Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

World Animal Protection is very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the development of the scope of the HLPE study on Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock.  From our perspective, the draft scope provides an excellent base for the study and it is our hope that undertaking the HLPE study, in and of itself, will allow for a growing recognition that the global adherence to animal welfare principles in livestock production will have significant positive impacts for sustainable development, including food security and nutrition as well as food quality and safety. We hope that the following comments will be helpful to the process.

Part A: Context: drivers and challenges

Whereas a critical assessment of drivers and challenges will be essential as a base for identifying pathways to sustainable agriculture and livestock production, the validity of the assessment and therefore the appropriateness of pathways identified will largely depend on the assumptions that ground the current debate.  Therefore clarifying what the assumptions have been and possibly assessing the validity of assumptions made should be part of the drivers and challenges section.

In this regard, World Animal Protection would like to raise two issues for consideration by the Project Team:

§  Should there be a linear relationship between the rapid escalation of demand for animal-source food and global livestock production levels?  In other words, does supply have to follow demand or does the sustainability of the overall agricultural sector, taking into account the relatively high water-, land- and climate footprint of animal-source foods, require that an appropriate balance between animal and crop-sourced foods be considered in the study.

§  Studies[i] show that 36% of the world’s human-edible crop calories are fed to animals but only 17%-30% of these calories are returned for human consumption as meat or milk.[ii] The effect of this is that 25%-30% (70%-83% of 36%) of the world’s crop calories are lost through livestock production.  However, the FAO currently defines food loss and waste as a reduction in food mass (rather than nutritional value) and specifically excludes from its definition human-edible food that is used as animal feed. [iii]  Changing the definition – nutritional value (calories) rather than mass and including all food even if unintended for human consumption – will therefore lead to substantially different conclusions, without depreciating the value of animal sourced foods in delivery of protein and micronutrients, especially in developing countries, and, as  such, the value of smallholder and pastoralist livestock production in ensuring nutritional sufficiency.

In terms of the challenges and opportunities areas identified, we believe that the following issues are missing from the current listing:

§  Animal welfare (including animal health) is increasingly recognized to have a direct impact on economic growth and viability (consumer choice, productivity increase, etc.) social concerns in terms of public health, food safety and quality (as recognized recently in the CFS Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investments), and environmental sustainability, including emissions, water and land-use, etc. Animal health and welfare should be added to what is currently item e. in paragraph 2. Alternatively, it could be added as a separate issue in this list. Since livestock production is a focus area of the report, this seems fitting as animal health and welfare is core to livestock production. This is recognized in definitions of sustainable livestock, such as those outlined by the FAO-led Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock, the primary international high level multistakeholder platform addressing this issue.

Addressing the topic of animal welfare is also in line with the HLPE’s Note on Critical and Emerging Issues for Food Security and Nutrition (August 2014) which draws attention to the animal welfare concerns connected to industrial animal production and the need for policies that could significantly reduce the harm caused by some livestock systems while increasing the positive outcomes for nutrition and for livelihoods that the livestock sector can provide. Note also that the topic ‘Animal welfare and food security’ was part of the option ‘Livestock’ in the list of proposals for the HLPE report in 2016 as presented during CFS 41.

§  In addition to issues related to nutrition, wider concerns about the link between livestock production and public health (zoonotic disease, rising AMR due to antibiotic use in livestock production, in short the 'one health' approach) should be reflected.  Public health concerns could be reflected under what is currently item a. in paragraph 2.

Part B: Achieving sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition

In light of the potential importance of the envisioned HLPE report for incentivizing a new global approach to sustainable agriculture, World Animal Protection, encourages the Project Team to take a collective systems approach in addition to the more disaggregated individual systems approach as is suggested by the current language in paragraph 3. 

World Animal Protection strongly encourages the Project Team to explore some of the following options as possible pathways towards sustainable agriculture:

· Supporting animal welfare (including animal health) as tool to advance FSN and sustainable development, including by implementation of good animal health and welfare standards in livestock production to improve productivity and resilience;

· Considering limits on the usage of human-edible food for purposes other than food, including animal feed.

· Focus on increasing sustainable consumption to ensure nutritional sufficiency for all, and to drive forward sustainable livestock production.

See attahed further comments in a background paper plus, in track-changes, World Animal Protection's suggested additions to the scope.