Published in Usbek & Rica on the occasion of World Food Day (16 October 2025)
What if the Mediterranean Became the World’s Food Conscience?
Amid rising inequalities, ecological crisis, and the resurgence of hunger, the Mediterranean must reclaim its historic role — a space of exchange, balance, and invention. A global laboratory where health, sustainability, and food justice are reconciled. That is the message of this op-ed published by the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) on the occasion of World Food Day.
It took two global crises — health and climate — regional conflicts, and persistent market volatility to remind us of a simple truth: the food question is once again at the forefront, though we thought it was behind us. Imports are increasingly fragile, inequalities are deepening between countries and within territories. In the Mediterranean, hunger is reappearing, and “eating well” is no longer the reality for millions of people, including those in rural areas.
Eating is a total act — social, political, and civilizational. It crystallizes our collective choices regarding health, climate, employment, culture, and social justice. Our exhausted food systems are partly responsible for the loss of biodiversity, the disruption of water cycles, and nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. They exacerbate inequalities and threaten the ecological foundations of our survival: they feed poorly, they uproot, they deplete.
And yet, the path forward is known: a predominantly plant-based diet, rich in legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains, with moderate consumption of animal products. Flexible and culturally adaptable, this diet could prevent millions of premature deaths and ease pressure on ecosystems — while restoring meaning to what it truly means “to nourish.”
Rediscovering the Mediterranean Compass
Traditional diets, built on plant diversity, moderate protein intake, and strong local roots, hold part of the solution. The Mediterranean model, long celebrated as an “intangible cultural heritage,” must now be recognized as a lever for global sustainability — nutritional, climatic, and social.
But it must be supported by ambitious policies for food justice, rural employment, and equitable governance of water and land. Without these, the Mediterranean diet will remain out of reach for the most vulnerable.
Cradle of nourishing civilizations and one of the regions most exposed to climate change, the Mediterranean today mirrors the world’s upheavals. It concentrates the paradoxes of the 21st century: arid lands and fertile soils, ancient traditions and ultra-processing, abundance and insecurity, scarcity and waste. If it reflects our impasses, it also carries our promises.
From Fork to Farm: Reversing the Lens
Change can no longer be confined to the fields: it must begin on our plates, in our canteens, our cities, and our schools, transforming the food environments in which consumers make their choices. The CIHEAM advocates a “from fork to farm” approach, where social demand, health, and the environment guide agricultural production.
Returning to the Mediterranean diet is not about nostalgia — it is about restoring dignity and diversity to the heart of the food system.
Across the Mediterranean, as elsewhere, we have long confused agricultural policy with food policy. We have produced more, at lower cost — but at the expense of life itself. We have standardized nature, commodified taste, and forgotten that to eat is, first and foremost, to inhabit the world.
The challenge is not to oppose productivism and agroecology, but to reconcile the plurality of agricultures: those that feed local territories and those that supply markets, those of smallholders and those of innovators, those adapting to the constraints of water, soil, and climate.
And above all, we must give visibility to those the system tends to erase — young people, women, agricultural workers, and rural communities — for no sustainability can exist without equity.
To return to the Mediterranean diet is not to look back, but to rethink value chains, food education, working conditions in agriculture, and the fair distribution of value among those who produce, process, and consume. It means placing human dignity at the core of our food systems.
A Mediterranean, Global Laboratory for Transition
Since antiquity, the Mediterranean has been a sea-world — a crossroads of civilizations that wove the first threads of globalization by enabling the circulation of plants, techniques, goods, and ideas. Between Europe, Africa, and Asia, it has always been an open space, a place of blending and invention.
Today, it can once again become a laboratory for food and water transition, where ancient wisdom and innovation complement one another to build a fairer and more sustainable future. Its universities, farmers, enterprises, and citizens hold a unique wealth of knowledge and cooperation, ready to be shared with the rest of the world.
On the ground, initiatives are multiplying: integrated water management, local diets, short supply chains, and innovations for sustainable agri-food systems. These experiences prove that another path is possible — one of shared food sovereignty, based on cooperation rather than competition.
It is vital to understand that the food transition will emerge neither from markets nor from technology alone. It requires a diplomacy of food, a governance model that connects science, politics, and civil society to produce, exchange, and consume differently.
As the planet exceeds its ecological limits, the Mediterranean can remind the world of what others have forgotten: food is first and foremost a bond, not a commodity.
It can once again become a space of exchange and experimentation where food nourishes peace, culture, and human dignity.
On this 16 October, World Food Day, the CIHEAM calls for the Mediterranean to become a basin of global food justice, where the reconciliation between bread, peace, and the planet can finally take shape.
Signatories:
Teodoro Miano, Secretary-General of the CIHEAM
Roberto Capone, CIHEAM Focal Point for Sustainable Food Systems and the Mediterranean Diet
Yasmine Seghirate, CIHEAM Focal Point for Women’s and Youth Leadership in Agri-Food Transitions