Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

1. Formuler un plan de travail sur l'analyse des elements complexes et des problemes pratiques avec les parties prenantes pour determiner les interfaces entre science et politiques.

2. La production de connaissance au service des politiques est participative, concertee, iterative, interactive et reflete les perceptions des parties prenantes.

3. Prise en compte des perceptions des parties prenantes dans le processus d'elaboration des politiques.

4. Formuler un plan de travail sur l'evaluation des donnees probantes avec pour composantes les moyens de verification des donnees disponibles.

5. Elaboration d'un plan travail pratique avec pour composantes 1) science et 2) politique et pour elements a) activites, b) objectifs, c) resultats, indicateurs, d) methodes de verification, e) periode, f) parties prenantes, g) budget et logistic.

Dear Dr Lidder and Professor Welch,

Thank you for this opportunity to inform the FAO work on strengthening science-policy interfaces. Please find attached our evidence submission to this consultation. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have on our submission.

Best wishes,

Drs Maria Sharmina and Angela Mae Minas

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester

This submission provides written evidence from several academic research projects conducted by researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the University of Manchester. Evidence is also presented from a policy secondment undertaken by Maria Sharmina with the UK Government for Science and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, working on the Net Zero Foresight project. All views contained within are attributable to the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the University or the UK Government.

1 Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces

• Do you have an understanding of how agrifood systems policy is enacted in your country or at the regional or international levels?

The Tyndall Centre’s research suggests that high value crops and commodities usually get most policy attention. In the case of Southeast Asia, this is rice. Rice is also a highly political commodity. Programmes, policies and projects related to rice also often reach the wealthier and more connected members of the community (Minas et al 2020).

• Are you aware of opportunities to contribute science, evidence and knowledge to policy at national, regional or global levels?

Agricultural development, especially in rural areas, appears to always be entangled in issues of power, politics, and representation (Minas, 2018). Effective contribution to policy in Southeast Asia often happens through research partnerships with the government (e.g., IRRI and Philippine Department of Agriculture-funded on rice straw management).

• What kind of knowledge and evidence is privileged in such processes?

In Southeast Asia, more ‘powerful actors’ (e.g. large rice traders, agricultural machine owners) feel that they can demand policy support from the government; whilst the ‘poor and marginalised’ (e.g. small scale farmers) expect the government to help solve their problems, but without an opportunity to voice their concerns. (Minas, 2018). Here, research plays a role in delivering key messages to policy and decision makers. Tyndall’s work in Southeast Asia has contributed to outputs aimed to help start discussions with government actors in the Philippines and Myanmar.

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the processes you are aware of?

In the current policy making structure in the Philippines, certain powers, including those of the Department of Agriculture are devolved to local government units (i.e. municipal or town level). As such, some local towns could have a direct policy, e.g. against rice straw burning, despite there not being a national policy (Minas, 2018). Local actors are normally able to contribute to this process through representation by a farmers’ association.

• What opportunities and challenges have you faced for drawing from sustainability science, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity to inform policy?

From our experience in the UK, policy makers tend to be generalists rather than specialists. They, therefore, welcome the opportunity of communicating across knowledge domains that interdisciplinarity brings. At the same time, much academic research and policy making as a process tends to happen in silos determined by disciplinary boundaries and departments (Sharmina et al., 2016). To address the major societal challenges, such as climate change and the biodiversity crisis, that span multiple sectors, interdisciplinary insights are essential (Sharmina et al., 2019). To encourage such cross-fertilisation of disciplines, effective measures include physically co-locating people who have diverse sets of expertise, promoting long-term thinking, interdisciplinary advocacy at all organisational levels, and investing in dedicated administrative staff (Jenkins et al., 2020).

2 Knowledge production for policy

• To what extent do you work across disciplines and/or draw on expertise from academic and non-academic actors including Indigenous Peoples and small-scale producers?

As we aim to address complex societal challenges such as climate change, all our research is interdisciplinary and draws on expertise from beyond academia. Our Centre is structured by Research Theme, rather than by discipline, including: ‘Accelerating Social Transitions’, ‘Building Resilience’, ‘Overcoming Poverty with Climate Actions’, and ‘Reaching Zero Emissions’. Each research Theme crosses multiple disciplinary boundaries.

• To what extent, and in what ways, is your research co-produced with other knowledge holders and non-academic-stakeholders important for informing policy in agrifood systems?

