Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

I have read the draft, and I would just like to make an observation about the definition of "sustainable Intensification" in particular on page 30 "Sustainable Intensification and the Sustainable Food Systems Approach have in common that they both address all three dimensions of sustainable development". In France, this agriculture has not the three dimensions of sustainable development. It is a way to minimizing the use of input but fundamentally not the way to change the agricultural practices. I understand that it is a theoretical concept, but the environmental dimension is not on the same level than agroecology for example, and it is difficult to see where the social is or the economic dimension. In theory and in practice, these kind of agriculture is not systemic.

Is it possible to indicate that the environmental dimension is approached and can have some impacts on social and economic dimensions?

Best regards

Catherine CONIL

I am positively impressed by this debate that presents many interesting developments, thanks to the quality-contributions of dedicated and committed colleagues.

I want to come with a second intervention on the concerns raised about the causal links between SFS (Sustainable Foods Systems) and FNS (Food and Nutritional Security). Whereas the “One Planet Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) Programme” states that SFS are a precondition to FNS (“while the ultimate goal is food security, it will not be achieved while the economic, social and environmental bases for food production and consumption are being compromised”) a number of contributions are clearly opposing this view. Probably, we have to slightly shift our standpoint of analysis and try to finetune language and terms.

I consider that SFS are not a precondition for the FNS, but, a sine qua non condition, based on the following premises:

1. There are strong causal links between FNS and SFS. Both, SFS and FNS, are highly inter-related and mutually- reinforcing/ed systems.

2. These causal links are not linear (in the sense of time, i.e. first this and then that) and are not unidirectional, i.e. only A provokes an effect to B or that A is prenominal cause to B..

3. There is agreement on the holistic approach, for both constructs (SFS and FNS), so, our analysis should be coherent with such approach, which assumes that the whole is greater than the sum up of the parties and therefore, it focusses on the wholes rather than to the dissection into parts, e.g. SFS, FNS, although distinction is necessary.

4. Both, SFS and FNS, are constructs, i.e. conceptual and political agreements. Conceptual constructs are attempts of interpretative models on which stakeholders agree upon through a knowledge-building consultative process, in order to facilitate common action, based on common language and minimally shared understanding. On the other hand, political constructs result through negotiation capabilities of several constituencies and groups over different and even conflicting agendas. Constructs are dynamic, i.e. evolve.

5. Any developments on FNS as well as on SFS do not happen just spontaneously but, are governed. Actually, Governance (including policy-making and its implementation through appropriate institutional arrangements – Public Action) is a relevant sub-system of the whole picture. Governance may be good or ill, but in any case, is a relevant part of the picture particularly in our endeavour to address disfunctions, inequalities, (un)sustainable Food Systems or Food and Nutritional (un)security.

6. Both FNS and SFS are dynamic and continuously evolving, yet, in inter-relation. There is not a SFS standard to be achieved per se but, always, in relation with FNS and vice-versa. Food Systems may be considered sustainable (environmentally, economically, socially) only if effectively underpin FNS. Yet, Food Systems can be sustainable only if FNS meets at least minimum standards. When food insecurity prevails, it is not possible building up any sustainable food systems.

Let’s see an example from the bottom, on how SFS are subject to poor FNS conditions because food (in)secure people foster (un)sustainable practices that negatively impact on environmental, economic and social sustainability. The below example focusses on the social and economic unsustainability. Yet, we also know that vulnerable-households impact negatively on the environment e.g. through ill practices on land (rotation shortages, clearing by burning and so on), firstly because of the shortage of labour (related to economic and social sustainability shortcomings). Through the example, we also try to concisely show that Governance is part of the whole picture as well as why inclusiveness and equity are important features to be understood, reminding that inequality does not stop at the gates of the community and that all small-farmers are not just the same.

In the rural areas, in Africa, the poorest, during the “hunger gap” or “lean season” when the food-need is extreme, end up selling their labour under cost (sometimes for a plate of beans) to the “better off”. In Kenya, this is the case of those households whose food (in)security mainly relies on farm temporally work (“kibarua” in Swahili) paid in cash or kind. A good number of them are women workers that are the main or only breadwinners and, whoever, the ones ensuring food to the children. Similarly, in Northern Mozambique, in the Macua society is usual the so called “o’lala” which is a traditional practice of exchanging labour for food. Such practice enables those who benefit from the work of others to reach considerable accumulation. Suffice it to say that one day's work under "o'lola" can be paid in about 3-4 kg. of cassava per day of work, sometimes only with a plate of beans, while a worker can produce 7 - 9 kg. of cassava in one day’s work. Small-farmers that have to sale their work under these conditions do not manage to cultivate their own plot of land. Labour is the major limiting factor for small farmers in the context of the subsistence agriculture, at least.

Consequently, such widespread practices as “kibarua” and “o’lala” trigger a vicious cycle of vulnerabilities, food insecurity, multiple unsustainability and trans-generational poverty. Inequalities blow up. For instance, in rural Kenya, the richest 20% of the rural earn 62% of incomes (SID, 2004), while the bottom 20% earns 3.5 % of rural income (World Socialist Website, 2008). In Northern Mozambique, Nampula, already in the beginning of the 90s’ a trend of concentration of land was observed, with about 40-50% of the total land held by only the 25% of small-producers, the latter farming 5 times more land per household than the lower quintile.

For many rural households, their production – consumption system is a cycle (a continuum) evolving along three key moments, i.e. a) production (harvest and usually sufficient food for 3-5 months) – b) lean season (6-9 months) – c) severe food shortages (periodical crisis - emergency). The “Governance” of the cycle starts at household. At household level, to make face to the food-shortages, people develop appropriate risk management (ex-antes) and coping strategies (ex-post), aimed to strengthen household resilience. However, several times such strategies are not enough and, as we can see in the above example, lead to the unsustainability of the systems. Public Action is needed. Recognising that for several small farmers, the Production – Consumption cycle evolves along a continuum (as exposed above), the Public Action may propose a corresponded remedy evolving along the Promotion-Prevention-Provision - Continuum / PPPC. As a matter of fact, food security approach addresses: a) agricultural livelihoods development (Promotion of the production, addressing underlying causes of food insecurity); b) social transfers / SSNs (Prevention from falling into extreme poverty; risk management ex ante) and c) emergency assistance as last remedy (Provision of means to meet basic needs; coping strategies ex post). (see, e.g. “Entitlements and access to food: systems of social transfers to fight extreme poverty”, Brussels, May 2008, Position paper). http://www.cc.cec/dgintranet/europeaid/activities/thematic/e6/training_… ).

Dear colleagues,

this is an important effort to bring together and clarify a number of highly complex issues, thank you for this. Below, I list some comments. I first present some general comments, then more specific ones, directly referring to the text.

Please contact me any time in case questions arise and I am happy to further contribute to this in whatever form may be useful.

Best regards, Adrian Muller, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL. 9.12.2018

General comments:

Such documents are needed and important and can help guiding discussion and action, but I think that such documents often remain somewhat too general and unspecific. In my opinion, this also applies to this document.

First, I think that there is a lack of concreteness in the formulation of all the frameworks and approaches mentioned in section 2. In my understanding, these should work as toolboxes for reducing complexity and they should be formulated in an as concrete way as possible, so that one can really work with them. For some further details on this, see my comment below referring to page 19.  

Second, I think the document falls short of really making concrete suggestions on what can be done. There is a general call to arms and suggestions to increase information provision, research and development, also internalization of external costs, etc. – but I think one could and should become much more concrete, e.g. on pages 40/41 on policy instruments. In my opinion, there is a number of policy instruments/approaches that could be supported in any case, i.e. that robustly would lead to improvements in a broad context of diverse characteristics. I think such a document should aim at identifying and promoting those. Examples I usually think of are the following – without having researched on those systematically, without having analyzed those in depth, and without aiming for completeness:

