The Brazilian institute Comida do Amanhã was nominated for the Food Planet Prize 2023. Currently, this is the largest award with a financial bonus in the world in the food systems sector. It rewards innovative solutions that can help us shift to sustainable food systems within a ten-year timeframe.The value offered each year is two million dollars for two winning initiatives.
Juliana Tângari, director of Comida do Amanhã, celebrates the nomination and emphasizes that Food Planet Prize integrates Comida do Amanhã with the themes of food around the world. "It is very gratifying to know that our work is spontaneously recognized as impactful, innovative, and an example from Brazil to the world! We are on the right path. The simple indication for an award like this says a lot about the direction to head to and the responsibility we have ahead."
The Prize is the Curt Bergfors Foundation’s primary tool to encourage agents of change and promote game-changing initiatives. The institution coined the term "Food Planet" to illustrate the interplay between the global food system and the Earth system spheres: the geosphere (land), the hydrosphere (water), the atmosphere (air), and the biosphere (all living things, including us humans). According to the Foundation, "this framework is a cornerstone of their work". The director of Comida do Amanhã Mónica Guerra highlights that, "this has always been our horizon and our convergent agenda, from the first moment of the institute, which was born with the mission of supporting the transition to healthy and sustainable, inclusive and empowering food systems, biodiverse and culturally integrated. In 2019, we brought the EAT-Lancet report to Brazil, which precisely pointed to the need to look at a planetary diet - a diet that would guarantee access to healthy food within planetary boundaries. We design each project, each initiative trying to link global challenges to local possibilities. We work as facilitators, as bridges for dialogue and collective and systemic advancement. After all, as we always say, what we eat changes the world."
Comida do Amanhã Institute is, since 2018, a think tank that supports the transition to sustainable and healthy food systems, and is organized upon three thematic areas - food and cities, food and climate and food and culture. They all work in a connected way, as a referential matrix that is constantly in dialogue.
The director of Comida do Amanhã Francine Xavier points out that this approach from a multiplicity of integrated perspectives is what ensures the most effective measures, and it is the theory of change that guides the work of the institute. "It’s this integrated perspective that makes us able to understand loose ends, correlations and invisibilities that are precisely where we can make a difference. We do not have ready answers to a challenge that has a planetary scale and a unique urgency. But we are confident that asking the right questions and allowing an integrated approach will bring us closer to our mission - transitioning to a reality where healthy food is accessible to everyone without compromising planetary boundaries.", highlights.