At the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, we have aligned our mission of producing academically rigorous research with making the research relevant to policy makers. Such relevance comes from our ongoing engagement with local, regional and national policy makers through workshops, focus groups, surveys and interviews aimed at informing research questions, co-designing research proposals, collecting data, and disseminating research findings.

The Tyndall Centre’s research advocates for co-development of solutions to societal challenges. Specifically, our work in rice straw bioenergy proposes a strategy on how such co-development can be done purposefully, rather than being an afterthought, to help encourage collaboration between research, policy, and community ensure that farmers are engaged in the process (Minas et al 2020).

3 Knowledge translation for policy-making

• To what extent does your organization/university support you to produce and disseminate knowledge products to a range of audiences?
• Please describe any incentives or rewards in place for effective, sustained policy engagement, for example successfully conducting policy-relevant research and for its dissemination.
• Do you or your organization / university engage in processes to build evidence into agrifood policy processes such as government consultations, government knowledge management systems, digital decision-support systems, web portals, etc.? Please tell us more.

At our University, engagement with policy makers is encouraged and rewarded through promotions criteria, the Research Excellence Framework’s emphasis on research impact, and allocating time to the ‘Knowledge Exchange’ activity category in the University’s workload model.

Our co-production and dissemination of knowledge is supported by the University’s policy engagement institute Policy@Manchester, connecting researchers with policy actors. Among its range of activities, Policy@Manchester provides training, runs policy roundtables, supports researchers with writing policy briefings, and funds policy fellowships.

The Tyndall Centre regularly contributes to expert consultations and calls for evidence issued by government. Some examples include submitting written evidence: to the UK Government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on bioenergy’s social sustainability where we discussed aspects related to agriculture (April 2022); to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on food security (September 2022); and, to the UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the National Food Strategy (October 2019).

4 Assessing evidence

• How can assessments of evidence best be communicated to all stakeholders?

Tyndall Centre’s work that reviewed how the public responds to new technologies (Mander and Minas 2019) suggest that when engaging with stakeholders, it is important to involve those that may be affected in a fair and equitable decision-making processes. This ‘procedural justice’ can have a big impact on policy outcomes – especially in ensuring genuine engagement from all actors.

5 Examples

• Please share any examples of how the science, evidence and knowledge generated through your work or the work of your university has subsequently fed into decision-making.

In addition to the written evidence submissions cited above under Question 3, we are providing here several examples that are either focused on agrifood or have transferrable insights for the agrifood science-policy interface.

We produced a report for the European Parliament on understanding public responses to low carbon technology (Mander and Minas, 2019). This report served as background material to assist them in their parliamentary work. The report includes references to biomass and bioenergy.

Our work on the availability of biomass and energy crops for reducing carbon emissions whilst minimising food systems impacts (Welfle et al., 2014), informed the UK Government Department of Energy & Climate Change own scenarios in this area.

We collaborated with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to develop a decision support tool to help them assess carbon emissions and co-benefits of their policy decisions. Agriculture and land-use is one of the impact areas assessed in the tool.

A combination of our interdisciplinary research on the risks of negative emissions technologies unproven at scale (Larkin et al., 2018), on decarbonising the critical sectors (Sharmina et al., 2021), and on trade-offs between circular economy and climate change (Gallego-Schmid et al., 2020), and between circular economy and resilience (Fletcher et al., 2021), have led to Dr Sharmina’s policy secondment with the UK Government for Science and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, working on the Net Zero Foresight project. This project aims to support the resilience of government net zero policies to potential societal and technological changes.

1. Barriers: Most less developed countries follow a hierarchical system of governance, in which the process of policymaking generally involves people who, irrespective of their academic credentials, have attained a high management/administrative position. Considering that the number of women professionals in such bodies is less than 5-10%, it is only natural that the policy decisions are seldom gender inclusive, though it is accepted that women are at the centre of agrifood systems. Similarly, the youth rarely get representation in policymaking in the true sense, though there are some attempts made here and there.   
2. Opportunities: With increasing education, women are becoming more aware of their needs and rights and forming all-women or women-centric groups from SHG to women cooperatives. While many of these fail soon after taking off, the few that succeed encourage many more to follow suit. 
3. The educated and skilled youth are venturing into a large number of start-ups with or without help from funders, NGOs and corporate houses, and some have shown encouraging results, attracting the attention of the policymakers.

Dr. Malavika Dadlani , Former Joint Director (Res.), ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, India

Editor, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India.

