climate change action globally, which is itself heavily underfunded.

The costs of transitioning towards sustainability are expected to be around 1.3 trillion dollars2, and will require changing the way we produce, but not only! The processing and packaging stage of food actually accounts for 40% of the emissions produced from food and is often overlooked. Similarly, we also need to change the way we  transport, retail and consume food. And this all relates to the ways we think about food, how we imagine its future and what we perceive as normal – making it a very wicked problem to tackle.

Hence, let’s focus for a second on just one problem which a lot of foundations I was talking to were trying to tackle, the transition towards regenerative and sustainable agricultural practices.

A study conducted by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food 3, estimated that around 250-430 billion dollars would be necessary to support the transition towards regenerative and agro-ecological agriculture. However, the total estimated spending on these methods only amounts to 44.2 billion, which represents only 10-20% of the global financing needed. While philanthropy could be a major partner to support filling this gap, as of 2023, it contributed less than 1 billion dollars, highlighting the need for increased attention on this topic3. Furthermore, this money is spent very unequally across geographies, with some areas receiving much more support than others. Within Europe, France is one of the countries that receives the most funding for agro-ecology3.

At the same time, food in France is still under a lot of pressure. 8 million people are food insecure, 18% of farmers are living below the poverty line, and there's been a steep increase in diet-related diseases like diabetes4. Furthermore, the food system in France is estimated to create 19 billion euros of externalised costs to the public sector, stemming from social impacts (for example compensating low pay in the agricultural sector), environmental impacts (such as contribution to climate change or cleaning up water pollution) and health impacts (especially from diabetes and obesity caused by malnutrition)4.

In parallel, the 6th edition of the Philea report, which summarizes environmental funding by European foundations, found that out of 1.6 billion euros they spent on environmental causes in 2021, only 152 million euros were dedicated to food5.

Despite being underfunded, food is gaining more attention from foundations in France. Many of these organizations are investing in initiatives that promote sustainable agriculture, such as innovative production methods and consumer education programs, including educational initiatives in schools. Additionally, some foundations are supporting the dissemination of academic research on food to a broader audience, which is crucial for raising awareness and driving change.

Food holds a unique significance in French culture, extending beyond its economic value and food security, as it is associated with a lot of cultural value and national pride. My time in Paris allowed me to experience this firsthand, and I was struck by the contrast with my experiences in the UK. In France, food is an important component of the national identity, and much less individualistic – often viewed through the lens of communal values and shared experiences. One aspect that particularly stood out to me was the French tradition of taking time to appreciate meals, with some regions still observing the custom of a two-hour lunch break.

The importance of food in people's lives cannot be overstated, and its significance varies greatly from one country to another. To truly understand the complexities of food systems and identify opportunities for sustainable development, we need to adopt a nuanced, context-specific approach. This requires further research into the key actors and stakeholders driving the transition towards more sustainable food systems, considering multiple dimensions such as economic, social, cultural, nutritional, health, and food security outcomes. It requires consideration and understanding of these factors, to work towards creating a more sustainable and equitable food system for all.

My time in France has been a valuable and enriching experience, providing me with the opportunity to delve into the philanthropic ecosystem surrounding food. Through a series of in-depth interviews with people from a diverse set of 19 foundations, I gained a deeper understanding of the complex interactions between food, philanthropy, and science. This experience not only broadened my perspective on the topic but also shed light on how scientific knowledge is perceived and utilized by stakeholders in the field. I am super grateful for having been given the opportunity and privilege of engaging with numerous inspiring individuals who are driven by a shared passion for creating a more sustainable and equitable food system. As I'm currently analysing and testing my results, I won't be able to present them here, but I'm eager to share the final results and hope for interest from both inside and outside the academic and philanthropic sectors. Food is so central for achieving a sustainable society. Let’s see what role philanthropy can play in this transition.

Estelle Paulus