Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Hola,

Soy profesora de corso de Nutrición en la Universidad Federal do Paraná (Brasil).

Les envio alguns apuntes sobre la convocatória "Abordagens agroecológicas y otras inovaciones para la agricultura y sistemas alimentares sustentables que mejoren la seguridad alimentaria y nutrición".

Lo que pasa es que no he logrado hacer los apuntes directamente en http://www.fao.org/fsnforum/cfs-hlpe/agroecology_innov y cómo tenia la posibilidad de hacerlo por correo aqui estoy.

1. Es sumariamente importante apuntar cuestiones sobre la relación de la Agroecología con la salud (pública, colectiva y ambiental), así que traer elementos que aborden las evidencias del acceso a una alimentación agroecológica con la salud y calidad de vida es algo urgente.

2. Do mismo modo, traer también evidencias que atesten la agroecologia como una ciencia ciudadana, cuyas práctica son alinhada con los movimientos sociales, dando enfoque , sobre todo, a los papeles de las mujeres y de la juventud.

3. Cómo afirmamos recientemente, en un capítulo de livro, "... la agroecologia puede ser capaz de impulsionar nuevos significados ao acto de se alimentar y nutrir, especialmente se la relacionarmos con los princípios de la soberania alimentaria y del derecho humano a la alimentación adecuada. Así que afirmamos que la agroecologia camina rumbo al bien y buen comer".

4. Apuntar cuestiones, dónde son las mujeres aquellas que impresionan, desde los espacios que ellas ocupan el debate y las aciones que fortalecen las prácticas agroecológicas.

5. La agroecologia cuando en sintonia con las aciones públicas (políticas públicas a ejemplo de la alimentación escolar) trabaja aspectos desde la producción, procesamiento y consumo de los alimentos.

No estou segura se era para hacer eso, pero,  así lo hice.

Gracias,

VIEWS OF THE MINISTRY OF FOOD AGRICULTURE AND LIVESTOCK OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY ON HLPE REPORT

The HLPE report shall address the following questions:

• To what extent can agroecological and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies improve resource efficiency, minimize ecological footprint, strengthen resilience, secure social equity and responsibility, and create decent jobs, in particular for youth, in agriculture and food systems?

• What are the controversies and uncertainties related to innovative technologies and practices? What are their associated risks? What are the barriers to the adoption of agroecology and other innovative approaches, technologies and practices and how to address them? What are their impacts on FSN in its four dimensions (availability, access, utilization and stability), human health and well-being, and the environment?

• What regulations and standards, what instruments, processes and governance mechanisms are needed to create an enabling environment for the development and implementation of agroecology and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies that enhance food security and nutrition? What are the impacts of trade rules, and intellectual property rights on the development and implementation of such practices and technologies?

• How to assess and monitor the potential impacts on FSN, whether positive or negative, of agroecology and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies? Which criteria, indicators, statistics and metrics are needed?

Our views on the subject;

1. With the effect of agroecological and sustainable innovative approaches, determination of the potential of natural resources will be provided and the potential, the problems and the susceptibility of the agricultural lands will be examined. Therefore, more accurate and reasonable decisions will be made. Also, with the help of the agroecological approaches, the usage of fossil fuel and chemical fertilizer etc. will be decreased and help to minimize the ecological footprint. The integration of innovative approaches to the traditional agricultural techniques must be provided. Also, the farmers must be informed about the ecological principles and programs by suitable techniques. Then, the social equity and awareness raising of the new generation would be provided.

2. The existence, richness and sustainable usage of food are closely relevant with climate change. The approach of agroecology provide long time climate assessment. Also, the determination of the climate properties of agricultural products can help for making a decision about food security. Moreover, the traditional knowledge must not be regarded. Farmers, who have to produce in rough land conditions, promote physical and biological methods to enhance these conditions. These methods must be combined with new technological methods. The technological methods must be spontaneously carried out together with the traditional knowledge. The constitution of self-sufficient system with the agricultural technologies towards the traditional knowledge provide the sustainable natural resources. After all, the when the food security increases the human health and prosperity develop.

3. For applying and increasing the new technologies, climate and land evaluation works on especially the subjects about agroecological approaches have to be continued. The strategical evaluations and planning have to provide alternative producing scenarios when some extraordinary conditions such as climate differences and fast population growth exist. The risks, advantages and effects of the new technologies to traditional knowledge must be evaluated.

4. To observe the positive or negative effects of agricultural technologies about food security and nutrition, local, regional and territorial natural resources (eg. vegetation, fauna, soil, water, climate, geology, topography etc.) must be analyzed. With the light of the results of these analyzes, determination of the usage properties of lands, evaluation of the same potentials between the lands and the problems must be exposed. Also, the abiotic parameters for the crops especially barley, wheat, corn etc. must be determined. The indicators can change depending on diversity, coherence, cultural change and fragmentation of land. All these situations and the analyzes can be revealed by using Geographic Information Systems. Updating the data in certain periods provides the following and strategic evaluation works.