I am a professional expert on forest inventory and monitoring, working in Academy of Forest and Grassland Inventory and Planning, National Forest and Grassland Administration (NFGA) of China, not in agrifood system. Because there are no experts in agrifood system from China participating in this consultation, I would like to contribute some information for reference.

1. Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces

Government departments are responsible for policy-making. Generally, there are science and technology consultation institutions under national and provincial government departments. For example, the Science and Technology Advisory Committee under the NFGA, which consists of famous experts from multiple disciplines, is responsible for consulting on policy-making. While they try to hold consultations, some of committee members are invited to participate in the consultation meeting. Generally, these are rarely sufficiently broad and inclusive. They tend to invite the friendly experts supporting the discussion issues, with the same ideas for the addressing topics. Thus, it is rare for a discussion issue to be rejected in China. Other experts have few opportunities to inform decision-making. In addition, there is also bureaucracy, which has impacts to efficient, inclusive, and scientific policy-making.

2. Knowledge production for policy

I have been engaged in national forest inventory and monitoring for more 30 years, the outputs of which have provided information support for scientific policy-making at macro levels. All my research to problems and challenges faced by forest inventory and monitoring system are needs-driven and/or problems-orientated. Maybe, it is a common situation that there are gaps between scientific research area and application area (or theory and practice). For example, many scientists and research staffs in universities and institutes have little understanding of policy-making and less interests beyond their sphere of work. Consequently, many papers published by scientists in their respective disciplines are used mostly by subsequent researchers just as review material not as an input for policy making. Thus, it is very encouragement for combination of production, education and research, or cooperation among institutes, universities and enterprises in China. However, the real situation is not as good as expected. As the body for policy-making, government departments should make efforts to combine the human resources or knowledge of these three areas, fill up the gaps between them, and make the whole benefits maximum. It is said unity is strength, and the people are the real heroes. Therefore, it is important for policy-making to draw on expertise from academic and non-academic actors including Indigenous Peoples and small-scale producers.

3. Knowledge translation for policy-making

My knowledge products mainly include scientific papers published in journals and technical standards issued by NFGA. The papers are used mostly by subsequent researchers just as review material and the technical standards are applied in practice, such as forest inventory and monitoring. In forestry, several Standardization Technical Committees were developed which are responsible for reviewing and releasing technical standards. In addition, one kind of reward, named as Liangxi Forestry Science and Technology Reward, was established to encourage the scientists and research staffs having made great contributions to scientific & technical progress, invention, and extension. The government departments, such as the NFGA, often conduct relevant investigations and invite some experts of our academy and other organizations engaging in to collate evidence for policy-making, development planning, and guideline drafting. Specially, our academy is responsible for developing a forest resources management platform, which is digital decision-support system for forest resources management, forestry development planning, and macro policy-making.

Dear FSN Moderators, 

On behalf of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and our over 12,000 individual members, thank you for the opportunity to provide comments. Please see the attachment for IFTs input on barriers and opportunities for scientists and other knowledge holders to engage in policy. 

Sincerely, 

Anna Rosales, RD, Senior Director Government Affairs & Nutrition, IFT  

Dear Office of the Chief Scientist of FAO,

The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) appreciates the opportunity to provide input to the consultation, “What are the barriers and opportunities for scientists and other knowledge holders to contribute to informing policy for more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems?” As a global organization of approximately 12,000 science of food professionals, we believe science is critical for establishing evidence-based policies to ensure a global food system that is sustainable, safe, nutritious, and accessible to all. We are encouraged to see FAO’s desire to address barriers and increase opportunities for scientists to inform policy and provide the following feedback and perspectives.

Section 1: Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces.

While some scientists are aware of how policies are enacted and opportunities to contribute science to policy, there are still many barriers that often limit the ability of scientists to inform agrifood policies.

• Lack of awareness of the science-policy process – Some researchers, particularly those early in their career, often lack awareness of how to contribute to the science-policy process. Opportunities to train and help investigators engage in the interface of science and policy would be beneficial.
• Misalignment of priorities between the policy environment and other sectors, like academia– For scientists in academia, publications, and income generation (e.g., grants, start-ups, royalties) are typically rewarded and recognized over policy involvement. Thus, scientific experts may lack motivation for voluntary involvement in policy-making processes. Additionally, scientists who have received industry funding are often not considered eligible to sit on scientific expert committees, yet academic/industry collaborations are encouraged at most universities. It would be beneficial to find a mechanism to enable scientists, even those with industry funding, to serve on expert committees.
• Lack of understanding or motivation to navigate political environments – Many scientists are not familiar with political environments. While Government agencies are often looking for scientific and technical insights, at times sometimes political priorities may overrule the scientific evidence. Providing greater training for scientists to understand how to have their science message heard in complex political environments would be helpful.
• Increased scrutiny on scientists publishing and participating in policy related research – Many scientists, particularly when researching areas that are controversial or might create a paradigm shift from the prevailing scientific perspective, often are hesitant to advance their message beyond a scientific publication. Several scientists have experienced personal and professional attacks from organizations and even other researchers in response to their research (Flegal, Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 2021; Prakash, GM Crops & Food, 2015). These are not attacks meant to debate the science, but personal attacks to discredit and harm reputation and person. There is a need to protect scientific discourse and ensure the science is the center of discussions and not attacks on character.

Section 2: Knowledge production for policy

Question 3 in this section asks if research and policy-making communities are united in their understanding of the challenges facing agrifood systems. While it seems that both research and policy-making communities understand the challenges, it is the priorities that are often not aligned. Sometimes there are higher priorities in the policy area than agrifood, and when scientists do not understand these competing priorities, it can be frustrating to see evidencebased policies not move forward or take a long time to develop. Alternatively, researchers can also minimize the policy impact of their research by making it too narrowly focused to be applicable. This requires the scientist to understand how to step back and assess their research for its policy impact.

Section 3: Knowledge translation for policy-making

As a scientific organization, IFT does engage in processes to build evidence into agrifood policy processes including government consultations, requests for information and requests for comments on proposed rule-making. We also engage our membership in these activities by making them aware of comment opportunities and requesting feedback from our membership to help inform any comments we develop. For some ongoing policy involvement, we also create committees made up of IFT members to help inform the development of feedback to policy-making organizations. For example, as Codex observers, we have IFT member volunteers engaging and providing scientific input into Codex committees. In 2021, we created the Food and Nutrition Security Steering Committee within IFT that is involved in identifying and communicating food science and technology solutions to major challenges in food and nutrition security.

Within the US university setting, the extension model is an excellent example of a dedicated knowledge translation resource to get science into the hands of those who need it, such as farmers and producers, to improve their livelihoods and lifestyles. A similar mechanism to translate knowledge to policy may be useful for developing evidence-based policies.

Section 4: Assessing evidence

The credibility and relevance of evidence should be determined by the rigor of the scientific methods used to develop the evidence. Assessing science in this way is the best way to prevent biases and opinions from influencing the evidence. The authors, institutions or funding source of scientific research should not immediately discredit or lower the applicability of the research, rather the evidence should be evaluated based on rigorous scientific standards. There are many risk-of-bias tools that have been established for this very purpose. If there is bias in the design of the trials or in how the results were collected and reported – this could be objectively evaluated through a risk-of-bias assessment. Bias should not be assumed, but carefully evaluated through scientific evaluation.

There are several factors which can help ensure that evidence is assessed in a rigorous, transparent, and neutral manner.

• Interdisciplinary group of researchers to evaluate the evidence – A broad group of scientists from across the entirety of the food system should be included in assessments of evidence that will impact policy. This is the best way to ensure that the evidence is considered from every perspective of key players in the food system. This is particularly true for the middle segment of the food supply chain that is often not included in evidence evaluation. For example, when recommendations are made on food and nutrition, food scientists are typically not included in the evidence analysis, even though recommendations are being made about food. As a result, many recommendations are difficult to achieve because the evidence assessors do not consider the feasibility of the recommendations within the current food system.
• Balanced perspectives of evidence reviewers – It is also critical to ensure that there is a balance of scientific perspectives during evidence review and in all levels of policy making that involve science. Many times, the consideration of bias and conflict of interest in developing scientific review committees is based solely on funding sources. However, this does not consider other forms of bias. Scientists can have biases, particularly when their entire career and research program is built on advancing a certain research direction. It is not possible to eliminate bias and potential conflicts of interest, therefore, the best alternative is to ensure that different perspectives are included and balanced. The exclusion of good scientists based solely on funding sources is a form of bias and does not lead to an inclusive and cooperative environment, thus it should be reconsidered. Accurate and understandable communications of evidence, particularly to policy makers, is critical to ensure evidence-based policies are pursued. Communication to the public is also critical as there are many sources of misinformation, particularly in the agrifood environment. It is also critical to be transparent in evidence assessments. Any assessment of scientific evidence for policy making should be published and include methodology of how the science was assessed. A report from a group of experts is insufficiently transparent because it is not clear which of the recommendations are based on scientific review and which are based on scientific opinion of the expert panel. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans follows a system such as this, where all the questions that will be evaluated are established in the beginning of the process. Systematic reviews are conducted for each question and the results of those reviews are published. Mechanisms such as this increase transparency and eliminate the potential for expert opinion to influence the outcomes of expert panels.