• Taxation of any nitrogen that is imported into certain regional boundaries: this would apply to concentrate and other feed imports and to mineral fertilizers, for example, but not to N in feed grown locally or to N from biological N fixation within these regional boundaries. Reducing these N imports to regions (what such a tax would aim at) is key to address a number of environmental challenges, from N2O emissions and climate change to biodiversity loss.  
• In parallel, we need a tax on CO2 from burning fossil fuels. This is more adequate than a general GHG tax or a tax on meat, for example, as it would not put grass-fed ruminant production at a disadvantage, as it may not be optimal for the climate, but can play a central role in sustainable food systems in relation to other indicators.
• Further aspects I would suggest to pursue: a ban on any advertisement of food. Or at least a strong restriction on such advertisement, in particular a prohibition to transport wrong pictures on how farming looks like (in Switzerland, all advertisement related to food promotes an idyllic farming system that is very far from reality…).
• And I would also suggest to work towards keeping as much of the value chain of a product within the country that produces the original product. When acting on value chains, I think this approach may bring more than the general claim to support shorter value chains and to bring consumers and producers closer together (for more on the criticism of this last point, see my comment referring to page 20 below).

Third, some general guiding principles for improvement could be made stronger; these are mainly

• The aim for consistent policies. It does not make sense to work on biodiversity measures and at the same time subsidizing mineral fertilizers and pesticides, for example. Or to work on health issues by, say, a tax on sugar and on the same time supporting sugar cane production by special payments for this. Thus, a general call should be for reducing perverse incentives, combined with the internalization of external costs – the latter is part of the document, but it could be made more prominent; and it could be related to the general discussion of consistent policy approaches.
• the necessity to openly and self-critically analyze one owns values; many statements are value loaded and I think they rather have the status of hypotheses than facts – cf. the comment referring to page 20 below. 

Other aspects that I would claim to be such value driven implicit hypotheses rather than facts are the following: informed stakeholders act in favor of increased sustainability; power-less stakeholders act more responsible and in support of sustainability when given more power than the currently powerful stakeholders; increased stakeholder involvement leads to increased sustainability. I do not argue against those issues per se: more information; change in power relations; stakeholder involvement (and also short value chains, see other comments) – all these can contribute much; but I think that we – the people working on sustainable food systems, etc. – tend to be biased towards expecting too much from these aspects I challenged above.   

Here, I may also point to a specific discussion that relates to “naturalness” and which role this may play in sustainable food systems, as e.g. addressed in the following paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S026483771631376X

Specific comments:

Page 8, definition of “food system”: to keep it manageable and useful, there needs to be some reference to boundaries (geographical, population-wise, or whatever), otherwise, we have in many cases only one food system, the global one (besides some special cases of self-sufficiency), as it captures “all the elements” by definition, thus necessitating it to encompass everything.

Page 9: “This means that sustainable food systems are profitable throughout (economic sustainability);” I think “profitability” is a difficult term here – it should be clearly stated that this means profitability while accounting for internalized external costs and public good provision and not only profitability of a single business action in a given policy context (that thus may not get payments for public good provision, but may benefit from externalizing societal costs). Thus, may better write: “This means that sustainable food systems account for external costs and public good provision (internalization of negative and positive externalities) when being judged regarding their profitability (economic sustainability);”

Page 13: “On the social dimension, a food system is considered sustainable when there is equity in the distribution of the economic value added, taking into account vulnerable groups” – do you really mean “equity” and not “just” (justice), i.e. “…when the distribution of the value added is just, taking into account…”? This makes quite a difference.

Page 14: “…will have to be assessed against all other dimensions of sustainability to ensure there are no undesirable impacts.” This formulation is too absolute, as in most changes, there will be trade-offs and some undesirable impacts will always arise – e.g. if the internalization of external costs is strengthened, then there will be some players that loose profit. One may argue that this is “desirable” – but then we need a clear definition of which impacts are desirable and which ones are undesirable, or we need at least some guidelines on how to determine this. And even then, in many cases trade-offs will remain unavoidable – and which guiding principle will help us then? – “no undesirable impacts” hinders many actions with such characteristics. One way out could be to claim that total societal welfare increases – but this is very general (but in this it fits the level of discussion addressed in this document). This solution is offered three lines later – but then better formulate such as to allow for undesirable impacts, as long as the net overall impact is positive (which bears complexities regarding matters of equity and justice, etc…).

