Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

Dear facilitator, Mr. Alwin Kopse, dear colleagues, this is a great work. Thank you again for the opportunity.

I want to say that I share the views of Mrs Carola Strassner, particularly concerning the points 1.3 and 2. on what she, elegantly, called “right” understanding. As I concisely put forward in my second contribution, definitions (e.g. SFS or FNS) are but “constructs” (conceptual and political agreements) and as such should be understood and used, in a dynamic and adaptive way. Please, see point 4 of my contribution. So, I consider very important the point 2 raised by Mrs Carola Strassner.

The issues raised by Mr. Beate Scherf also called my attention because are coming to reinforce my own perplexities in relation to our tendency to build up new constructs and abandon the previous without reference and without assessment. This is a huge chapter that I believe it is not the case to open on this debate. Everyone can understand what I am trying to say. Anyhow, it is difficult to me to understand why the “sustainable livelihoods approach” (SLA) is not taken on board by this new endeavour on SFS? What did-I miss in the development of ideas and agendas? I attach the relevant paper of the “Committee on World Food Security / CWFS, Twenty-sixth Session, September 2000, Rome, - Who are the insecure?” that shows that SLA is not about a peripherical approach but a core tool of analysis and policy-making. See also the FAO brief http://www.fao.org/docs/up/easypol/581/3-7-social%20analysis%20session_…

Kind regards

Dear colleagues,

I particularly support three bold statements made in the very short section on strategies to promote sustainable food systems:

• "Inequality among stakeholders has to be compensated at least to some degree by public sector (i.e. government) intervention, in a way that leads to greater overall prosperity.
• The “rules of the game” need to be adjusted so that the true costs and benefits of certain practices are accounted for in a fair manner.
• Financial incentives are not the only consideration but are one of the strongest levers of change available."

Indeed, a key strategy to promote sustainable food systems is to recognize that we need a combination of measures, to compensate, adjust and incentivize change. For agricultural producers to adopt more sustainable practices, these need to be integrated in a package of actions that genuinely improves farm management and income. Agricultural producers will only be able to comply with conservation requirements and restoration goals, if they can maintain or improve productivity elsewhere on their farm and reduce pressure on remaining natural ecosystems, and the opportunity cost of land for restoration. Similarly, investment in rehabilitation and sustainable management must have an economic return.

SFS investments must take agriculture producers to a new equilibrium with restored and productive landscapes, producing higher environmental benefits, on farm and beyond, with lower opportunity costs. But this doesn’t necessarily require much additional investment as there are a variety of programmes offering incentives for this transition. These range from policy-driven investments to fulfil mandatory regulations, such as taxes and charges; to private strategies for saving production costs (water-quality protection programmes); to opening new markets (certificates/standards); to voluntary investments in social and livelihood benefits (corporate social responsibility and NGO investments in social development).

An important contribution that the SFS Framework can make, in addition to the others mentioned in 3.1., is to bring in investments from the consumer side, linked to certification and other strategies for sourcing of sustainable agriculture products and services, to better reward producers for environmental and social benefits of sustainable food production systems.

In the next stages of the 10 YFP SFS, greater attention needs to be given to strategies to increase policy coherence- across environment, agriculture, health, finance- and convergence of sustainability investments along the value chains.

Dear Alwin, all authors and contributors

This publication will do the exchanges about these topics a very valuable service and I thank you for the opportunity to comment and make suggestions.

Re Q1: 2.1 is ok if the basis is UN-organisations' work

Some of the points I noted (and will try to keep short here) include

1.3 - it seems to imply that there is a "right" understanding; things will not change or transform because we impose one understanding. Will this be presented as a living document, that as we progress more theory and practice and understanding (perspectives) are shared? This could be revisited later in the 10YFP-sfsp, depending on resources, of course.

2. How open will the defining process be? There is space to propose an own definition but at the same time include or allude to other understandings / definitions.

