Pat Heslop-Harrison ([email protected]) on behalf of several members of the Institute for Environmental Futures, University of Leicester, UK including Beth Delaney, Hessain Ekkeh, Mateus Macul, Nicholes Nicholes, John E. Pearl and Emilio Payo
RESPONSE TO UN FAO Right to Food Guidelines Consultation
We are happy to have the opportunity to celebrate and comment on the 20th anniversary of implementing the FAO/UK Right to Food Guidelines in 2024, in advance of the 2030 reviews of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda. We are academic research scientists and PhD students from multiple disciplines working with the University of Leicester Institute for Environmental Futures, We have extensive interdisciplinary research projects, many involving PhD students, with a global reach, as well as University teaching roles.
(i) Experiences and good practices
The FAO Consultation was excellent as it allowed involvement of stakeholders globally in development and monitoring of the RtFG, encouraging discussions, and generating data or case studies about best-practice. With respect to 'lessons learned', our contributions would be in monitoring and investigations of approaches.
(ii) Gaps, constraints and challenges
We feel there are three gaps and challenges that should be addressed, regarding Sustainability, Robustness, and Education:
A. Sustainability
The Right to Food documentation has little in relationship to sustainability, which must be considered at levels of the individual, region, nation, continent, and globe. Current farming practices are generally able to produce enough food (with obvious challenges of availability, distribution and to an extent type of food) to meet the demand of the population. However, current practices are, firstly, using more resources from the planet than are being replaced; and, secondly, human activity is changing, and in many cases destroying, the environment producing food. Hence, 'business as usual' is not certain to continue production of sufficient food without substantial changes. Production of food should not impede the viability of areas in the future, whether with respect to water, soils, or crop protection and nutrition (eg Hunke et al., 2015; Lal & Stewart, 1990), while the increasing temperature variability and extreme weather events predicted will need improved genetics and potentially changes in areas and agronomic practices. Detailed monitoring and research at national levels, in all countries, will be required to recognize and avoid unsustainable practices and adapt food production systems to changing climates and environments.
B. Robustness and resilience
The International Covenant on Rights obliges each party to take steps "to the maximum of its available resources" to achieve, among others, the Right to Food. Food supply has to ensure resilience as one of its cornerstones, and a system exploited to its maximum cannot provide that resilience. The scope of the resilience is twofold, and is linked to sustainability. Firstly, resources needed for food production must continue to be available. Secondly, the resilience of supply chains and the associated infrastructure including storage and long-distance transport to balance crop failures and crops from different regions, must be improved. Among other factors, 13% of food production worldwide is lost due to insufficient refrigeration (63% in developing countries; Wu et al., 2022); as well as cold storage, improvements in harvesting and transport through to sales predictions can reduce waste. Improvements need to consider too impacts on energy use, greenhouse gas emission and social structures. Changes in production patterns, availability of food items, and social structures (urbanization and aging of populations) all require adjustments to farms and distribution processes. Supply chain disruptions and the need for enhanced traceability and quality assurance are also significant concerns.
These constraints and challenges show the tight links between food, health and environmental security, three of the main categories of human security threats (UNDP, United Nations Development Programme, 1994).
C. Education
Education about food and nutrition at the under-16 level has at least partially failed globally. Many populations, whether from less or more developed countries, show health and well-being issues resulting from a poor diet, while there are other challenges related to food safety, storage and waste. All impact on delivery of the Right to Food at the individual level. Nationally in the UK, we ask how 12 years of mandatory state education allows an 'obesity crisis', with a population ill-equipped to understand food and eating habits? Globally, how is the sufficient food that farms produce - at substantial environmental cost - not available deliver the aims of a 'Right to Food'?
Beyond the under-16 level education, University-level, tertiary, education has a major part to play in equipping people with the skills required to both develop and put into practice policies that enable the Right to Food to be achieved. Furthermore, through the research programmes associated with the training activities in most Universities, both globally novel, and regional applications, of the new approaches to achieve the RtFG. We therefore welcome the increasing quality of Universities globally, and increasing enrolment of students. We hope the teaching and research will underpin the development and implementation of the Right to Food.
(iii) Lessons learned and suggestions
Our research and teaching have academic value but are not specific examples of implementation of the Right to Food guidelines.
(iv) Next steps: use of Right to Food Guidelines
At a local University level, many of us will plan to incorporate teaching (undergraduate, MSc and within PhD programmes) about the Right to Food Guidelines, complementing the deep consideration of the UN SDGs already in many courses.
o Human Development Report 1994: New Dimensions of Human Security. New York.UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 1994.
o Hunke, P., Mueller, E. N., Schröder, B., and Zeilhofer, P. (2015) The Brazilian Cerrado: assessment of water and soil degradation in catchments under intensive agricultural use. Ecohydrol., 8: 1154– 1180. doi: 10.1002/eco.1573
o James, S.J. and James, C.J.F.R.I., 2010. The food cold-chain and climate change. Food Research International, 43(7), pp.1944-1956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2010.02.001
o Lal, R., & Stewart, B. A. (1990). Soil degradation: A global threat. Advances in soil science, 2.
o Reardon, T., Zilberman, D. (2018). Climate Smart Food Supply Chains in Developing Countries in an Era of Rapid Dual Change in Agrifood Systems and the Climate. In: Lipper, L., McCarthy, N., Zilberman, D., Asfaw, S., Branca, G. (eds) Climate Smart Agriculture . Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61194-5_15
o Wu, J., Li, Q., Liu, G., Xie, R., Zou, Y., Scipioni, A. and Manzardo, A., 2022. Evaluating the impact of refrigerated transport trucks in China on climate change from the life cycle perspective. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 97, p.106866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2022.106866
Prof. JS (Pat) Heslop-Harrison