Page 16: I struggle with formulations as the following: “aim to ensure the provision of sufficient nutritious, sustainable, culturally acceptable, desirable and affordable food to consumers, while generating decent incomes to producers and other value chain actors, as well as protecting natural resources both domestically and abroad.” These are good aims – but in their aim to cover and improve everything, they bear the danger to result in inaction, as it is highly complex to work with such issues. What I would expect from this document is support and guidance regarding very concrete actions and goals to be pursued as proxies for all this – may not living up to all these good intentions and values, but at least reasonably well (cf. the general comments above).

Page 16: “The main actions suggested by the SFS Transformative Framework in this regard are to” the four actions that follow remain very general… - these are from another document, thus they cannot be changed here, but this document here may could try to make them much more concrete. 

Page 18: “people need better information and clearer recommendations regarding environmentally, socially and economically sustainable food and how food consumption impacts on all elements of the food system.” This is a suggestion for concrete action – but on the basis of which insights? Is it really the case that more information and clearer recommendations leads to improvements? I doubt this when looking at our western societies, where we have all this information and recommendations and not much changes…

Page 19: Given the definition “A food value chain (FVC) consists of all the stakeholders who participate in the coordinated production and value-adding activities that are needed to make food products reach consumers.” I do not see how this may be primarily “an analytical approach to understanding how supply chains work in practice and how they can be influenced to achieve desired outcomes”. An analytical approach is something different, it should, for example, offer the concepts to be used for reducing complexity – thus: e.g. focusing on different stakeholders and their relations, such as “stakeholder analysis”, or focusing on governance, actors and resources, such as the “socio-economic systems” approach, or focusing on drivers, pressures, states, impacts, responses, such as the DPSIR, or focusing on different capitals, such as the livelihood approach. What is needed are suggestions for frameworks on how to reduce complexity when dealing with food systems, not definitions that encompass everything or commitments to take everything into account without concrete suggestion on how to really achieve this.

In this, also the “sustainable food value chain approach” from page 20, for example, should be made more concrete, to clearly name which concepts are used to reduce complexity and then to work with the issues of interest.

Page 20: “in creating a strong linkages between consumers and producers that contributes to the sustainability of the food system” – can you prove that this really is the case – in general, not only in case studies. I think it rather has the quality of a hypothesis. Furthermore – how scalable is this? How many consumers can and want to have a close linkage to producers? This may be a small fraction of all consumers only.

I think this is a general danger in these discussions, that people working on sustainable food systems think that people are and should be interested in food and “good” food in particular (however defined). I doubt this and I would rather say that 80% are not interested in this at all and I also do not think that people should be interested in food if they do not want to be so (I would love if they were – but can we really require this in a liberal context, where people should have their say on what is a “good life” for them?). They just want to eat – better or worse, but without much effort – and cheap. This is also merely a hypothesis, but depending on which one is right, actions to improve the food systems may look totally different…

Page 30: As observed by Godfray (2015): “Sustainable intensification if treated seriously is genuinely radical. It is not a smorgasbord of interventions that can be chosen at will to justify different farming methods and philosophies. It is a coherent program that seeks radical change in the way food is produced and which places as much weight on improving environmental sustainability as on economic efficiency. It should not be seen as business-as-usual with marginal improvements that benefit the environment, nor as a call for a purely environmental agenda that fails to acknowledge the need to meet people’s expectations for affordable, nutritious and varied food.”103 This is all nice – but this still seems to be a hypothesis – where are the concrete contents of SI as a coherent program?

Page 30, SI: may make explicit, that SI tends to have a bias towards supporting efficiency: less input and impact per kg output, etc. – this is adequate for some indicators (e.g. GHG) but less so for reactive N, for example, which affects ecosystems, and these impacts are crucially related to areas and impacts per area rather than per ton produce.

