Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

SOLUTIONS FROM THE LAND (SfL) COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments and input on the draft Guidance for Target 10 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework1. Target 10 commits to managing agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, and forests in sustainable ways that increase biodiversity and meet people’s needs through sustainable uses and benefit-sharing. This Guidance Framework offers action-

oriented recommendations directed toward increasing country level capacities to integrate sustainable agriculture and biodiversity friendly approaches to ensure food and nutrition security, healthy ecosystem functioning, and the livelihoods of producers at all scales and systems.

Farmers, forest managers, forest-dependent people, land and water resource managers, herders, fisherfolk, aquaculturists, beekeepers, and Indigenous Peoples are primary producers of food and nutrition essential to all human life.

Solutions from the Land (SfL)2 is a farmer/scientist led nonprofit organization focused on land- based solutions to local, regional, and global challenges. SfL promotes an agricultural

renaissance through which innovative and entrepreneurial farmers, ranchers, aquaculutralists and foresters produce nutritious food, feed, fiber, clean energy, healthy ecosystems, quality livelihoods and strong rural economies.

The comments below reflect our reading and perspectives on the Biodiversity and Agrifood Systems Guidance document. Text in red is suggested language to be inserted into the guidance document; see also excel comments template for additional comment detail.

1. We find much in this guidance document of great value. We recognize and appreciate the anchoring of biodiversity in agriculture and food systems in the context of global efforts to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and agriculture’s capacity to concurrently deliver multiple SDGs ranging from food and nutrition security, healthy soil,

   clean water, enhanced biodiversity, regenerated ecosystem services to rural livelihoods. We commend you for the inclusion and alignment with the UNFCCC Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) which our farmers have been intimately involved in co-creating over the past few years.

2. Embed biodiversity into sustainability of agriculture and forestry. SfL concurs with the explicit assumption that biodiversity is an element of landscape and ecosystem resilience and sustainability; and must be integrated into agrifood systems strategic design, planning and implementation (Section 1.4 Mainstreaming biodiversity in agricultural sectors, pg7). Biodiversity conservation and management safeguards and enhances the environment as well as sustains into the future economic and social benefits.3 Biodiversity (genetic, species abundance and richness, and ecosystem community diversity) are key indicators of sustainability and resilient earth systems. Concrete action plans must set goals and develop policies and biodiversity-friendly practices and approaches that account for the diverse mosaic of land uses and the multifunctional capacities of agriculture and forestry to concurrently deliver multiple SDGs when conservation, efficiency and productivity goals, resources and policies align. We recommend you insert in this section a statement that proposes to “embed biodiversity into sustainability of agriculture and forestry” definitionally and as a measure/indicator of resilience and sustainability.

3. “Stakeholders” in the agrifood system. In the Executive Summary and throughout, the term “stakeholders” in agrifood systems is used liberally. However, it is not until page 17 that the “primary producers” of food, forestry and agricultural products are explicitly identified as “farmers, herders, fisherfolk, and foresters.” Yet these are the people and occupations that are engaged in agriculture and are central to implementing “concrete action for practices for sustainable agriculture” (499, line 505-508). The language in Target 10 of the CBD/COP decision 15/4 is explicit, “Ensure that areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry are managed sustainably in particular through the sustainable use of biodiversity, including….application of biodiversity friendly practices.” It is farmers, herders, fisherfolk and foresters who are the target of change and primary “custodians of biodiversity” (p.7 Section 1.4.4). Would it not make sense to be explicit “who” these primary producers are? They are farmers, herders, fisherfolk, and foresters who must be involved at local and country level discussions in the construction of policies and regulations, and experiential and science-based implementation that affect their capacities to embed biodiversity in their management systems to produce food and nutrition and livelihoods that pull them out of poverty.

Farmers are more than simply “stakeholders” and should be explicitly referenced upfront and throughout the document. A second agrifood stakeholder group seems to be missing from the text of this document, that of scientists that are helping to produce new knowledge and technologies. Recommend text on page5, (line 114-115) the “whole of government and whole of society approach involving all stakeholders, including primary producers, scientists, practitioners, implementers and holders of rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.”

Fig 2 is a useful stakeholder mapping graphic. Wonder if the high-level bolded categories ought to be called out sooner than page 18? in the Executive Summary and perhaps page 5 discussion of stakeholders. Recommend text: “Agrifood stakeholders encompass primary producers, consumers, business and industry, government at local and national levels, industry and food associations, academic, scientific and medical communities and research centers.”

Please see the attached excel spreadsheet for places in the document where these primary producers might be explicitly identified. They are the local people who will be expected to implement recommended approaches and biodiversity-friendly practices in ANNEX I and their livelihoods depend on their success and support they receive from other stakeholders as mapped in Figure 2.

