IFOAM – Organics International thanks FAO for organizing this broad consultation on the Maximizing the Impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. IFOAM – Organics International is the global umbrella organization for organic farming movements with more than 800 members in all continents. We are a recognized CSO representing farmers by various UN organizations including CFS, UNDESA, UNFCCC, UNEP and UNCCD.
We welcome the idea to have the coming decade dedicated to action on nutrition. We believe that it is a great opportunity to make a big step towards achieving commitments undertaken by countries in the framework of WHA, Nutrition for Growth, ICN2, as well as SDG 2 and contribute to other relevant targets of Agenda 2030. However, we also believe that, if global agriculture is to stay on the path it has been taking for the past decades will lead to the failure of DoA. As the UNCTAD report titled ‘Wake Up Before It Is Too Late’ points out, hunger and malnutrition are not supply-side productivity problems: "meeting food security challenges is primarily about empowerment of the poor.” A shift is needed "from a conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production towards mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers."
The common goal: dietary diversity
The benefits of a more diverse diet are now widely recognized. Dietary diversity is a strong predictor of micronutrient adequacy and overall diet quality. Increasing availability and access to a nutritionally diverse range of foods within and across different food groups is key to ensure adequate intake of essential nutrients required for healthy, productive lives.
However, to date, the diversity of produce delivered by international trade has mainly benefited wealthy consumers in high-income countries, while poor people in low-income countries continue to be unable to afford the diversity available on these markets. We need to stop the erosion of traditional diets that has started in many places. No government policies should anymore have an explicit focus on monocropping of staple crops or favouring the specialization in major cereal or cash crop production that helps to push out more diverse food cropping at the expense of nutritionally-important foodstuffs. What is needed instead is supportive policies at national level for dietary diversity, combined with locally developed solutions, including integrated homestead food production and greater integration of locally available nutrient dense foods into market systems that can reach urban consumers. Reviving the importance of locally available nutrient-dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, and beans and pulses within food systems and ensuring greater market access are key strategies to achieve a more diversified diet.
Besides being detrimental to nutrition and dietary as well as agricultural diversity, corporate industrialization of agriculture in many developing countries is resulting in massive land grabs, destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems, displacement of indigenous peoples, destruction of livelihoods and cultures and creates financial dependency for smallholders.
NSA as the real challenge
Some developing countries, which are just about to start putting nutrition on their national agendas, might be tempted and misguided to tick the task by turning to the simplest solutions sometimes driven by donors. Public-private partnerships need to be critically viewed in this respect, too. In our opinion, nutrition-specific actions will remain a much easier and more popular target for donors. Therefore, while it is imperative for DoA to keep both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions in any portfolio designed to improve nutrition to address malnutrition both in the short and the longer term, the main challenge lies in the latter. If DoA is to make a real mark on the nutrition scene, it should stimulate and enable countries in the form of clear guidance as well as targeted resources to walk the hard way of designing nutrition-sensitive policies, schemes and investments.
Focus on Actions!
Last but not least, instead of an often followed events-based approach for a UN Decade, we believe DoA should be action-oriented. It should define a roadmap of actions for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, which should form part of an overall transformation towards truly sustainable agriculture and food systems based on the idea of ecological intensification. Awareness raising programmes and campaigns on the importance of dietary diversity and ‘good food’ adjusted to local conditions should be an essential part of such a roadmap.
IFOAM – Organics International will work in its full capacity to make DoA a true success and we offer collaboration to all organizations and entities wanting to join us on the pathway outlined above.
Г-н Gabor Figeczky