Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

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Dr. Bronwen Powell

Miembro desde
Organización: Pennsylvania State University
País: Canadá
Campo(s) de especialización:
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My current research interests are focused on the relationship between biodiversity and human nutrition: how do people draw on wild and agricultural resources and diversity to improve dietary diversity, food security and nutrition? The role of biodiversity across land use types in landscape mosaics is increasingly recognized as key to forest biodiversity conservation. My work in the East Usambara Mountains examines how biodiversity from different land use types contributes to human diet and nutrition. I use both quantitative and qualitative methods. Drawing on qualitative, ethnographic and participatory methods, my research uses the Ecohealth approach to examine socio-cultural factors that mediate peoples’ relationship with and use of their environments to meet their livelihood needs. The adaptive functions of cultural diversity, particularly diversity in knowledge and its transmission are among the socio-cultural factors I am most interested in. My work endeavours to improve methods for assessing foods systems, human diet and nutrition in a manner that allows for the identification of links to agrobiodiversity and other environmental factors. I seek novel methods that will allow socio-cultural factors such as traditional or local knowledge to be better incorporated into more quantitative research on ecosystem and human health. I am also interested in applied nutritional anthropology and the examination of the cultural meaning and importance of foods for improved human nutrition and environmental sustainability. As communities in developing countries experiences nutritional transitions, away from traditional foods and toward increase consumption of processed foods high in calories, fat and refined sugar, there is a need for solutions which can address over-nutrition and obesity, and under-nutrition and micronutrient deficiency simultaneously. I believe that holistic approaches hold the key to improving the health and nutrition of communities in a manner that is culturally appropriate, sustainable and conducive to improving overall ecosystem health.

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    • Comments from: Bronwen Powell, PhD Student Lilly Zeitler

      Broad feedback:

      • Congratulations on an excellent V0. We were very excited to read it!
      • Legacy is an idea from social ecological systems theory, and refers to the ways past relationships impact and constrain current options. The ways that the legacies of colonialism impact equity in food systems has been discussed by a number of scholars (Michael Watts, Bill Moseley, Blakie and Brookfield, Kyle Whyte). We haven’t seen the legacies of colonialism addressed in the report and think the report might benefit from considering this scholarship.
      • While this is a report on Food security and nutrition, food has importance beyond  nutrition in that it is central to identity and this is linked to cultural well-being. The accepted definition of Food Security includes access to “culturally appropriate food”. The report might benefit from at least touching on this topic (which we didn’t see on our quick read). For example, Indigenous communities tie Food Sovereignty to access to culturally important foods (asking questions like how can we be “healthy” is we “the people of the salmon” have no salmon) (e.g. Coté, 2016; Whyte, 2016). Many Indigenous scholars are writing on the ways revitalization of food culture is repairing identity and healing Indigenous communities in North America (Chantelle Richmond, Hannah Tait Neufeld, Leigh Joseph, and others). 
      • We hope the report authors will take every opportunity to highlight the need for regulation of marketing / the food industry given the growing body of evidence on the harm done by ultra-processed foods. Perhaps this might fit in the section on “Food Environmental Governance” (Page 107). As much as minority / disempowered groups need better access to healthy foods, they also need protection from uneven targeting by advertising for ultra processed junk food.

      More specific feedback:

      • Page 43. There should likely be a separate subheading for “Indigenous” or “Ethnic minorities” which are currently discussed under ”Gender”
      • Page 43. Many groups can also face inequity (and unequal impacts of policy) based on their livelihood strategy. This is most clearly apparent for hunting-and-gathering and pastoral groups where food and nutrition policy is geared towards agriculture (e.g. Gastrocolonialism by Sophie Chao, 2022).
      • Page 48. You cite (Kimmerer, 2013) but her work builds on the work of many Indigenous authors. We suggest you might want to cite a broader selection of academic publications here:
        • Todd, Z. (2018). Refracting the state through human-fish relations. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 7(1), 60-75.
        • Coté, C. (2016). “Indigenizing” food sovereignty. Revitalizing Indigenous food practices and ecological knowledges in Canada and the United States. Humanities, 5(3), 57.
        • Delormier, T., Horn-Miller, K., McComber, A. M., & Marquis, K. (2017). Reclaiming food security in the Mohawk community of Kahnawà: ke through Haudenosaunee responsibilities. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 13, e12556.
        • Lynn, K., Daigle, J., Hoffman, J., Lake, F., Michelle, N., Ranco, D., ... & Williams, P. (2013). The impacts of climate change on tribal traditional foods. In Climate change and indigenous peoples in the United States (pp. 37-48). Springer, Cham.
        • Bartlett, C., Marshall, M., & Marshall, A. (2012). Two-eyed seeing and other lessons learned within a co-learning journey of bringing together Indigenous and mainstream knowledges and ways of knowing. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2
      • Page 51 to 54 - These sections on inequalities are good to see. There is also a small body if literature looking at the impact of LEGAL ACCESS to forests, bushmeat, wild foods and natural areas (e.g. for grazing livestock) and the ways these impact food security and diet. This work might also fit under sections around page 78?
        • Sylvester, Olivia, Alí García Segura, and Iain J Davidson-Hunt. 2016. The protection of forest biodiversity can conflict with food access for indigenous people. Conservation and Society 14(3):279.
        • McNeeley, S. M. (2012). Examining barriers and opportunities for sustainable adaptation to climate change in Interior Alaska. Climatic Change, 111(3), 835-857.
        • Sunderland, T. C., & Vasquez, W. (2020). Forest conservation, rights, and diets: Untangling the issues. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 3, 29.
      • Page 78 - Very happy to see land grabbing listed, please see these suggested excellent recent publications:
        • Müller, M. F., Penny, G., Niles, M. T., Ricciardi, V., Chiarelli, D. D., Davis, K. F., ... & Mueller, N. D. (2021). Impact of transnational land acquisitions on local food security and dietary diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(4), e2020535118. (This important recent paper finds associations between land grabbing and “transitions from local staples (cereals and pulses) to to cash crops (sugars and oils) with a significantly higher likelihood of export.” Palm oil and sugar cane are ‘flex crops’ that can be a source of either food or energy; however, even if used as a food source, they do not offer reliable sources of nutrition. Key recent findings, such as these, would be worth highlighting in the report.)
        • Rulli, M. C., & D’Odorico, P. (2014). Food appropriation through large scale land acquisitions. Environmental Research Letters, 9(6), 064030.
        • Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H., & Bezner Kerr, R. (2017). Land grabbing, social differentiation, intensified migration and food security in northern Ghana. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44(2), 421-444.
        • Abdallah, A. H., Ayamga, M., & Awuni, J. A. (2022). Impact of land grabbing on food security: evidence from Ghana. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 1-24.
      • Page 101 - Happy to see the section on Commitment to Publicly Funded Research, which Jodi Harris and others have strongly argued is necessary for improved production and availability of fruits and vegetables