Page 38: “Food that provides calories lacking adequate nutrient density – due to impoverished soils, over-processing, unbalanced genetics, or some combination of these – are also topics of study from a public health perspective.” – With regard to this, I would suggest to also address the issue that certain yield increases are mainly driven by increases in starch, etc. , thus leading to diluted micronutrients per energy – thus, these commodities become micro-nutrient deficient due to increasing yields – thus, increasing productivity, as emphasized above, needs to be addressed with caution when choosing the measures to assess this.

Page 42, bottom: reference is made to section 2.1. on the SFS transformative framework for more concrete examples; but in 2.1, concreteness remains rather low, and there are no direct references to SFS transformative framework given. Even when googling it, one gets very few hits only and  no specific document – so please make this much more concrete – ideally in section 2.1., or refer to the relevant web-resources. 

Dear All,

Good Day!

This is just to add a little more to the great effort of SFS draft 1.0.

Interconnected policy-making: Enabling decisions related to sustainable food system together with agriculture and its products marketing, labour laws, land holding, rural development etc. 

The above is just what I could conceptualised on my own.

With warm regards,

Pradip Dey

Dhananjaya  Poudyal

Independent Consultant Food and Nutrition

Nepal.

Q. 1 Does the draft adequately explain the principal components of a sustainable  food systems approach (section 2.1.) and put the latter in relation to the approaches discussed in section  3.1.?

1. Yes, I think so. It has been explained the key areas of a sustainable food systems approaches clearly. Accordingly the approaches are discussed in 3.1 too.  However, I have a small remark regarding the public health approaches in 3.1.4. It has focused on safety and qualitative foods with nutritional profile too. Food intake gives nutrients to the body which ultimately supports in health status. In this regard, I would like to suggest changing the “public health approaches” as “health and nutrition approaches”.

Q. 2.  Are the key concepts in relation to sustainable food systems in section 2.2. well defined and described, including their importance for this publication?

1. In my opinion it has been well defined of the key concepts in relation to food systems and described in details. It is enough for the publication of the document. But I want to take an opportunity to mention here at this moment that Nepalese diet is also one of the complete (well balanced) and hygienic diet from the point of nutrition.  It has been included all the macro as well as micro nutrients in the diet. Accordingly, new visitors from abroad prefer to have the Nepalese diet because of composition of the food as well as of taste. 

Q.3 Is the list of terms in chapter 4 complete, are any important terms missing (if yes, please submit together with the respective definitions) or do you think certain terms may be redundant?

1. It seems to be completed now the list of the terms in chapter 4. But it can be required more as per the needs of the individuals in time factor. Now I would like to suggest you to incorporate the definition of nutrients missing in the document. I don’t think that the terms are unnecessary rather may be less important.

Regarding the definition of the terms missing in your document I have mentioned as follows: 

Definition of Nutrition:  As defined by the Food and Nutrition Council (of the American Medical Association), “nutrition is the science of food, the nutrients and other substances therein, their action, interaction and balance in relation to health and disease, and the processes by which the organism ingests, digests, absorbs, transports, utilizes, and excretes food substances.”   - Nutrition and Diet Therapy Dictionary, Third Edition, Virginia S. Claudia, & Rosalinda T. Lagua, Published by Merriam & Webster Inc. Manila Philippines. 1991.

Definition of Nutrient:  “Any chemical substance needed by the body for one or more following functions: to provide heat or energy, to build and repair tissues, and to regulate life processes.” Although nutrients are found chiefly in foods, some can be synthesized in the laboratory (e.g. Vitamins) or in the body (biosynthesis).”   - Nutrition and Diet Therapy Dictionary, Third Edition, Virginia S. Claudia, & Rosalinda T. Lagua, Published by Merriam & Webster Inc. Manila Philippines. 1991.

Finally, this is really a very good document which is useful not only in agriculture or food system but it keeps its relevancy for other sectors of development too starting from the pathway of agriculture. Virtually it could be referred as a reference document for anybody like student, teacher, researcher, planner, development worker and also for the farmers. I am very much impressed with the document.

Thank you.

Compassion in World Farming welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft of Towards a common understanding of sustainable food systems.  See attached file for our comments.

Dear All,

Good evening from India!