Best regards.

I welcome the decision of the CFS to commission a report on: “Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition”.

Considering the urgency to address the lack of sustainability of our currently dominant high input production systems, it is a very timely subject.

However, it would be futile to limit the report to a comparison of “Agroecological approaches” with “other innovations”.  Indeed Agroecology is more than an innovation, but rather a comprehensive paradigm that combines a broad range of innovations with a deep understanding of nature and includes also traditional knowledge.

Therefore, I recommend that the term “and other innovations” not be considered as alternatives to agroecology, but be envisaged for their potential contribution to sustainable agriculture and to enhancing food security and nutrition, within the agroecological paradigm.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please find [...] below [Ed.] a report on sustainable development and agroecology both in French and English that Secours Catholique - Caritas France and its partners working on the field on all continents. It gives a social and environmental overview of the advantages of such practices.

Best of luck with this very important and crucial work for the future of agriculture,

Agroecology and Sustainable Development 

Agroeclogie et developpement durable 

To quote the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food – Hilal Elver – in 2015 “There is a need to encourage a major shift from current industrial agriculture to transformative activities such as conservation agriculture (agroecology)”.

The IPES on Sustainable Food Systems reinforced this need to transition to agroecological systems stressing “This transition is viable and necessary whether the starting point is highly specialised industrial agriculture or forms of subsistence farming in poor developing countries”

This argument is not new. The former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter in his 2010 report emphasised the benefits of using low external input, sustainable agriculture in poor countries. He cites many examples of approaches which will improve productivity where it has been lagging behind and raise incomes for the poorest smallholders, while at the same time preserving ecosystems. These include:

• agroforestry where multifunctional trees are incorporated into agricultural systems;
• water harvesting in dryland areas which allows for the cultivation of abandoned and degraded lands, and improves the water productivity of crops.  For example, In West Africa, stone barriers built alongside fields slow down runoff water during the rainy season, allowing an improvement of soil moisture, the replenishment of water tables, and reductions in soil erosion. The water retention capacity is multiplied five- to ten-fold, the biomass production multiplies by 10 to 15 times, and livestock can feed on the grass that grows along the stone barriers after the rains;
• the integration of livestock into farming systems as this provides protein for the family and manure to fertilise the soil.

Compassion in World Farming believes that diversified agroecological systems, including silvopastoralism, combined with:

• a predominantly plant-based diet, and,
• a significant contraction in dietary animal sourced foods in high-consumption countries and convergence to a healthy low level elsewhere

is the solution for a sustainable food and farming system to feed the existing and predicted human population with a healthy and nourishing diet. Planetary boundaries will respected and the SDGs successfully delivered.

This position is elaborated further in the attached document that accompanied our major international conference addressing these matters; Olivier de Schutter was a key speaker at the event.

CIWF welcomes the proposal and supports the UN and the HLPE in identifying a key need for a report into Agroecology and offers any assistance it can give the process. 

Dear Members of the HLPE team,

On behalf of the Private Sector Mechanism, attached please find comments on the draft Terms of Reference for the report on Agroecology and Other Technologies.  As noted in the PSM comments, there was concern that the Terms of Reference negotiated in the MYPOW were not used as the basis for this consultation. 

We hope the report will recognize that agricultural technologies do not sit outside, but rather are a vital part of delivering agroecology.  In this regard, it will be important to understand the other technologies that will be covered and have made some recommendations in that regard. 

Best regards,

Robynne Anderson

I have been working in agroecology for a decade. Agroecology has a long track record addressing the root causes of hunger - it does so especially because it is more than a set of techniques. Agroecology is a way of knowing, a method for transformation. As Wezel and colleagues so aptly put it, agroecology is a science, a set of practices and a social movement. It works not as a set of isolated technical intervenions, like diversification or cover cropping for example. Agroecology works because it integrates social movements to change the conditions of production that give farmers a bad deal, and it integrates ecological science and local knowledge to improve ecological conditions on the farm. Agroecology cannot but be an integrated field. The scope of this report should be mindful of this integration. 

With that in mind, I would like to comment on the scope, team and process for drafting such a report. These comments are inspired by discussions with colleagues in agroecology the U.S. 

First, the scope of the report should integrate agroecology as a science, practice and social movement. This means that the types of expertise and the kinds of evidence the report must address go beyond the purely agronomic. Often an historical approach is necessary as well, one that takes into account the kinds of food systems transformations in the past, and the root causes of farmers present vulnerability. Given the potential of agroecology to confer resilience to climate change, special attention should be given to resilience and vulnerability, and agroecology's contribution to mitigating climate hazards. 