    • Firstly, congratulations to the HLPE for initiating this important and groundbreaking report. I think for some time, many of us in the FSN world have been troubled by inequality and unequal power relationships in FSN and it is so important to address it though a process such as HLPE. Thank you! I hope that this report will ensure attention to equality in diet quality and nutrition (including work on cost of quality diets (Herforth et al 2020). But also equality in all the aspects of food security, as recently expanded in the HLPE report “Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030” to include Agency and Sustainability. National scale FSN policy often do not adequality support the cultural food practices and preferences of Indigenous and other marginalized communities; Sophie Chao (2021) has called this “gatrocolonialism”. I hope this report will find recommendations for how to scrutinize all national level policies (both FSN and other policy) to make sure they uphold the autonomy and dignity of Indigenous food system needs. I hope that the report will work to bridge the gap between critical food and nutrition studies and the needs of mainstream FSN policy community (see Nichols, Kampman and ven den Bold 2021 for great summary and suggestions). The other aspect of inequality that is particularly troubling to me is the ways power imbalances that shape trade-relationships between countries and often act to give large food corporations under-regulated access to lower-income country markets. I think this area is very important and so I look forward to this reports contribution in this area. Thank you!

      Chao, S. (2021). Gastrocolonialism: the intersections of race, food, and development in West Papua. The International Journal of Human Rights, 1-22.

      Herforth, Anna, et al. Cost and affordability of healthy diets across and within countries: Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Technical Study No. 9. Vol. 9. Food & Agriculture Org., 2020.

      Nichols, C., Kampman, H., & van den Bold, M. (2021). Forging just dietary futures: bringing mainstream and critical nutrition into conversation. Agriculture and Human Values, 1-12.

    • Dear CPF team. I am sorry I was not able to post before May 14th, but have been thinking about indicators for forests' contribute to food security and nutrition for a long time so I will post now.

      Indicators forests' contribute to food security and nutrition can and should be incorporated into both FSN data tools and Forest monitoring tools. Below I will list both, with the ones I think are the easiest (requiring the least resources and adaptation of existing tools) listed first.

      Potential Indicators from FSN data:

      • Percent of fruits, vegetables and animal source foods in the diet from wild species or tree species. By frequency or weight. Would require better identification of less common foods in dietary survives (e.g. less common foods are often grouped into "other vegetable" categories).
      • Percent of fruits, vegetables and animal source foods in the diet from forests, agroforests or uncultivated lands. By frequency or weight. Would require asking the source of foods in dietary survives.
      • Percent of fruits, vegetables and animal source foods available in community/ region/ or market that come from forests, agroforests or uncultivated lands. By frequency or weight. Would require asking the source of foods in market survives. Given the push to improve nutrition and food system data available globally, with a focus on improving data collection for the monitoring of food prices for nutritionally important foods such as fruits and vegetables, this might be easily included as well.

      Potential Indicators from Forestry data:

      • Collection of non-wood-forest products, with a focus on those used as fruits, vegetables and animal source foods. By frequency or weight. Systematic collection of data on weight of wild fruits and vegetables could be incorporated into FAOSTATs on food production and food available for consumption, allowing for accurate tracing of the contribution of forest foods to diet quality.
      • Number of percentage of population consuming forest foods (and ideally the amount of frequency of consumption).
      • Number of percentage of population collecting forest foods (and ideally the amount of frequency of consumption).

      Without better, systematic/ globally comparable data we will remain unable to accurately estimate the contribution of forest foods to diet quality, nutrition and food security.

      I would be happy to contribute further if there are ways I can be helpful,

      Thanks, Dr. Bronwen Powell, Pennsylvania State University

    • If you are not already familiar with Foods of Association: Biocultural Perspectives on Foods and Beverages that Mediate Sociability by Nina Etkin I encourage you to read it, you may find her work in West Africa interesting as a comparison to your work in Kenya. Others interested in this topic may find it of interest as well, and it is easy to read.

      Kazi njema,

      Bronwen