IFT believes quality science and objective scientific evaluation is critical to establishing evidence-based policies to transform the food system to ensure food and nutrition security for all. Science of food professionals play a critical role in generating this science and evaluating science for policy development and stand ready to serve in these capacities.

Dear FSN Moderators, 

Thanks for inviting more comments. Kindly find some barriers and suggestions to overcome the same in research systems under the following head.

Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces

• Do you have an understanding of how agrifood systems policy is enacted in your country or at the regional or international levels?

The policies are enacted in legislative assemblies, located at the federal level. Enabling policies and their implementation strategies are refined at the administration level. In addition, the National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) develops policies at the national level. The Directive Principles of State Policy of India are the guidelines to be followed by the government of India for the governance of the country. The Policy Maps have been designed to provide meaningful insights for various government functions with a special focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The maps for SDGs provide detailed insights into how India is faring in the achievement of the 17 SDGs.

• Are you aware of opportunities to contribute science, evidence, and knowledge to policy at national, regional, or global levels?

Science plays an important role in policymaking as policymaking is evidence-based. However, scientists have a limited role in that. Therefore, neither the policies are updated, nor the scientists are updated about the emerging policy-making instruments and strategies.

• What kind of knowledge and evidence is privileged in such processes?

Biophysical sciences (seed, feed, market, etc. in agriculture) are given more privilege in such processes. However, the role of social sciences (project formulation, producer organization development, etc.) is yet to be acknowledged.

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the processes you are aware of?

The biophysical sciences have a field network to transfer the production and marketing-related hardware. Along with that resource-poor farmers and fishers need mobilization, mentoring, and monitoring strategies for their entrepreneurial, empowerment, and environmental restoration frameworks. This may be worked out by strengthening the social sciences of universities and further linking them with farmers, fishers, and entrepreneurs.

• What opportunities and challenges have you faced for drawing from sustainability science, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinary to inform policy?

The research is conducted in basic, applied, and social sciences. Basic sciences have the advantage of having access to instruments and desk research. Hence they are able to publish better to achieve higher positions and then further support their juniors. The applied sciences need fields to work. Such vast fields are rarely available. Therefore, they come out with lesser publications and have lesser chances to be promoted to an authoritative position and support their juniors.  The social sciences have to work outside their campuses with the fishers, farmers, field professionals, etc. They are not supported by transportation and data collection facilities. Therefore, they remain at the lower level of the power structure.

Regards

Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces:

• Do you have an understanding of how agrifood systems policy is enacted in your country or at the regional or international levels?

Response: It is not transparent and often confusing. 

• Are you aware of opportunities to contribute science, evidence and knowledge to policy at national, regional or global levels?

Response: Scientific documents with published references (open access) are communicated to offices at all level through e-mail or open consultation like this from FSN team.

• What kind of knowledge and evidence is privileged in such processes?

Response: Questionable data quality (incomplete or inconsistent data), pseudo- science and belief- based evidence acceptable to the policy makers.

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the processes you are aware of?

Response: strength-popular policies, weakness- not sustainable on long term.

• What opportunities and challenges have you faced for drawing from sustainability science, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity to inform policy?

Response: Data consistency and completeness are two major challenges to analyse policies from sustainability point with independent view and lateral thinking.

• How can power asymmetries among stakeholders be taken effectively into account in science-policy processes?

Response: Percentage of people with income in a specific range like standard deviation  from average annual income, GDP-PP is a quantitative  measure of progress made in SDGs, which is  independent of power asymmetries and local policy making bodies .Gross Domestic Production per capita (GDP-PP) is a better measure of quality of life. Nations with small population might be having higher GDP-PP than nations with higher GDP and large population.

Policy end point should be ‘quantitative’ but not ‘qualitative’ measure. For example, ratio of income of a person in a year including social security and GDP-PP is a quantifiable measure of ‘decent life’, ‘poverty status’, ‘inclusivity’ and ‘leaving behind’.

