Agriculture, resources and opportunities from digital platforms but guarantee Public banks

The sustainability of agri-food systems is becoming increasingly necessary considering the central role they play in achieving international objectives, first of all that of providing for the food needs of the world population which will increase by about 25% in the next 30 years, reaching a total of 10 billion people. And therefore, it is necessary to limit the production of harmful emissions, accounting for about a third of the world production of climate-altering gases in the agri-food systems. This is what emerges from the report “Moving towards sustainable agri-food systems: analysis and strategic scenarios”, carried out under the coordination of Think Tank, which collects a preface by Cdp and three papers on the central theme of the “Finance in Common Summit”: sustainability in agri-food systems which is underway in Rome and hosted by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. Help comes from the growing digitization and use of private digital platforms: the actors of the agricultural system are implementing to make the products and, above all, the processes of the agri-food systems more efficient, in this context, even the giants of global platforms such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft are exploring how to get into the agribusiness system. However, to seize these opportunities and avoid distortions – the report analyzes – the public sector and public development banks must ensure adequate infrastructure and fair data management to ensure that the value created is not completely monopolized by the most powerful actors in the supply chain. production. The Public Development Banks, which together with the Development Finance Institutions hold a total assets of 11.5 trillion dollars, play an important role as catalysts of resources and promoters of innovative financial instruments. However, improvements in processes, risk management, accounting and accountability mechanisms are still required. The platforms provide not only tools, but also resources and opportunities, to generate innovations that can have positive environmental impacts, such as reducing the use of harmful chemicals and less soil and social erosion (e.g. increasing income of growers).