GOAL 2 Zero Hunger
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutritions and promote sustainable agriculture
SDG 2 seeks to end hunger and malnutrition, and ensure access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. Sustainable and resilient food production systems are a key factor in achieving this goal. Implementing sustainable agricultural practices can help ensure future food security in a scenario of increasing demand and changing climate.
Realising these goals is largely dependent on increased investment in rural infrastructure and agricultural research and development. Even with favourable increases in agricultural production, however, food security and improved nutrition will be elusive for many if price and information distortions in world agricultural markets persist. Policy makers have a role to play in promoting sustainable production systems and ensuring proper functioning of food commodity markets and access to market information.
Monitoring SDG 2 in an EU context focuses on progress made in fighting against malnutrition, fostering sustainable agriculture and reducing the adverse impacts of agricultural production.
Education for Sustainable Development Goals
Suggestions for the development of specific sustainability competencies from the action-oriented, transformative educational and learning outcome-oriented guide Education for Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO (2017)
Suggested learning objectives
Cognitive learning objectives
- The learner knows about hunger and malnutrition and their main physical and psychological effects on human life, and about specific vulnerable groups.
- The learner knows about the amount and distribution of hunger and malnutrition locally, nationally and globally, currently as well as historically.
- The learner knows the main drivers and root causes for hunger at the individual, local, national and global level.
- The learner knows principles of sustainable agriculture and understands the need for legal rights to have land and property as necessary conditions to promote it.
- The learner understands the need for sustainable agriculture to combat hunger and malnutrition worldwide and knows about other strategies to combat hunger, malnutrition and poor diets.
Socio-emotional learning objectives
- The learner is able to communicate on the issues and connections between combating hunger and promoting sustainable agriculture and improved nutrition.
- The learner is able to collaborate with others to encourage and to empower them to combat hunger and to promote sustainable agriculture and improved nutrition.
- The learner is able to create a vision for a world without hunger and malnutrition.
- The learner is able to reflect on their own values and deal with diverging values, attitudes and strategies in relation to combating hunger and malnutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture.
- The learner is able to feel empathy, responsibility and solidarity for and with people suffering from hunger and malnutrition.
Behavioral learning objectives
- The learner is able to evaluate and implement actions personally and locally to combat hunger and to promote sustainable agriculture.
- The learner is able to evaluate, participate in and influence decision-making related to public policies concerning the combat against hunger and malnutrition and the promotion of sustainable agriculture.
- The learner is able to evaluate, participate in and influence decision-making related to management strategies of local, national and international enterprises concerning the combat against hunger and malnutrition and the promotion of sustainable agriculture.
- The learner is able to take on critically their role as an active global citizen in the challenge of combating hunger.
- The learner is able to change their production and consumption practices in order to contribute to the combat against hunger and the promotion of sustainable agriculture.
Suggested topics
Definition of the concept of hunger and malnutrition.
Groups that are particularly vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.
Main drivers and root causes of hunger and malnutrition, including the relation between climate change and food security and the depletion of soil quality.
Consequences of hunger and malnutrition on the health and well-being of people, including practices like migration as adaptation.
Physical, emotional and socio-cultural functions of food Hunger in relation to food abundance, obesity and food waste.
Global food – import, export, cash crops, international taxes, subsidies, trading systems, merits, risks and challenges of utilising genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Institutions and movements related to hunger and sustainable agriculture like the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Foodwatch, Slow Food, community-based agriculture, the international movement Via Campesina, etc.
Concepts and principles of sustainable agriculture, including climate-resilient practices, organic farming, biodynamic farming, permaculture and agro-forestry.
Biodiversity of seeds, plants and animals, particularly in relation to wild species.
Examples of learning approaches and methods
Perform role-plays with small-scale producers versus big enterprises in a global market that is influenced by taxes, subsidies, tariffs, quotas, etc.
Carry out scenario development and analysis of local or national food production and consumption systems and/or about the impact of natural hazards and disasters in the food production systems.
Carry out case study analyses of adequate and non-adequate public policies or management strategies of enterprises to combat hunger, reduce food waste and promote sustainable agriculture.
Organize excursions and field trips to places where sustainable agriculture is practiced.
Follow food from farm to fork – growing, harvesting and preparing food, e.g. in urban or school gardening projects.
Engage students in efforts to connect leftover food with people in need Conduct a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of food.
External Links
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations
Targets and Indicators of Goal 2