Knowledge production for policy:

• What actions do you take to align your research to problems and challenges faced by agrifood systems?

Response: Scientific documents based on published references (open access) are communicated to offices at various levels through e-mail or open consultation like this from FSN team.

• In what ways are the research questions in your sphere of work framed by academic interests and/or funders’ focus?

Response: I am an independent voluntary information practitioner; funded research is not in the sphere of work.

• To what extent do you feel research and policy-making communities in your sphere of work are united in their understanding of the challenges facing agrifood systems? 

Response: There is conflict of interest between research and policy- making communities. Hardly any unity. Researchers focus on science part and policy-making communities focus on electoral gains.

• To what extent do you work across disciplines and/or draw on expertise from academic and non-academic actors including Indigenous Peoples and small-scale producers?

Response: Information available in public domain irrespective of its source is validated, verified and analysed for quality.

• To what extent, and in what ways, is your research co-produced with other knowledge holders and non-academic-stakeholders important for informing policy in agrifood systems?

Response: Information from other knowledge holders and non-academic actors is used in preparing document with focus on distributed development, de-centralized administration, inclusive development and leaving no one behind.

Knowledge translation for policy making:

• To what extent does your organization/university support you to produce and disseminate knowledge products to a range of audiences?

Response: I am an independent voluntary information practitioner, not affiliated to any organisation or university.

• How does it create/maintain institutional linkages between producers and users of research? Describe any dedicated resources for knowledge translation that are in place.

Response: Institutional reports are used to analyse the links between producers and users. UN agencies technical reports and annual reports are used for validation and verification of the data.

• Please describe any incentives or rewards in place for effective, sustained policy engagement, for example successfully conducting policy-relevant research and for its dissemination.

Response: Not aware of any incentives or rewards. There should not be any incentives or rewards for maintaining neutrality of policy-relevant research.

• Please tell us about any activities that you or your organization / university engage in to collate evidence for policy, such as evidence synthesis activities, or guideline development.

Response: UN agencies technical reports and annual reports are used for validation and verification of the data.

Assessing evidence:

• What makes evidence credible, relevant and legitimate to different audiences, and how might we balance their different requirements?

Response: Institutional reports are used to analyse the requirements of producers and users. UN agencies technical reports and annual reports are used for validation and verification of the data.

• How can evidence be assessed in a rigorous, transparent and neutral manner?

Response: Institutional reports of producers and users are assessed in a rigorous, transparent and neutral manner. UN agencies technical reports and annual reports are used for validation and verification of the data.

• How can assessments of evidence best be communicated to all stakeholders?

Response: Scientific documents based on published references (open access) can be communicated to offices at various levels through e-mail or open consultation like this from FSN team.

Suggestion included:

1. More interactions between scientists and policy makers (preferably with technological back ground (technocrats) for gauzing the needs precisely and acccurately).
2. Region specific developments based on local needs.
3. Quick Transfer of technologies and field assessments.
4. Preference to be given in development of  rural  technologies sans depending on electric and fossil fuels for operation so as to save environment on long term basis and also to generate rural employment and for constructive engagement of human resources. 
5. This year is  IYM-2023 (International Year of Millets): All programs need to be in “Blitzkrieg Mode”, then only we can get substantial outcome.
6. Introduction of More Producer Centric Policies: Producer (farmer/aquaculturists/fishers) centric policies need to be enhanced. World over the marginal land owners are more in number and are extremely vulnerable to vagaries of nature (extremities of climate change that included cyclones, floods, droughts etc.), socio-economic conditions, conflicts as they are occurring in different parts of the world and wars of trade. These are known facts. Major hindrance here is the overall development in terms of enhanced levels of food production will be marginal. This can be a major problem to meet food demands in coming years of possible increase of population to 10 billion by 2050. In my observation cooperative farming paid good dividends among marginal farmers. This needs to be promted.
7. Food and Nutritional security demands need to be met by all means. Especially of hinterland residents of all under developed nations is need of the hour for the reason they are going play a major role in service sectors with continuously increasing aged population in developed countries.

Background to the issue

I provide here under a case study of  "HUDHUD a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm (VSCS) that hit the east coast at Vishakhapatnam,Andhra Pradesh State, India  on 12^th  Oct, 2014.  Despite the fact that the cyclone  was not the most severe cyclone that hit the Indian coast, however, it had the most devastating impact  during the landfall. I was in the city next to coast (few hundred meters away).

