Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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Amanda Jekums

Member since
Organization: Global Alliance for the Future of Food
Country: Canada
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Increasing research in systems-based approaches, with an emphasis on indivisible ecological, health, social, and economic goals. Recognizing and learning from diverse knowledge systems and ways of knowing.

This member contributed to:

    • On behalf of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food

      In 2022 the Global Alliance for the Future of Food published the Politics of Knowledge, in which we asked 17 diverse contributor teams from around the world how they understand, document, and communicate evidence about agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways. The resulting compendium synthesizes the key insights shared by all of the contributors. It squarely addresses the barriers and opportunities for scientists and other knowledge holders to contribute to informing policy for more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.

      Section 1 of the compendium discusses the broader meaning of evidence, the power and politics that shape and infuse our understanding of evidence, what counts as evidence, the broad range of ways evidence is documented, and the historical, epistemological roots that shape our understanding of agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways.

      Section 2 is shaped by five dominant questions identified by the contributors as contested ground in agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways. In each we share evidence from their experiences and perspectives, whether academic, practical, farmer, Indigenous, scientific, social movement, or a combination.

      Section 3 provides insights into how evidence is mobilized across different constituencies — who is asking for evidence, for whom, and in what form? Two key findings are that: 1) different food systems actors (farmers, policymakers, and donors, for example) require different evidence; and 2) relationship-building with these different actors is a key strategy for mobilization.

      Section 4 outlines five priority areas to catalyze a transformative research and action agenda that is transdisciplinary; is focused on political and social justice and the right to food and food sovereignty; and challenges entrenched power, vested interests, and structural lock-ins. These five priority areas are:

      1. Support comparative and systems performance research;
      2. Explore questions of scale, time, and space;
      3. Build capacity for transdisciplinary and participatory research and training;
      4. Support knowledge and evidence mobilization as well as communication; and
      5. Accelerate transformational pathways.

      The contributors emphasized that a transformative research and action agenda must:

      • Advance political justice elements of food sovereignty, gender equity, and rights to land and seeds.
      • Boost investments in public research and development that focuses on agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways, with a focus on the public good rather than private interests.
      • Assist farmer and food producer organizations to strengthen knowledge and evidence mobilization strategies for their own movements, as well as advocating for more supportive policies and practices.
      • Build capacity for participatory, multidisciplinary, multi-actor research and action, and support co-innovation with farmers, value chains, and policymakers.
      • Strengthen transdisciplinary and feminist agroecology methodologies that break down colonial and patriarchal knowledge regimes, and lift up the agricultural knowledge systems of women, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized communities.
      • Reform the current system for academic valuation so that outcomes other than scientific publications and policy briefs are encouraged and hence better allow co-inquiry, participation, and democratization of knowledge.
      • Convene diverse actors, including funders supporting agricultural research, to understand tensions related to research, action, and agroecological transitions and to continue co-creating knowledge with an emphasis on farmer-to-farmer dialogues and knowledge sharing through horizontal networks of exchange.
      • Develop and mainstream innovative approaches and methodologies that highlight good practice case studies and ascendant narratives in agroecology, regenerative approaches, and Indigenous foodways in order to influence research and policies.

      Extensive detail and case studies relevant to this consultation can be found throughout the attached compendium. 

      Amanda Jekums, Program Coordinator, Global Alliance for the Future of Food

      See the attachments: