This FAO evidence platform provides evidence and tools to support governments and stakeholders in the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
To find relevant documents for a VGFSyN recommendation, select a focus area from the left menu and the sub-focus area of your interest. You will be redirected to a page listing all relevant VGFSyN recommendations. Select a recommendation to access the links to the relevant online documents
Focus Area II
Sustainable food supply chains to achieve healthy diets in the context of economic, social and environmental sustainability, and climate change
This focus area highlights the importance of promoting nutrition across the food supply chain and suggests ways to create sustainable and resilient food supply chains and sustainable consumption and production in the midst of climate change and natural resource degradation. It provides guidance on: mainstreaming climate adaptation and mitigation; promoting sustainable use and management of natural resources; improving food storage, processing, packaging, transformation and reformulation; improving nutrition and health of farm and food system workers; and empowering youth across food systems.
3.2.4 Improving food storage, processing, packaging, transformation and reformulation
The four digit numbering of each recommendation follows the numbering in the VGFSyN, whereby the first digit represents the chapter 3 of the document that includes the 105 recommendations, the second digit the focus area, the third digit the sub-focus
area and the letter the specific recommendation.
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Recommendation 3.2.4.a
Governments, private sector, and other stakeholders should, where appropriate, invest in infrastructure (e.g. storage facilities, transport infrastructure, physical markets and market information systems) and logistical support to prevent postharvest loss and waste and support the ability of food producers, including smallholders and micro, small and medium-size enterprises to deliver diverse, perishable and safe food to local, regional, international markets in sustainable ways, in accordance with paragraph 41, 45 and 3.1.1c.
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Recommendation 3.2.4.b
Governments, private sector, and farmers and other producers and their associations should promote minimizing food loss and waste on farms, during post-harvest storage, and throughout processing, transportation, and retail. This includes demand-driven training and capacity to improve management practices and foster the adoption of appropriate technologies(*1). They should intensify efforts to quantify and investigate how to lessen food loss in the food storage, processing, transformation and reformulation stages and food waste in retail and consumer stages in order to halt the decrease of food quality and quantity and economic loss, but also could lead to a more efficient use of natural resources with positive impact on climate change.
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Recommendation 3.2.4.c
Governments, private sector and research centers should support research, monitoring, development and scaling up the use of innovative processing technologies and practices in accordance with the three dimensions of sustainable development that can retain the nutrient content of food, minimize post-harvest nutrient losses, create, where appropriate, new value added products from food processing by-products, and promote longer-term storage of food, particularly during periods of drought, flooding, and insufficient production. Particular attention should be given to processing by small-scale and family farmer producer associations, especially women, and small and medium enterprises. Food fortification should be evidence and science-based and could be part of nutrition-specific actions, when necessary, in specific contexts, to address micronutrient gaps of public health concern, in line with national legislations. Public policies and programs should only promote fortification when there is a firm science and evidence base and this should not detract from long-term promotion of diverse healthy diets through sustainable food systems.
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Recommendation 3.2.4.d
Governments, according to national contexts, should foster strategies, guidelines, and instruments for nutrition labelling and support appropriate evidence and science-based measures, including considering diverse science and evidence-based [front-of-pack labelling] FOPL schemes, (which could include interpretive and informative labeling), taking into account Codex Alimentarius Commission standards, guidelines and recommendations and other agreed relevant international and national standards, and marketing, to help consumers to make informed and healthy choices(*1) with special emphasis on the impact they have on children.
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Recommendation 3.2.4.e
Private sector should contribute to public health goals including those set out in the 2030 Agenda aligned with national legislations, regulations, priorities and laws and with national food-based dietary guidelines by producing and promoting nutritious and safe food that contribute to a healthy diet and are produced sustainably, increasing and preserving nutrient content and should make efforts to reformulate foods, when necessary, by reducing the content of nutrients of public health concern.
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Recommendation 3.2.4.f
Governments, where appropriate, should encourage private sector food actors, including local private sector, to work towards more environmentally sustainable and safe packaging of products.