In post cyclone  conditions 1. Emergency meetings were held.2. Loss assessments were made 3. Reports were published. 

  A paper was published by me on how to mitigate measures of cyclone that included, short, mid and long term kind  (Reference: Prasad, MM (2014). HUDHUD, A case study. In the background of Tropical cyclones (TC) in the Bay of Bengal (BoB) and their impact on fisheries. Fishing Chimes 34(7):16-20)

One of the simplest solutions I suggested was to raise casuarina plantation of of 150 meters width all along the coast. We can not stop cyclones but we can predict  the landfall and can reduce the tidal surge  if we have sufficient plantations.

The implementation did not take place and  possible reasons include:

1. Extreme Cyclone occurrenace is not regular phenomena.
2. Lack for sufficient funds and allocations therein.
3. Different priorities.
4. Change in policy makers and
5. Changes in policies it self for various reasons  such as COVID-19 etc. 

At the same time, it need to stressed that after Hud Hud significant developments took place from all walks of life that included important contributions policy makers and implementation  to such an extent  that Viskhapatnam reverted back to full fledged commercial and other activities in few months time.

Background

I am a late-stage PhD candidate and a political geographer at Western Sydney Umiversity's Institute for Culture and Society. My research looks at the participatory opportunity opened up by the reform of the UNCFS, and analyses the participation of social movements, civil society organisations, and Indigenous Peoples' organisations in the CFS through the CSIPM. I was an alternate focal point for Australaisia on the CSIPM Coordination Committee from May- October 2019, and a co-facilitator of the CSIPM Youth Working Group from Jan 2020- Jan 2022. I have also served on the board of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance -  a national, farmer led organisation working for food sovereignty in Australia, from October 2018 - October 2021. In these roles, I have worked directly with grassroots and Indigenous knowledge holders, academic researchers, and social and natural scientists to facilitate their participation in agri-food systems policy discussions. I have also personally followed and contributed to a number of CFS policy instruments, and have participated in various FAO convention and treaty meetings with the IPC. Prior to this I worked for 15 years in Canada as a community organiser in local and regional agri-food economic development.

These roles and experiences have provided crucial insights into the barriers and opportunities for scientists and other knowledge holders to contribute to informing policy for more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. For this consultation, I want to focus on just three key points that I think are crucial elements for the FAO's new Science and Innovation Strategy

What counts as knowledge / evidence, and who decides?

• First, it is important to recognise that there is a politics of knowledge. Knowledge is not neutral, it is produced and is mediated through historical, political, cultural, and social processes. We should consider which types of knowledge have become accepted, and which types are still on the fringes, and broaden our perspectives to fully integrate more kinds of relevant knowledge into policy and practice. For example, in Australia, we have particular fire management practices that are promoted and practiced by different levels of government. However, these were not sufficient to prevent the terrible bushfires of 2019, with enormous social and economic costs. Aboriginal 'cultural burning' practices are slowly being recognised as being more effective, efficient, and in harmony with nature - but these have a long way to go before they are fully incorporated into official fire management practices. This should be a priority going forward.
• Currently, we tend to focus too much on the substance of knowledge, and its technical dimensions, rather than the way knowledge is produced (or the socio-cultural and philosophical basis of knowledge). For example, agroecology has been taken up by the FAO and the CFS, and is recognised as a holistic, context-adpatable approach to transforming food systems to be more efficient sustainable, inclusive and resilient. However, there is still a focus on agroecology as a science and a set of practices (the technical aspects of agroecology). Much less attention is paid to agroecology as a political ontology - a way of seeing the world as interdependent, and humans as part of complex, emergent adaptive systems. This view informs our actions in a different way than seeing ourselves as outside complexity, as independent of nature, and as managers and controllers of ecological systems. 

How do we effectively and meaningfully engage a range of knowledge-holders into agri-food policy discussions and into the implementation of policy instruments.

