We talk to Anne Mottet, Livestock Development Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

She coordinates FAO’s activities on livestock and agroecology including GLEAM (the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model). Her areas of expertise includes analysis and modelling of livestock production systems, livestock policies formulation and assessment – landscape, natural resources, climate change and food security, providing support to international policy dialogue, and agricultural economics including markets and trade, agro-food chains and farm economics.

When did you join FACCE-JPI SAB?

I have been a member of the SAB since 2018 and vice-chair since 2021. It’s been 4 years of great collaborations, even with a period during which we were meeting remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It did not stop us!

What is your area of expertise?

In the SAB, we all contribute with different areas of expertise, and mine are environmental sustainability and natural resources, animal production systems and feeding, food security and nutrition policies, climate change and agroecology. I work for FAO, so my role is also to bring a perspective from non-European countries, especially low and middle-income countries.

What do you work on within the SAB?

After I joined the SAB, the first big task we had was to revise the Strategic Research Agenda of FACCE. It’s important because it is the guiding document with which research funded and supported by FACCE should align. This revision, after 10 years of experience in FACCE, was needed to reflect the most recent scientific challenges, but also those of society and of policymakers. For example, nutrition is now part of the SRA, in Core theme 3: Nutrition-sensitive agricultural production for food security, of which I coordinated the writing. Another new addition was the one on trade-offs and synergies between food production, ecosystems and climate (Core-theme 4). More recently, I have been following the development of the Agroecology partnership for example, and in the last meeting, we discussed the implications for research of the food price crisis due to the war in Ukraine.

How was your experience within FACCE-JPI SAB so far?

What I like about the SAB is the diversity of profiles and the level of scientific discussions we have. I do not work in academia but I work with scientists and I need to stay up-to-date on the most recent progress in various areas, especially with agriculture, food security and climate change. One very positive experience I had with the SAB is the brief we produced together for the UN Food System Summit in 2021 titled «There is No Single Challenge, Nor Single Solution, for Food Systems Transformations : Making plurality visible». We were all working remotely on this but we managed to achieve a very positive and much-needed output.

What is your vision for sustainable food systems?

My vision for sustainable food systems is first and foremost food security and nutrition for all. More than 2 billion people suffer from nutrient deficiency and recent studies show that the number could be even higher. For example, women lack iron and other nutrients, and this is also frequent in high-income countries. Our food systems need to ensure a diverse diet for all, while reducing GHG emissions, sequestering carbon in soils and enhancing biodiversity. We cannot afford to continue with business as usual when more and more people are hungry and our planet is warming. This is a priority for science!