The U.N. rated the world's sustainable farming progress in 2021 at a score of 3 on a global basis according to the scale above: "No improvement toward productive and sustainable agriculture."
The global tea industry has been increasing its focus on sustainability in recent years, and this concern is underscored by new findings of the United Nations. In its latest annual report, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that progress toward sustainable farming "seems to have stalled in many regions.”
When the U.N. committed to its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seven years ago, farming was covered under Sustainable Development Goal No. 2.4 (SDG 2.4).
In the FAO's 2022 annual report, chief statistician Pietro Gennari stated that “while the world was off track from meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) even before 2020, the pandemic has compounded that trend, taking a devastating toll on people’s lives and livelihoods and on global efforts to realize the SDGs.
“Contrary to early expectations, the Covid-19 pandemic kept its grip on the world economy well into 2021, further exacerbating an alarming situation in terms of hunger and food insecurity while continuing to make data collection and statistical assessments more difficult,” Gennari said.
Western Asia and Northern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern America, Europe, and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) have registered no improvement toward productive and sustainable agriculture since 2015, according to FAO’s annual report, which is titled Tracking Progress on Food and Agriculture-related SDG Indicators.
FAO issued the report on September 19 during the UN General Assembly. The report describes progress on a scale of 1–5 for the world, noting that there was some improvement in specific regions and categories of countries such as “landlocked developed countries” and “small island developing states.”
The world’s least developed countries (LDCs) and landlocked developed countries (LLDCs) match the global progress score at three. Australia and New Zealand scored four out of five.
As for the tea sector, a recent survey of industry professionals and businesses sponsored by Firsd Tea, found that 95% of respondents named changing rain patterns, unpredictable weather (94%), and extreme heat (91%) as the biggest risk factors. Tufts University Professor of Global Nutrition Sean Cash, Ph.D., said, “The results of this compelling survey indicate that representatives of the tea industry are keenly aware that their sector is threatened by climate change, and to a greater extent than many other crops.”
Cash, a co-principal investigator with Tea & Climate Change Collaborative, said the results “clearly support the urgent need for collaborations that will help protect and support the future of tea for years to come.”
In 2015 the U.N. asked that every level of government in every nation benchmark and assess progress toward these goals through 2030. As a result, there is an “urgent need to understand where the world stands in ensuring sustainable agriculture,” said FAO. However, the SDG 2.4 report records complete data from only 40 countries, “a minimal number,” according to FAO. The current dearth of data creates a critical information gap in SDG reporting, writes FAO, which has tried to fill the gap by creating a provisional, alternative measure consisting of eight established metrics widely available from national statistics.
This year’s report includes, for the first time, additional indicators for SDG Target 2.4 with details on agricultural losses due to disasters, the distribution of land tenure rights, and the impact of international trade policies and regulations on agricultural trade, especially in developing and Least Developed Countries.
The full report is available for download at fao.org