4. Target10, agrifood systems relationships with other Biodiversity Targets. Table 1 Relationships between Target 10 and other KMGBF Targets is an excellent start in connecting biodiversity with the complexity of constructing sustainable and resilient agriculture and forestry systems. For example, we as a farmer organization have producers who are facing invasive alien species (Target 6) challenges and associated state and national policies that are undermining conservation, efficiency, productivity and efforts to be sustainable and resilient. Our farmers are also deeply involved in the use of data to guide management decisions (SfL Data Policy). Target 21 focuses on making data, information and knowledge accessible to guide biodiversity actions of small holders. mid- and larger scale operations. As noted above, # 2, biodiversity-genetic, species, and ecosystem community diversity- are important metrics for quantification and monitoring of ecosystem well-being and sustaining agrifood systems. We recommendbuilding out and elaborating these Target 10 relationships in more detail as a next step in the development of country-level Biodiversity Guidance.

5. Whole-of-government and whole-of-society (p 17, lines 485-496). SfL fully supports and applauds this high-level intent. However, the complexity of implementing this approach must not be underestimated. We recommend strongly to insert the text: Design and planning at the national level should involve many stakeholders but must include at the core and be accountable to local primary producers-- farmers, herders, fisherfolk and foresters at all scales and genders including indigenous people—and their cultural values, capacities and resources needed to operationalize and profitably implement a national plan.

6. Translating commitment to concrete action. This is the heart of the Guidance document and the authors have done an excellent job of being purposeful in offering country-level guidance options on “how” to improve, incentivize, energize, and invest in their agrifood systems to achieve multifunctionality. We especially appreciate the articulation of the range of approaches and biodiversity-friendly practices available to improve resilience and sustainability of agrifood systems.

We recommend an additional general principle, Systems approaches inthe Implementation Section 3, general principles (line 626, pg 21)

3.1. Systems and systems-of-systems approaches. Forestry, aquaculture, and agriculture land and water management are not linear production structures but complex systems. It is complexity that gives these systems the capacity to provide multiple benefits. For example, biodiversity in agricultural cropping systems promotes circularity within and among systems, creating complexity that gives the system unique capacity to deliver ecosystem services and a variety of food and agricultural products.4 Different combinations or sets of sustainable and biodiversity friendly approaches will create new systems as they interact. Systems, including systems of systems approaches offer useful feedback loops and data for evaluating individual and combinations of practices/approaches and serve to guide adjustment and redesign as needed.

We recommend adding the following 5th bullet point to the “general principles” list on page 21 (Line 633)

• Adapt system and systems-of-systems approaches that utilize circularity, diversification and complexity to mimic the natural

  complexity of earth systems that use, recycle and reuse resources.

3.3 Key elements to create an enabling environment (pg 23; lines 699-714) Congruent with the Systems Approach guiding principle recommended above in 3.1, we recommend an additional (8th) element, “circular bioeconomies” to create enabling environments that would precede current elements, (3) regulatory framework and (4) financial framework

We suggest the following text:

• Promote circular bioeconomies5 that recycle, renew and regenerate resources, reduce waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use as long as possible, increase efficiency and provide for economic benefits.

7. ANNEX I. Approaches and biodiversity-friendly practices

We recommend the addition of Circular Bioeconomy to the list of approaches and biodiversity-friendly practices in ANNEX 1. Draft text below:

Circular Bioeconomy6. Circular bioeconomies recycle, renew and regenerate resources, reduce waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use as long as possible, increase efficiency and provide economic benefits. Circular economies integrate bioeconomies which preserve and enhance natural capital, including biodiversity by balancing renewable resource flows with renewable natural resources and finite earth materials and stock resources with management goals of recycling, refurbishing, reuse/redistribution and maintenance that prolong utility of resources. Country-level bioeconomies7 can promote grow-make-use-restore/regenerate activities of farm level circular systems to produce multi-benefit products that: 1) Retain on-farm value as inputs within the farm system as substitutes for off-farm resources; 2) Retain on-farm and landscape level value as recirculated and regenerated ecosystem resource inputs and outputs returned to the ecosystem; 3) Expand circular biosystems networks as off-farm inputs and resources utilize raw, recycled and regenerated coproducts from regional and national circular economy networks, science and technologies, and public/private infrastructures; 4) Are off-farm outputs for consumption beyond the farm gate as consumer end products (eg food) and inputs to other farms and value chains; and 5) Lead to farmer household outcomes such as improved livelihoods, health and wellbeing, biodiversity and environmental gains, and more robust economies. Adaptations, adjustments, modifications, and redesign can target farm systems a) physical components, material and energy flows, b) system feedbacks on the interactions among farm systems using observation and data tracking systems, c) farm system design, the structures, information flows, that help the farmer manage parameters and feedbacks, and d) the farmer/forester/fisher/community underpinning goals, values and expectations for outcomes.

4. LW Morton and E Shea. 2022. Frontier: Beyond productivity-recreating the circles of life to deliver multiple benefits with circular systems. ASABE (American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers) Vol 65:2:411-418 https://doi.org/10.13031/ja.14904

5. LW Morton and E. Shea. Circular bioeconomies as solution pathways to SDGs: Farm-level circularity networked into regional and national circular economies (under review ASABE).