Agro-ecological zoning separates areas into the region at the apex level and agro-eco unit at the bottom. The agro-ecological region identifies the natural resources in terms of problems, potentialities and constraints and their extent with respect to land utilization types and groups them in uniform units. Digital database in GIS and application of logic through decision support system (DSS) further enhance the process and precession of agro-ecological delineation. The sub agro ecological regions are further subdivided into agro-ecological zones based on landforms, soil association and land use. The agro ecological zones have further taken down to sub zones depending on terrain characteristics, parent materials, soil texture, depth, salinity, surface and ground water potentiality and cropping pattern.

Also we may think for overlaying vulnerability map with such agro ecological zones to create polygons in GIS and use the same to predict food security as well as systems need to be followed in long run for food sustainability.

With warm regards,

Pradip Dey

Thank you for the opportunity to comment!

IPM Institute's input is attached and pasted here:

1. Does the draft adequately explain the principal components of a sustainable food systems (SFS) approach (section 2.) and put the latter in relation to the approaches discussed in section 3.1.?
   1. Suggest including food safety as a principal component and list food safety under Food security and nutrition in figure 1
   2. Suggest including worker safety under Food system outcomes in Figure 1
   3. Suggest including land use and farm inputs under food system elements – environment category in Figure 1

1. Are the key concepts in relation to sustainable food systems in section 2.2. well defined and described, including their importance for this publication?
   1. Sustainable diets:
      1. Suggest adding that sustainable diets are those with low environmental and human health impacts, including both farm workers and consumers. An integrated pest management approach minimizes potential risks associated with pesticide use by emphasizing non-chemical approaches, chemical use only when necessary and low-risk chemicals over high risk alternatives.
      2. Clarify in the text that “health” includes health of farm workers, communities close to agriculture that may be impacted by pesticide drift, and the health of those eating the food. Often in the public’s mind when we think about “health” we’re only thinking about those consuming the food.
   2. Sustainable value chains
      1. In the discussion of “green” value chains, suggest mentioning that sustainable sourcing can take place w/in a company through their internal efforts to identify products that meet certain sustainability criteria – they may not necessarily be third-party certified to a sustainability standard. Food retailers may work in partnership with their suppliers to address sustainability, by e.g., collect information on various sustainability attributes like pesticide inputs, and work together to improve outcomes and reduce risks. Walmart, Costco, Whole Foods Market, Woolworths have various sustainable sourcing practices and programs in place, there’s published literature from Stanford on the efficacy of Woolworth’s approach and improving adoption of environmentally friendly practices at the farm level.
   3. Resilience:
      1. As an example of a specific measure, suggest adding importance of soil health and practices that keep soil covered year-round, reduce erosion and improve soil health (e.g., cover crops, no/low tillage). Soil C sequestration also contributes to GHG reductions and overall resilience of agricultural systems.

1. Is the list of terms in chapter 4 complete, are any important terms missing (if yes, please submit together with the respective definitions) or do you think certain terms may be redundant?
   1. Integrated production:
      1. Suggest adding “... to minimize risk to people, property, resources, and the environment” to the sentence reading: “Their implementation promotes the recycling soil nutrients and overall soil quality, and reduces the issues linked to pests and diseases.”
   2. Suggest adding integrated pest management as a term
      1. Proposed definition: integrated pest management (IPM) is an science-based approach that focuses on long-term prevention of pests or pest damage through a combination of physical/mechanical, biological, cultural and chemical approaches. Pesticides are used only when necessary, after or in conjunction with non-pesticidal strategies, and only if pests or pest damage exceeds an economic threshold as determined by monitoring/scouting. IPM focuses on pest prevention, avoidance, monitoring and thresholds. When pesticides are used, those that minimize risks to humans, non-target species and the environment are selected and applied in ways that minimize potential negative impacts.

Thanks, great initiative.

The critical contribution of wild/wild harvested plants and animals to nutrition is not strongly profiled in this paper.