2.1.1 The chronology seems to get a bbit mixed in the telling. On p.9 ...SFS are profitable ... 3 dimensions ... seems to be a very narrow  and old rendition. On p.10 l8-9 ... feedbacks..impacts...outcomes .. seems a micing of concepts / frames. On p.18 I think it should be Traditional Mediterranean Diet  (not MD).

Re Q2: Certainly good to have a kind of collection of all key SFSP-near FAO-terms.

Re Q3: 

(a) Terms I can suggest definitions or clarifications for:

p.48 UA/UG: It may be more helpful to distinguish between UA (urban farming, CSA (and all its synonyms such as Teikei etc.), edible cities) , UG (allotments, backyard garden) and Community Gardens (intercultural, neighbourhood, school and campus gardens). Or alternatively, it may be an idea to list "synonyms" or list "similar concepts". That way people can find common ground more easily. (a starting source: Nicole Rogge et al. e.g. on ResearchGate)

p.50 Consumer ed: OECD has a publication or two addressing this, see e.g. http://www.oecd.org/sti/consumer/promotingconsumereducationtrendspolici… also http://www.oecd.org/sti/consumer/newpolicyrecommendationsonconsumereduc… Consumer awareness: brings one to consumer literacy, which brings up all the "literacies" - they may be good additional terms - maybe under -literacies: food, health, consumer, ecoliteracy-, ... 

For this overall topic I recommend Hayward et al. 2007 https://uwaterloo.ca/canadian-index-wellbeing/sites/ca.canadian-index-w… , also reviews.

p.51 Det. of Health: I suggest WHO, details here  https://www.who.int/hia/evidence/doh/en/

p53. Fd Sec: Not sure if you want to pick up on the long fd-sec / fd-sec&nutr / fd&nutr-sec discussion but may be a good idea to bring nutrition in; refer to FAO

p.53 Fd types / grps: used in all national recommendations but perhaps slightly differeingly - maybe try WHO. If you were to write something like ... are basis for diet recommendations ... you might refer to Fischer/Garnett 2016 http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5640e.pdf

p.54 Fd Lit (besides comment above): see http://www.efad.org/media/1573/efad-food-literacy-fact-sheet.pdf and the book depicetd at the bottom; for deeper maybe https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666316306833 

p.55 Nutr: WHO may be best for a 'globally acceptable' definition see https://www.who.int/topics/nutrition/en/

p.55 UPP - NOVA classification, Monteiro et al - as mentioned by others in the forum; processed food meant in NOVA context? Careful - has general meaning

p.58 fd label: Codex alimenatrius may be good for this as a neutral source; many countries/ministries have own explanation, see also FAO  http://www.fao.org/ag/humannutrition/foodlabel/76333/en/ 

p.58 fd cert: maybe refer to ISO

(b) Terms I suggest as important and missing from the list:

a number of strategies and approaches e.g.

'blue economy', 'greening Goliaths multiplying Davids'

I'll leave it at that for now; I'd be happy to give further feedback if the opportunity arose.

Kind regards and all success

Carola

This is an important effort to make a clear understanding on the concepts of sustainable food systems. I appreciate the efforts and hubmly present my comments to the draft are as follows:-

Emphasis on ‘profitability’ of sustainable food systems will completely undermine subsistence production systems and similar decentralized initiatives that is integrated with the local economy.

Resilience is a pre-requisite to sustainability and hence it cannot be used synonymous to sustainability. Although the draft has given a detailed account of resilient production systems, characteristics of a sustainable production system also needs to be given equal emphasis in the draft. It is important to distinguish what a sustainable production system will look like when it is compared with the conventional mode of monoculture production with intensive inputs-be it organic or chemicals.

