Lisboa,Oct. 27, 2024 (Lusa) - Food safety expert Carlos Gonçalo das Neves advocates new types of agriculture for the world and says it's important to experiment with other tools because the planet is "not on the right track".

Carlos das Neves, chief scientist at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), said in an interview with the Lusa news agency that agriculture had always evolved, accompanied by innovation and technology, pointing out that today's agriculture is not what it was 50 years ago, namely due to the introduction of machinery.

Today, "new creative solutions", regenerative agriculture, hydroponics, multi-trophic cultivation, and new genetic tools allow us to "edit the genome a little and make changes".

"These are all tools at our disposal. It's up to us at EFSA to ensure that these tools, these products made in this way, are safe. Then there is a political, social and cultural component to whether or not they should be approved, whether we should use more or less," he explained.

But new solutions "are important for us to embrace and experiment with, because I think the planet is showing us that the way things are at the moment is not on the right track".

When asked by Lusa, Carlos das Neves pointed to problems that need to be solved, one of which is food waste, which needs to be "reduced to a minimum" to maintain the "dream of sustainability."

For the scientist, food cannot be wasted by looking at the dramatic situations on the planet.

He adds that we need to change each consumer's choices, make them aware of different options, and educate them from an early age.

"Today we teach children to separate rubbish, and we need to do the same about what's healthy and shouldn't be spoilt. And we also need to raise awareness among those who produce food. The whole chain has to contribute, not just the consumer who can prevent the damage," he says, emphasising that this issue needs to stop being just words and move on to action.

Scientists warn that the agri-food system is partly responsible for a triple planetary crisis—climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and waste—which is currently being caused by climate change, pollution, and waste. But Carlos das Neves emphasises that the system is both villain and victim.

While it is true, he explained, that some food production practices contribute to an increase in greenhouse gases and that forests are destroyed to produce food, climate change, erosion, droughts and fires also affect production capacity.

Optimistically, Carlos das Neves said the problems should motivate us even more to "do something different" because people can't live without food, and we all must find solutions together.

He gave an example of what he believed to be a solution, the "One Health" movement.

"It's an awareness that this planet is just one, that we share it with animals, plants, wild species... and we must keep this balance. Often what affects us also affects others, and sometimes what we do to forests affects us," says the movement advocate, based on an integrated approach to the health of people, animals, plants and the environment.

The professor and scientist said that everything is interconnected and should show that the solution to problems has to be global, that we need to look at all the elements, from man to the environment, and think about solutions.

Recalling the transmission of diseases and the latest pandemic, he warned that "A solution focussed only on us humans probably won't work."

Always optimistic, Carlos das Neves says that "One Health" is taking root, also driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, and believes it will be part of the UN conferences on biodiversity (taking place in Colombia) and climate, next month in Azerbaijan.

Recalling that habitat reduction can lead to problems with zoonoses, animal diseases transmitted to humans, the professor says that there needs to be a willingness to "make some changes" to find a balance between intensive livestock farming and the destruction of forests, without ever forgetting that there are almost nine billion people to feed.

This is where the role of the consumer comes in. An informed consumer must make the right decisions about what to eat and how it affects "much more than their own health".

Carlos das Neves participated in Portugal's "Estoril Conferences", which, for two days, brought together speakers from all over the world at the Universidade Nova to debate the great challenges facing humanity.

FP/ADB // ADB.

Lusa