The Rockefeller Foundation Commits $105 Million to Global Food Access

By The Rockefeller Foundation

On March 24, 2022, the Rockefeller Foundation announced the launch of its new Good Food Strategy, which will invest $105 million over three years to expand access to healthy and sustainable foods for the world's 40 million underserved people. As a result, the program will encourage public and private spending on nutritious foods that regenerate the environment and create equitable economic opportunity for all. The Foundation's new strategy builds on its historic $1 billion commitment to an inclusive, green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and as an anchor partner of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet.

The Good Food Strategy acknowledges that the current system of food production and consumption is failing both people and the environment. Despite the food system's $9 trillion worldwide market value, agricultural workers and their families account for two-thirds of those living in extreme poverty. Worldwide, unhealthy diets account for one in every five fatalities, and the food system accounts for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions.

"Because of climate change, food prices were already the highest in a decade, even before Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine further decimated global food supplies. Now, the world is on the precipice of a global humanitarian crisis," said Dr. Rajiv Shah, President, of The Rockefeller Foundation. "The world must act — and act now. With this new commitment, the largest for nutrition in our history, The Rockefeller Foundation will help increase the supply of good, nourishing food and reimagine our food systems to make them more resilient for the future."

The Rockefeller Foundation's Good Food Strategy will focus on three levers over the next three years: increasing access to inexpensive, nutritious food; reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food chain; and expanding economic opportunity for small- and medium-sized food producers:

1. Good Food Data & Science Innovations: Investments will support metrics and data systems that better inform decision-makers on the real costs and benefits of our food. This will include expanding existing investments in True Cost Accounting, which evaluates all the costs of the food system beyond what consumers pay in stores; standardizing and democratizing principles, outcomes and metrics for regenerative/agroecological agriculture including connecting a fleet of demonstration projects that show the impact potential of regenerative agriculture; harmonizing definitions of dietary quality; and launching the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, a global effort to create a public database containing the comprehensive biochemical composition and function of the most important foods from around the globe. 

2. Good Food Policy: The Rockefeller Foundation will advance effective, data-driven policies that improve access to good food for millions of people. A major focus will be bolstering Food is Medicine programs to combat diet-related diseases, which include produce prescription programs and the integration of food as a covered health care benefit to help patients gain access to foods that promote their health. 

3. Good Food Purchasing: The Good Food Strategy will support large institutions, including schools and hospitals, to use their existing food procurement budgets to buy and provide foods that benefit people and the planet. This includes piloting a program in Rwanda to test the transition from processed to whole grains in school feeding programs. It also includes supporting the development of Good Food Purchasing Program Standards to guide institutions around the world to make food choices that contribute to a healthier and more sustainable food future.

"The world is spending far too much on foods that are bad for people and bad for the planet," said Roy Steiner, Senior Vice President, Food Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation. "The costs multiply in long-term damage to public health, the environment, and the livelihoods of people working in food supply chains. Our Good Food Strategy aims to reverse these trends, incentivizing progress toward a food system that respects the earth and all people."

The new strategy builds on The Rockefeller Foundation's decades-long commitment to food systems innovation. While historic approaches focused on increasing the quantity of food produced to avert famine, today the Foundation is working to ensure that quality foods are widely accessible and affordable, and that food policy and purchasing decisions are driven by a full understanding of the costs and benefits of what we eat. Last year, the Foundation launched the True Cost of Food Report, which evaluated all the ways food systems in the United States impact health, the environment, biodiversity, livelihoods, and much more, finding that the actual cost of food is three times its value. To inspire bold ideas for the future of food, the foundation also recently supported the Food Systems Vision Prize, an invitation for organizations across the globe to develop visions of the regenerative, equitable, and nourishing food system that they aspire to create by the year 2050.

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