House-lot food gardens needs to receive attention in the glossary. House-lot gardening is a traditional form of economically viable local production in the Global South that provides inexpensive source of nutritious food to the family from the private spaces of a house such as backyards, rooftops, and setback. The purpose of house-lot gardens are primarily subsistence production of fruits and vegetables for the consumption of family members. However, the on-going movements that taking place in the state of Kerala (India) shows that house-lot gardens could be drivers of larger change to address the lack of larger pieces of land, if supported with adequate policy and institutional support. Apart from supplementing the family with fresh vegetables, the house-lot gardens also facilitates recycling the household organic wastes at the source. Moreover, the emerging initiatives that provides platforms to sell exclusively home-grown surplus produce in Kerala shows the potential of home-grown production to develop into a cooperative local marketing system. The example of Kerala is mentioned here to emphasis that house-lot gardens can do much more to the sustainable local food system if is provided with adequate policy and institutional support. Hence, it needs be considered to mention in the glossary.

It would be good to define urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture separately. There is considerable difference in the practices and socio-economic-environmental aspects of peri-urban agriculture and urban agriculture. Peri-urban agriculture is a commercial activity that is carried out on land whereas urban agriculture may not necessarily be a commercial activity and sometimes it doesn’t require land for production. The given definition in page 48 under the sub-heading ‘urban agriculture/urban gardening’ could be modified to incorporate urban house-lot gardens, rooftop gardens, vegetable and fruit gardening on the small private spaces of balcony, patio, and set back areas. It is also important to mention that urban agriculture could be of building-integrated capital-intensive production systems such as rooftop green houses and vertical gardens or low-budget house-lot vegetable gardening using the available spaces at rooftop, balcony and set back. In both these forms of urban agriculture, the importance is that it does not require any additional land for growing vegetable and fruit crops. There are efforts to bring environmental consciousness in capital intensive urban systems by adopting solar energy to power up the production. As the methods and practices of urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture are different, it would be appreciated if the terms could be defined separate in the glossary.

Respected Sir

As mentioned in my earlier comments on 2.2.1, Sustainable Diets being defined as protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable I mentioned about a Bengali ritual of eating 'Choddo sag' (14 greens). It is well known that leafy green vegetables are among nature’s best nutrition supplements Bhoot chaturdashi, celebrated a day before Kali Puja among Bengali is believed to be the day Narakasur (a demon) was killed, according to mythology. It is on this day 14 greens are consumed a list of which along with their scientific names are given below:

14 greens/Choddo sak

1. Waterclover green Marsilea minuta

2. Chick pea/Bengal gram leaves Cicer arietinum

3. Spinach leaves Spinacia oleracea

4. Corchorus sp. young Jute green

5. Calabash green Lagenaria siceraria - lac

6. Squash green Cucurbita sp.

7. Green amaranth Amaranthus viridis

8. Hincha saag /Helencha saag Enhydra fluctuans

9. Fenugreek green Trigonella foenum-graecum

10. Vine spinach Basella alba

11. Oriental radish green Raphanus sativus var. Longipinnatus

12. Black mustard green Brassica nigra

13. Water spinach green Ipomoea aquatica

14. Red amarnath leaves Amaranthus cruentus

Moreover, in another Bengali ritual of Lakshmi Puja, it is a must to have a khichdi (an Indian dish made with rice and lentils) to use particularly Gobindobhog, an aromatic rice landrace. In winter, it is common to celebrate the ritual of Makar Sankranti with aromatic date palm jaggery (Nolan gur) based sweet dishes (Payesh- a type of rice based kheer and pithe- rice cakes). These rituals are few of several examples of innumerable traditional dishes which are not only directly contributing to nutritional benefits but also to the conservation of indigenous landraces (eg. Gobindobhog). The date palm jaggery helps to improve digestion, have high iron, potassium and magnesium content. Thus my suggestion is instead of making the document totally technical even if a few of such innumerable traditional culinary dishes name can be included along with an emphasis towards their health benefits, it will motivate its users to have their very own traditional foods. After all, until and unless we are actually growing and eating our own traditional, local foods we can't contribute directly towards their conservation. Another such example is drumstick tree Moringa oleifera every part of which is used in Indian culinary traditions from ages and now it is well known for its medicinal benefits. We need for such examples from all over the world to understand the concept of Sustainable Diets being rooted to everyone's unique culture and biodiversity.

