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eating planet
global scale. The BCFN is designed to pay close attention to society’s emerging needs, gathering experience and qualified expertise on a worldwide level, encouraging an ongoing and open dialogue. The complexity of the phenomena explored in this context has made it necessary to adopt a methodology that goes well beyond the boundaries of the various disciplines; hence the subdivision of the themes studied here into four macro-areas: Food for All, Food for Sustainable Growth, Food for Health, and Food for Culture. The Food for All area takes on the issue of access to food and malnutrition, with the goal of thinking seriously about how best to encourage better governance of the agro-alimentary system on a global scale, with a view to making it possible to undertake a more equitable distribution of food and encourage a more favorable impact in terms of social well-being, health, and the environment. The Food for Sustainable Growth area explores the issues of the sustainability of the agro-alimentary supply chain, through a balanced use of natural resources and a steady reduction of negative impacts on the environment. The Food for Health area has undertaken a process of study of the relationships that exist between diet and health. The Food for Culture area, last of all, is meant to understand, describe, and render more significant the relationship between man and food. In its first three years of operation, the center has undertaken and produced numerous scientific publications. Guided by institutional timeframes and by the priorities present in terms of international economic and political agendas, it has reinforced, I believe, its own role as a collector and connecter between science and research, on the one hand, and political decisions and government actions on the other hand. It has moreover organized events open to the members of civil society, including the International Forum on Food & Nutrition, a major opportunity for international interactions with the leading experts in the sector, now on its third annual edition. In line with this general approach, the activities of the BCFN are guided by a multidisciplinary Advisory Board, a body composed of experts belonging to different but complementary sectors, which proposes, analyzes, and develops issues, after which it formulates concrete recommendations concerning those issues. For each area, one or more specific advisors have been identified: Barbara Buchner (an expert on energy, climate change, and the environment) and John Reilly (an economist specializing in environmental issues) for the Food for Sustainable Growth area; Mario Monti (an economist and policy maker) for the Food For All area; Umberto Veronesi (an oncologist), Gabriele Riccardi (a nutritionist), and Camillo Ricordi (an immunologist) for the Food for Health area; Claude Fischler (a sociologist) for the Food for Culture area. From the work of this group of experts, valuable ideas have emerged in recent years: with a view to understanding in what way diet and nutrition affects our