IFOAM – Organics International appreciates the opportunity to comment on the scope of the upcoming High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) entitled “Food Security and Nutrition: Building a global narrative towards 2030”.
We would like to convey the following feedbacks and suggestions.
We believe that, in order for CFS to increase its synergies with the broader political agenda, and at the same time ensuring convergence with initiatives that have similar or complementary objectives, this report should deliver an evaluation of the impacts and the implementation of CFS products in agreement with the endorsed document CFS 2017/44/11.
We know that a process of stocktaking is already ongoing through the bi-annual Global Thematic Events and we believe that this report could support and speed up the monitoring effort of the committee, evaluating the level of dissemination of CFS products and assessing their level of promotion among different type of stakeholders.
We also reckon that ten years after the CFS reform and the HLPE establishment, this report represents a timing occasion to perform a stocktaking exercise and to showcase policy uptakes of CFS products, supported by case studies and countries’ evidences, with a special focus on the perspective of those most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.
We believe, as stated also by the CSM, that the report should distinctly refer to the contemporary global context, with the world community being off-track in the implementation of the SDGs and the worldwide agri-food system being a major player in producing negative externalities. Thus, the report should shed a forwarding looking perspective asking policy makers to deliver against the great expectations that lay behind achieving the zero hunger objective.
The report should consider the threefold challenge of achieving food and nutrition security for a growing population, while preserving and regenerate environmental integrity and at the same time ensuring that the ongoing transformation of global food systems supports social justice
In this regard, we invite the HLPE to take into account also framework approaches for better understanding and accounting the impacts and externalities of agriculture and food value chains (true/full cost accounting etc.). The hidden costs and benefits in the way we produce, process, distribute, and consume food are rarely captured in conventional economic analyses. Pathways for FSN interventions must recognize and strengthen those forms of agricultural production that explicitly enhance ecosystem services and build the natural capital that underpins food systems, creating regenerative forms of agriculture and a food system that generates multiple positive externalities.
References:
Full Cost Accounting to Transform Agriculture and Food Systems A guideline for the organic movement, developed in collaboration with the Sustainable Organic Agriculture Action Network (SOAAN), 2019
https://www.ifoam.bio/sites/default/files/tca_paper_final.pdf
TEEB (2018). TEEB for Agriculture & Food: Scientifc and Economic Foundations. Geneva:
UN Environment.
http://teebweb.org/agrifood/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Foundations_Repo…
IFOAM – EU, Feeding the people: Agroecology for nourishing the world and transforming
the agri-food system, 2016
https://www.ifoam-eu.org/sites/default/files/ifoameu_policy_ffe_feeding…
Federica Varini