Dear all,

Thanks for sharing this document. I am wondering how it relates to the FAO Food Systems Framework that is currently being developed under the leadership of ESN.

The introduction is focusing on crop yields and crop production solely but should cover all food production agricultural sectors. I also note that pastoralism, the livelihood of several million people utilizing and managing more than a third of the world’s terrestrial area producing both milk and meat with grazing ruminants is not even mentioned. Also the generalization of people consuming too much animal protein should be written in a more specific way because this is only true for highly developed countries whereas ultra-processed food is on the rise also in developing countries. However, of the 2 billion malnourished people in the world, a large portion suffers of anemia because of lack of animal-source foods.

I also wonder from where the definition of agriculture has been taken. I have not seen this definition before and I must say it reads quite strange. We usually introduce the term as agriculture encompasses all agricultural sectors (crop and livestock production, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry). The terms farmers, farming systems and farming communities should be used carefully as they do not encompass all agricultural sectors and basically exclude pastoralism, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry.

Moreover the term natural resources is often used to encompass land and water but sometimes to also encompass biodiversity. It should either be defined in the wide sense or when applicable also be referred to biodiversity which is often forgotten.

Please check general statements – e.g. pest-resistant varieties and breeds – and use sector specific and adequate wording – in this case disease tolerant breeds.

Circular economy is an element of agroecology. This might be highlighted.

The list provided on page 26/27 seems to be limited to the One Planet Network. However many more initiatives illustrate and/or respond to the practice of creating resilient production systems.

Page 31 – I agree that the ecosystem approach is focusing on ecosystems but agroecology is rather people centered and it is not new but has been developed over the last century (when looking at literature).

Page 32 – agroecology may also comprise aquaculture. Agroecology goes beyond agro-ecosystems and promotes transformation of food systems including shortening value chains and consumer- producer interactions which is later explained on page 33. Agroecology is promoting territorial approaches. Here the approaches are overlapping.

I understand that the one health approach also includes environmental health which is not been mentioned in the definition.

Page 37 – I would suggest to replace the word ‘eater’ by ‘consumer’. The term ‘effluent form confined animal feed operations’ is not clear. Rather than air, water and soil are being contaminated by pesticides. Also further down on that page – it is not just a matter of nutrient density but also micronutrient content and availability in terms of absorption rates.

Page 46 – precision agriculture also applies to livestock production and e.g. milk yield, concentrate feed intake and health data. Integrated production may also include aquaculture e.g. livestock-aquaculture integration. Also the integration of trees (fruits, nuts, fertilizer trees, shade or feed or fencing for livestock trees).

Page 56 – smallholder farmers – this definition excludes pastoralists which are often considered in this category despite that they may manage large herds utilizing mostly communal lands – see http://www.fao.org/3/a-i1034e.pdf on small scale livestock keepers.

I am looking forward receiving the final report.

With kind regards,



Beate Scherf

Congratulations on such a thought-provoking report and bringing together the many different issues regarding sustainable food systems into a coherent document. This first draft will act as a useful reference, but I think the document’s main strength is in guiding us toward actions required to make our food systems more sustainable.

Food systems are commonly framed as being sustainable from an environmental, social and economic perspective. But the reason so much of our global food system is so unsustainable is that we have failed to build sufficient environmental and social costs into economic profitability. We need to put planet and people first and not be afraid to develop policies that make unsustainable food systems uneconomic, whilst promoting more sustainable food systems at affordable prices to all.