• First, we must recognise the power inequities that currently exist to participation of knowledge holders, particularly peasants Indigenous peoples. women, youth, and academics from the global south, and make a realistic evaluation of the barriers to transforming these institutionalised inequities. 
• One of the key barriers is a lack of understanding, relationships, and coordination between scales and regions, and across sectors, which prevents meaningful knowledge sharing and translation. Technical experts and policy officers at the FAO, and in governments, rather than building meaningful, long term relationships with people's organisations and social movements, often reproduce a top-down, technical, fly-in fly out approach. They may see themselves as the experts who are there to disseminate knowledge, resulting in knowledge transfer rather than knowledge dialogue. They may not fully understand local contexts, dynamics, and needs, nor build on the local strengths, capacities, and resources. 
• These practices are reinforced by institutional practices and reporting expectations, and donor risk aversion and short term impact horizons, which leads to more short term ineffective projects and wasted resources. Some donors also have vested interests in certain kinds of outcomes, which narrows opportunities for innovation. 
  • For example https://www.iatp.org/beyond-africas-green-revolution-time-donors-shift-funding-agroecology  
  • https://www.agroecology-pool.org/moneyflowsreport/
  • https://croataninstitute.org/2021/06/29/credit-where-due-financing-a-just-transition-to-agroecology-in-the-aftermath-of-brexit/
  • https://www.fao.org/3/ca5602en/ca5602en.pdf

     

• The FAO should work with donor organisations and countries to connect them with organisations who are already working with local and regional knowledge holders to support bottom-up and dialogic approaches to knowledge sharing, and help them become more comfortable with longer time horizons and a different way of working with communities and assessing impact.
• Technical experts and policy officers should be trained in the principles and practices of facilitation - an innovative methodology for participation developed by the CSIPM to support the leadership of peasant and Indigenous peoples, particularly women and youth from the global south, in agrifood policy discussions. The CSIPM has many examples of how this methodology has been and continues to be highly effective for the participation of knowledge holders in policy discussions. 
  • See link to the CSIPM Guide to Facilitation, published in May 2021. https://www.csm4cfs.org/15096/
• The CFS HLPE is an innovative and effective model for the participation of a diverse range of knowledge-holders in agrifood policy discussions. However, the HLPE should pay more attention to equity issues surrounding participation- providing funding / stipends for knowledge holders that are not otherwise institutionally supported so they have the capacity to contribute. Language and regional diversity is another important issue that needs to be addressed. 

If you would like to learn more about facilitation as a participatory methodology, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Anisah Madden

PhD Candidate, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Community Economies Research Network (CERN). Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (CSIPM) for relations with the United Nations Committee on World Food Security. Youth Working Group https://www.csm4cfs.org/policy-working-groups/youth/ 

Recent publications

Healy, S., Chitranshi, B., Diprose, G., Eskelinen, T., Madden, A., Santala, I., & Williams, M. (2020). Planetary food commons and postcapitalist post-COVID food futures. Development, 63(2), 277-284. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41301-020-00267-9

Lyne, I., & Madden, A. (2020). Enterprising new worlds: social enterprise and the value of repair. In The Handbook of Diverse Economies. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Develop equality on quality, quantity, prices and, mainly, trading on a local, regional, national and international integrated and rising scale.

Sustainable agrifood systems, as a general rule, mean familiar agriculture / small rural properties.

Familiar agriculture systems, as a general rule, have not a smart strategy in terms of quality, quantity and prices. For example, organic products have not a good quality (under the customers perspective). Organic products have also not a stable supply among the year (quantity).

Organic products use to be more expansive than traditional agriculture products. Finally, organic products have a huge difficult in terms of TRADING (a easy way for they be reach by customers), not only on local markets, but on regional, national and international markets too.

In other respects, familiar agriculture systems (small rural properties) have presented different competitive conditions (on a local focus, but mainly on a regional, national and international perspective)

These differences have reaches issues such as agrochemical products use, technological levels, etc.

However, if we think about medium and big agrifood systems, everyone have presented the same conditions of these small agrifood systems.

So sustainable search is a challenge for all the kind of rural properties.

Quality, quantity, prices and trading must be searched by ALL kind of (sustainable) agrifood systems and we can call this "equality".

This equality must be searched on a local focus, first of all. After, by a wave "movement", we could work with the regional, national and international territories.

This movement has not happen easily. We would need a integrated and rising efforts by everyone.

For example: a determined agrifood products produced by small rural properties could be sold in local and/or regional markets. In these same markets (trading equality) another kind of agrifood products could be commercialized by medium rural properties and so on. However, all agrifood products must be the same (equality) quality, quantity and prices´ levels too.

Think in this proposal on a customers perspective: they need and want to find everything in a unique place (trading) and with the same conditions.

One market for everyone (small, medium and large suppliers and all kind of customers): this a wave movement which need be moved on a integrated and  rising scale....

P.S. In the attached file, there is a example of this approach. This document is available in Portuguese language.