Increasing scientific evidence further suggests profound and complex interactions between diets, human health and environmental sustainability. Fortunately, at this point in time, redirecting food systems onto a sustainable path is still possible. Transforming food systems, however, will require a considerable dietary shift, sustainable food production practices and a significant reduction of waste and loss, to be achieved with technological and organizational innovation, strategic use of economic incentives.(Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC Global Cooperation Domain Global Programme Food Security Towards Sustainable Food Systems 1, n.d.)

Agroecology, agriculture done in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way, is a complex and vibrant concept. It addresses the root cause of hunger, poverty, and inequality by helping to change the food system and create an approach that normalizes the three factors of sustainability – social economic and environment. This technique leads to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Food production cannot be separated from consumption which in turn cannot be separated from environmental consequences and human health. Whereas eating less meat and more plant-based meal lessens climate emissions and sends fewer animal to factory farm. Figure 1 affirms the concept of meat eaters are affecting the environment.

Figure 1:Meat eater effecting the environment. (H. Felber, personal communication, February 2022)

 Water in the Landscape

Ending hunger and malnutrition requires access to safe drinking water as well as equitable sanitation and hygiene. The underlying productivity and sustainability of agricultural systems are also dependent on adequate availability of good quality water. Sustainable Development Goal 2 and 6 are co-dependent. SDG 2 and SDG 6 can only be achieved if the water and food systems communities work together.

The ecological processes underlying the movement, storage, and transformation of water are under severe threat from deforestation, erosion, and pollution, with impacts on local, regional, and global water cycles. Irrigation development needs to take place keeping environmental limits – which are increasingly affected by climate change – in mind; this includes reining in groundwater depletion. The potential for increasing water and nutrition productivity in irrigation remains large. Awareness raising and social learning interventions can help internalize the 6-water externality of water-intensive diets.

Globally, 80 percent of municipal sewage and industrial wastewater with heavy metals, solvents, toxic, and pharmaceuticals are emitted into water bodies, affecting the safety of food and human health. Agriculture also directly pollutes aquatic ecosystems and risks food production with pesticides, organic matter, fertilizers, sediments, pathogens, and saline drainage. Important measures to address agricultural and overall water pollution include breeding crops with higher crop nutrient use efficiency, better agronomic practices, the expansion of nature-based solutions for pollution management, low cost pollution monitoring systems, improved incentive structures for pollution abatement, and continued investment and innovation in wastewater treatment, including approaches such as the 3R (reduce, reuse, and recycle) of the circular economy across the entire food system. (C. Ringler et al., 2021)

Sustainable smallholder farming is contingent on fertilizer access. Typically, nutrient deficient soil can be treated with a new method, a condition exacerbated by long-term nutrient mining. Nitrified urine fertilizer is a nutrient-rich and hygienically safe solution derived from human urine. It has the potential to provide a sustainable source of soil nutrients to low and middle-income countries struggling with food insecurity challenges. A study presents findings of a survey done in South Africa towards the use of nitrified urine fertilizer. Results indicate that in general attitudes were much more positive towards the use of nitrified urine fertilizer than raw urine as a soil amendment. Residents living within rural zones of the municipality (78.5%), as opposed to urban (65.7%) and peri-urban (65.2%), and younger individuals within the sampled population were found to be the most receptive to the use of nitrified urine fertilizer. Our conclusions also highlight the factors that shape attitudes towards a topic such as the use of human waste as a fertilizer, which are crucial in shaping the validity of a technology such as urine nitrification. (Wilde et al., 2019)

Connection of Land with Water, Energy and Food.

The concept of water-energy-land and food (WELF) nexus explains the beginning of natural resources limit. Food and oil price changes propagate through the entire WELF system, affecting land prices and related water resources as well. At the same time, food prices are also increased with increase in energy price. The WELF concept plays out differently in different part of the worlds. The satisfactory access remains most difficult for poorer countries therefore linked thinking is also of great importance for the poor. Such countries with poverty, malnutrition, and food security have the greatest water loss and land degradation. These poor countries require an approach to agroecological system preserving human services and a higher investment in land. (Claudia Ringler et al., 2013)

In order to improve the land scenario many projects have been launched for urban sustainability. One the most important is the Sponge City Policy. This programme ensures that there is no water accumulation in a city after rain or storm water. The process involves few steps such is infiltration, detention, storage, cleaning, reuse, and discharge. Sponge technique helps the impacts of flooding and help fix environmental problems.