Secondly, the project team should include ecologists, social scientists, agronomists, and others comfortable with transdicisplinary work and mixed methods. The team should also include the people who are foremost experts in the practical and social movement aspects of agroecology - farmers and social movement representatives themselves.

Finally, the report should have a clearly agreed upon, transparent process for deciding what is included, what meets the standard of evidence, how the project team is chosen, and how scientific disputes will be settled. Agroecology, agricultural research, agricultural development, environmental and anti-poverty work are all politically charged fields with deeply entrenched private interests. Ensuring this is a scientifically rigourous, credible process oriented for the public good is essential. Transparency is key.

Las cuatro cuestiones que se propone abordar el informe del HLPE me parecen fundamentales, porque nos obligan a aterrizar con un abordaje objetivo e integrador, y nos permiten identificar con precision los cuellos de botella - sean estos tecnologicos, estructurales, o ideologicos- que hasta la fecha han truncado los procesos de innovacion desde la agroecologia como ciencia y praxis. Un tema que considero critico es la dispersion de los conocimientos y de la evidencia cientifica sobre los impactos y la ventaja comparativa de las innovaciones agroecologicas, en contraste a los sistemas agricolas y alimentarios convencionales. Es posible que este sea mas bien un tema de la visibilizacion de estos conocimientos y el acceso a la informacion. Esto no es muy claro. ¿Necesita la agroecologia generar mas evidencia, o ya tenemos suficiente evidencia pero los canales de acceso y utilizacion de la informacion son inadecuados? He constatado que hay organizaciones de desarrollo que se auto-definen como agroecologicas y pueden bien estar trabajando con un enfoque centrado en las personas, lo cual es muy importante, pero manejan amplios supuestos sobre los impactos positivos que sus iniciativas tienen sobre la conservacion de la biodiversidad, los sistemas de semilla, la regeneracion de recursos, la creacion de ingresos economicos y los medios de vida sustentables. Es importante cuestionar y profundizar estos supuestos. Estoy en el campo de la agroecologia, actualmente desarrollando una tesis doctoral, desde el año 2004, y me preocupa que en muchos espacios de desarrollo -inclusive academicos- persistan algunos mitos sobre lo que es/no es agroecologico. Sugiero enfocar nuestros esfuerzos en la generacion y sistematizacion de estudios, replicacion de modelos agroecologicos que funcionen por contexto, la construccion de innovaciones en la dimension social e institucional que aborden fuertes limitaciones y cuellos de botella en cuanto a pequeñas cadenas de valor en la agricultura familiar, mercados alternativos justos, educacion en nutricion y consumo responsable, y sistemas alimentarios locales saludables. Por ultimo, es preocupante que se haya ideologizado y politizado la agroecologia, perdiendo de vista lo imprescindible que es mantener la objetividad de nuestras investigaciones, no para socavarla como ciencia, sino mas bien para fortalecerla, y mejorar nuestras estrategias de desarrollo humano y sostenible en un contexto de cambio climatico, globalizacion de dietas, y malnutricion. 

Dear FAO -

Thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments.

I have been working in agroecology for over 15 years, as a community-based and now university-affiliated educator, farmer, and researcher. I believe agroecology is inherently a systemic view of agricultural systems which must take the interplay of social and ecological factors into account. This means that agroecology must be taken as a science, social movement, and practice – all in dialectical relationship. Subtracting any of these elements, or marginalizing the voices of those who advance agroecology through research, community organizing and political advocacy, or producing food itself through agroecological methods, is unacceptable in any process intending to be authoritative on the subject of agroecology.

Here are some additional comments:

a) The scope of the report should reflect what I have described above, and should additionally foreground and elevate the voices of farmers and movements who have been working towards agroecology for decades – as their voices are much less often heard and their insights are invaluable.

b) The project team should include scientists from a variety of social, geographic, and disciplinary backgrounds. It is crucial to have this intersection to avoid narrow forms of disciplinary or reductionist thinking, and to create synergies between forms of knowledge. This therefore indicates that actors outside of what is conventionally considered “science”, that is: agroecological farmers and advocates should also be included on the team.

c) The evidence included in the report also merits scrutiny, meaning that practical knowledge and wisdom from farmers and social movement actors should be considered meaningful and useful. “Evidence” that works from a place of profit-making self interest, however (as in marketing materials for agriculture-related products of large corporations) should not be admissible.

d) It is imperative that the whole report making process be transparent, and this includes disclosure for any conflicts of interest among the team, as well as regular communication by the team and the FAO with relevant stakeholders from around the globe. Because there is already an inequity in access to communications technologies, it should be emphasized that those on the peripheries who are impacted by agroecology (such as smallholder farmers across the developing world) may require special efforts on the part of the FAO to reach and include.

Thank you,

Antonio Roman-Alcalá