Definitions which could be added- please refine as necessary

1.Social and solidarity economy (SSE), The United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on the Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE) considers it an umbrella concept and uses the following: ‘Social and solidarity economy is defined as a concept designating enterprises and organizations, in particular cooperatives, mutual benefit societies, associations, foundations and social enterprises, which have the specific feature of producing goods, services and knowledge while pursuing both economic and social aims and fostering solidarity’ (UNTFSSE 2014: Social and Solidarity Economy and the Challenge of Sustainable Development. A Position paper).

2.Mindful Markets Concept: Mindful Markets are alternative approaches to shaping food systems based on full awareness of interconnected factors and driven by the principle of “Organic Food for All.” Mindful Markets focus on long term relationships between farmers and consumers by creating channels and building networks which provide access to healthy food and promote well-being for all. Mindful Markets work to develop functioning alternative models and practices. Creating ‘Mindful Markets’ is an alternative model that realizes associative economies on the ground by creating tangible demand for organic agricultural produce.

In the Mindful Markets, rural producers and urban consumers care mutually for each other’s real needs: care for people, care for food, care for landscapes, care for human habitat, care for culture.

Van Willenswaard, W. (Ed.), 2015. Mindful Markets: Producer-Consumer Partnerships towards a New Economy, Bangkok: Garden of Fruition publishers https://towardsorganicasiath.wordpress.com/mindful-markets

3. Participatory Guarantee Schemes

Participatory guarantee systems (PGS) were reported in many countries, with more sustained development in Latin America and Asia. While most national organic labelling schemes require certification by a third party, PGS enable local sales of non-certified products by adopting a process of farmer and community peer review. These locally controlled guarantee systems keep the costs of certification down for producers and enable a constructive exchange and creation of local markets for consumers and members of the community. All regions urged that PGS be recognized as valid forms of certification at national level. To strengthen these systems, the participants of the seminar in Latin America proposed creating PGS reciprocity mechanisms in the region (Recommendation 9, Brasilia).

Source: FAO CATALYSING DIALOGUE AND COOPERATION TO SCALE UP AGROECOLOGY: OUTCOMES OF THE FAO REGIONAL SEMINARS ON AGROECOLOGY http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/I8992EN/

Other definitions, which might be included:-

4. Inclusive Value Chains

5. Inclusive Local Green / Short Value chains

6. Public Procurement Schemes

7. Wild foods

Thanks a lot for the opportunity to contribute to the document “Towards a Common Understanding of Sustainable Food Systems”. Please find our comments below:

General comment:

We recommend to refer to healthy and sustainable food systems rather than to stick to the term sustainable. The publication could also emphasize the synergies between health- and environmental-oriented food system approaches as a catalyst for a holistic food system transformation (p. 29). Health and environmental professionals can build a strong alliance to push the food systems approach forward.

Comments:

Page.8: Section 2.1.1 – Definition: I strongly suggest to explicitly mention health as an important aspect of SFS.

Page.9: Healthy and sustainable food systems lie at the heart of SDGs

Page. 11: Paragraph 2: Reference can be made to the Policy brief: “Connecting food systems for co-benefits: how can food systems combine diet-related health with environmental and economic policy goals?.” (Corinna Hawkes, Kelly Parson) Source: https://www.eu2018.at/calendar-events/political-events/BMASGK-2018-11-22-EU-Food-Systems.html

Page. 40: Public private partnership:

Explicitly mention the importance of public procurement. (Best Practice example: City of Copenhagen: http://www.procuraplus.org/public-authorities/copenhagen/)

Page.51: Determinants of health:

Reference:

https://www.who.int/hia/evidence/doh/en/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(16)30217-0/fulltext

Page.54: Interconnected policy-making

I recommend to refer to the policy brief: “Connecting food systems for co-benefits: how can food systems combine diet-related health with environmental and economic policy goals?.” (Corinna Hawkes, Kelly Parson) Source: https://www.eu2018.at/calendar-events/political-events/BMASGK-2018-11-22-EU-Food-Systems.html

Page 55:

Definition for nutrition

https://www.who.int/topics/nutrition/en/

Definition processed food

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/what-are-processed-foods/

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.

With kind regards,

Fabian und Judith