Mending the broken food system under the threat of climate-driven weather extremes will require more than economic fixes and intensive agriculture, and the world must revive its spiritual relationship with food, according to the organisers of a pioneering summit this week. Delegates from more than 60 countries and the UN will gather for the next five days in Paro, in the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan, for the world’s first “conscious food summit”, which will bring together governments and farmers, mindfulness experts and yoga therapists. Tshering Tobgay, Bhutan’s prime minister, said: “Food lies at the intersection of many of the defining challenges of our time – hunger, poor nutrition, poverty, climate change, biodiversity loss, and increasingly food security is also being disrupted by conflict and geopolitical instability.
Our central message is simple: transforming our food systems requires both inner and outer change.” Conscious eating is at the heart of these talks, which will promote regenerative practices and Indigenous knowledge. It means recognising that our values and mindsets influence how science, policy, finance and technology are used.” The impacts of the climate crisis have been brought home close to Bhutan’s borders with the disaster in its near neighbour Nepal last week where a glacial collapse led to floods and landslides that killed hundreds. This year and next as the “super El Niño” hits, the World Food Programme has warned that 50 million people could be pushed close to starvation.
Food shortages and higher prices for staples are likely around the world. It follows a summer in the northern hemisphere in which harvests have been devastated by drought, intense heat and wildfires. Jerry Spooner, of Regenerative Vanua, a Pacific NGO, said the threats would push global food systems to their limit.
The summit will focus not on bombastic political speeches and promises but on fostering inner change, with the help of “spiritual masters” such as mindfulness practitioners. Food has become a commodity on world markets and is treated carelessly as a result, leading to waste and unhealthy eating, and those attitudes must be reversed, Tobgay said. For example, a conscious approach to production would care for both the land and the farmer.
It would regenerate soils, not deplete them. It would reduce pollution and deforestation and recognise the dignity and wellbeing of the people who produce the food that sustain us.” Tobgay begins each day at 5am with a bowl of porridge and a banana, eaten sitting by a small stream that runs near his house. Anyone could try conscious eating, he added.
Many cultures have a tradition before meals of reflecting on the food, its provenance and preparation, and giving thanks. Reviving such practices would take almost no time but could, he hopes, be one of the first steps to a revolution in the way we treat the planet and each other.
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