The introduction notes that “governments remain in the driving seat”, but is it not the case that multi-national agri-food companies yield more power in the global food system? There is growing acceptance within the private sector that much of our food system needs to be transformed, but so far this has mainly amounted to a bewildering array of voluntary certification schemes that have only made limited inroads.

The section on value chain approaches refers to such schemes, as well as the importance of improving consumer information, but they are not specifically mentioned in the section listing the main strategies to promote sustainable food systems. Yet sustainability certification and regulation could play a much greater role in ensuring the transition to sustainable food systems given that major multi-national companies have already started to adopt such practices.

The main problem is that these schemes are currently voluntary, there are far too many of them (463 according to the Eco-label index) and they each cover different environmental, social and economic criteria. It is therefore very difficult for consumers to understand what is included in each of the voluntary certification labels and whether one is more sustainable than the next.

The UN and nation states could play an important role in setting out a minimum level of environmental and social criteria that any sustainability certification scheme must adhere to in order to describe itself as promoting “sustainability”. In this way consumers could be confident that any product certified as sustainable, is indeed promoting, at a minimum level, all forms of sustainability throughout its value chain. This approach could be included under, and create an important link between, the proposed strategies to strengthen the policy environment, promote public-private partnerships, education and awareness-raising, as well as metric based monitoring and evaluation.

The focus on metric-based evaluation is important in terms of measuring progress on key sustainability issues. There is also a need for better methodologies and metrics to monitor sustainability performance, particularly in relation to food and nutrition security. One example of this is the Nutrient Deficit Score which calculates the deficiency (or excess) of key nutrient intakes from reported food consumption data, so as to provide guidance back to households on better food production and purchasing decisions. This can also then be linked back to greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental indicators in the value chains associated with such foods.

On strengthening the policy environment, there could be a role for trade policies that penalise foods that clearly involve unsustainable practices, such as deforestation: this would then encourage more foods to be sustainably certified. Similarly, agri-food support policies should be transformed so as to encourage more sustainable food production instead of those responsible for the largest greenhouse gas emissions and other unsustainable practices. Meanwhile, newly-emerging agri-food sectors and value chains in developing countries should not have to face unfair competition from imports of products which benefit from significant domestic support.

Regarding the definitions and frameworks:

In the definition of a food system, I suggest using the word “encompasses” rather than “gathers”, as the definition should be describing what a food system is rather than what it does.

Mention is also made that a sustainable food system is “more than a linear linking of the individual stages of the value chain”. Yet the framework used in figure 1 depicts a linear system within an environment of elements, drivers and outcomes. We need a better way of depicting the food system that shows circular flows at different stages of the value chain, as more and more of our biomass resource is fed back into the system as nutrients (eg any so-called food-based “waste” used in anaerobic digesters to produce organic fertiliser and gas energy).

Importantly we need to show not only the economic, but the environmental and social values at each stage of the supply chain, so that we can identify where additional links in the chain often reduce such values, and perhaps add unnecessary economic value at the expense of environmental and social costs.

Thank you for compiling this very interesting and informative document and I look forward to reading the next version.

Dear All,

As regards territorial approaches to development I'd like to add a reference to a recent position paper on 'fostering territorial perspective for development' prepared between GIZ/BMZ/AFD/FAO/CIRAD/EC/OECD/.. it could help in clarifying what adopting a territorial perspective  is about as well as clariying some of the underlying principles.

Patrick Herlant

DEVCO C1

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important draft. We are law professors at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA. We think the final report will serve as an invaluable tool for establishing a lexicon of SFS terms in a way that will facilitate a more precise understanding of SFS law and policy development. We are advocates of such a lexicon so that stakeholders communicate SFS concepts through a shared language. We offer three perspectives on the draft:

(1) Many SFS models embed law and policy making as a food system element. See p. 10, Fig. 1. This report may benefit from making a distinction between structural elements of SFS (law and policy, institutions) and the substantive elements of a food system (socio-cultural, environment, and science and technology). We make this suggestion so that stakeholders can distinguish between policy ideas and the tools that allow those ideas to be implemented. Framing law and policy as a structural aspect of SFS rather than a source of substantive input will also foster insight into how different types of government may or may not be well suited to adopt different policy options.

