The interest of CFS is most welcome since linkages between SDGs 2 and 11 are key to the Sustainable Development Agenda. But it would be good to acknowledge and build upon the work carried out in this area, by FAO and other organisations, since at least the late 80s (e.g. FAO’s Committee on Agriculture 1989 Urbanization, food consumption patterns, and nutrition ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/esn/nutrition/urban/delisle_paper.pdf). A bibliography of FAO work in this area can be found on http://www.fao.org/fcit/fcit-publications/en/
The CFS secretariat may want to check the final draft of the SOFA Special Chapter on Urbanization - Linking Development across the Changing Landscape http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/FCIT/PDF/sofa.pdf (Drescher and Iaquinta 2002) which was prepared within the Priority Area for Interdisciplinary Action Food for Cities; and the 2003 report to CoAg of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Food for the Cities and in particular the strategic recommendations for MTP 2004-2009 http://www.fao.org/docrep/MEETING/006/Y8500e.HTM.
In 2011, the FAO Food for the Cities multi-disciplinary initiative published a position paper entitled Food, Agriculture and Cities - Challenges of food and nutrition security, agriculture and ecosystem management in an urbanizing world http://www.fao.org/3/a-au725e.pdf - signed by Alexander Mueller, then Assistant |Director General, sustainable Development - as background document for a CFS side-event http://www.fao.org/fcit/meetingevents/37th-cfs-food-for-cities-side-event/en/. This document could be seen as a good basis for an updated version five years later and the Secretariat may want to reconsider the initial decision to focus on post-2012 publications.
FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division (now Nutrition and Food Systems Division) has worked extensively on these issues, within its programme on Globalisation, Urbanisation and Nutrition Transition, see in particular FAO Nutrition Paper 83, Globalization of food systems in developing countries: impact on food security and nutrition http://www.fao.org/3/a-y5736e.pdf (2004). Given the present concern with obesity and diet-related diseases and the association of urbanisation, globalisation and changing lifestyles, it is recommended that the CFS paper be explicitly linked to the follow-up of ICN2.
Overall the draft as it stands has by and large adopted a classical supply-driven value chain approach. The Secretariat may want to focus more explicitly on food consumption and food systems, following on and linking to the work carried out by SOFA 2013 Food Systems for Better Nutrition; Word Food Day 2013 Healthy people depend on healthy food systems - Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition and the 2015 WFD event in Milan http://www.fao.org/world-food-day/wfd-at-milan-expo/en/; the Sustainable Food systems programme http://www.fao.org/ag/ags/sustainable-food-consumption-and-production/en/ and the 10 Year Programme on Sustainable Food Consumption and Production http://www.unep.org/10yfp/
And last but not least, specific attention should be given to indigenous people and their food systems.
So much for now. :-)
Dr. Florence Egal