(2) The draft requests comments that assist in defining inter-connected policy-making. See p. 54. From the legal perspective, we accept that inter-connected policy making is a way to capture both the process and substance of formulating, implementing, and evaluating law and policy that has systems-based outcome goals. It is important that inter-connected policy making (passing the law, implementing it, and studying outcomes to make further changes if goals aren’t achieved) also incorporates a systems perspective so that changes in policy are assessed on the broad SFS spectrum, not simply within the particular policy domain. For example, inter-connected policy making regarding crop subsidies should consider not just the impact on agricultural sector, but also on human health and environment in all phases of policy-making. See K. Parsons et al., UK Policy Making Institutions and their Implications for Integrated Food Policy, in Barling & Fanzo, Advances in Food Security and Sustainability, Chpt 7, 3:227-8 (2018).

(3) Law (including regulation) is perhaps the largest influencer of the food system. For this reason, this report is critical to speaking a common language that will allow more effective policy development. We urge the drafters to provide more context, and possibly direction, for positive SFS policy development by defining or visualizing current policy incoherence. For example, what language will SFS stakeholders use to describe the barriers that come from policy incoherence? Similarly, should the report include visualizations of barriers to achieving SFS such as lack of inclusion, disconnections between legal domains, and cultural misunderstanding? Fig. 1 (p.10) and Annex 3 (p. 61) provide excellent visual representations of SFS concepts but they might benefit from clearer representations of barriers or friction points that limit SFS progress.

Again, we appreciate the opportunity to comment on this important draft and look forward to reading the final product.

· Margaret Sova McCabe, Dean & Professor of Law

· Uche U. Uwelukwa, E.J. Ball Professor of Law

· Susan Schneider, William H. Enfield Professor of Law & Director, LL.M. Program in Agriculture & Food Law

A Few Clarifying Comments

I cannot agree more on the matters of principle Ms. Emilia Venetsanou

Has raised in her second contribution.

However, I think we have failed to addressed the brief as it is presented to us, viz., coming to a common understanding of what might constitute a food system. Obviously, unless it is a generic food system free from specific details, it will hardly be a common one.

We are requested as it were, to outline a food system which in its skeleton form common to those in use everywhere. Figuratively speaking, their actual manifestations may be obese, well-built, or skinny.

Let us not confuse two distinct things connect with a tool, viz., the structure of the tool, and how it is used. Knife is a useful tool in the kitchen, but in someone’s hand, it could also be a murder weapon. The problem here is in how a person uses a given tool. Thus it is in a food system.

Social ills Ms. Emilia Venetsanou describes arise from this cause. My description of a food system has indicated clearly that an unfair exchange of values became available since barter system was invented. Her examples are just a case of labour exchanged for an unfairly small quantity of food in return, a possibility I have not overlooked in my first contribution.

So, It is not the food system per se that is the root of social ills, rather the way it is used. Of course, looking at food systems as sure sources of profit and building them for that purpose will exacerbate FSN, which is how it is today. Hence, the need for a justifiable food system.

Ensuring against a vairiety of social ills, environmental damage, etc., That are attributable to unjustifiable food systems or their misuse, is in the hands of powers that be. If they are willing and able to undertake this step, then they will need a holistic governance that covers several areas, viz., agriculture, trade, labour regulations, etc., etc.

Best practices as such might be very useful when an ppropriate agriculture policy is implemented in an area where it is suitable, in other words, tactical implementation/operationalization or whatever the current word is.

I hope that the final draft of the present work will clearly distinguish between the tool and its appropriate use not forgetting that at present we are only asked to contribute to what might justifiably constitute that tool i.e., a food system.

Cheers!

Lal Manavado.