Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

Dear members of the HLPE team

Attached you will find a "joint submission of organisations sharing concerns over climate-smart agriculture". This document has been written and is endorsed by more than 50 international and national organisations (see list below).

We would like to bring to your attention to elements that address  the second question you asked us to answer: “Have an appropriate range of innovative approaches been identified and documented in the draft? If there are key gaps in coverage of approaches, what are these and how would they be appropriately incorporated in the draft? Does the draft illustrate correctly the contributions of these approaches to FSN and sustainable development?”.

See attached document.

List of signatories

International

Action Against Hunger

ActionAid International

Africa Europe Faith & Justice Network (AEFJN)

African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)

CIDSE

Cultivate!

Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group)

Focus on the Global South

IFOAM - Organics International

Pesticide Action Network Europe

Pesticide Action Network International (global)

Pesticide Action Network North America

Red de Acción en plaguicidas y sus Alternativas de América Latina

Regeneration International

Sociedad Cientifica LatinoAmericana de Agroecologia (SOCLA)

Third World Network

National

Accion por la Biodiversidad (Argentina)

A Cultivar que se acaba el mundo. Agroecología y comercio justo (Argentina)

African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)

Agrecol - Association for AgriCulture and Ecology (Germany)

Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (USA)

Alliance Sud - Network of Swiss Development Organizations (Switzerland)

Biowatch South Africa (South Africa)

Bread for all (Switzerland)

Brot für die Welt (Germany)

Caritas diocésaine de Kaolack (Sénégal)

Campaign for Climate Justice Network - CCJN (Nepal)

CCFD-Terre Solidaire (France)

Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (UK)

Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos “Segundo Montes Mozo S.J.” - CSMM (Ecuador)

Community Self Reliance Centre - CSRC (Nepal)

EcoNexus (UK)

Family Farm Defenders (USA)

Fastenopfer (Switzerland)

Grupo Semillas  (Colombia)

Iles de Paix (Belgium)

Innovations for Developmental Empowerment & Accessible Services - IDEAS (Pakistan)

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (USA)

Malta Organic Agriculture Movement (Malta)

Magsasaka at Siyentipiko Para sa Pag-Unlad ng Agrikultura - MASIPAG (Philippines)

Movement for Advancing Understanding on Sustainability and Mutuality - MAUSAM (India)

Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa New Zealand

Pestizid Aktions-Netzwerk Germany

Pesticide Action Network North America (USA)

Pesticide Action Network UK (UK)

Public Advocacy Initiatives for Rights & Values in India - PAIRVI (India)

Red Nacional de Agricultura Familiar Colombia (Colombia)

Sahabat Alam Malaysia/Friends of the Earth Malaysia (Malaysia)

Save Our Seeds (Germany)

SOS Faim (Belgium)

Tanzania Organization for Agricultural Development - TOfAD (Tanzania)

Terra Nuova: Centro per lo Volontariato ONLUS (Italy)

USC Canada (Canada)

Vía Orgánica (México)

We want to thank the HLPE team for bringing together this draft report in such short notice of time. We acknowledge how big and difficult the task is and hope that our submission can help the team move towards a consolidated first draft.

You wil find CIDSE's comments in the attached document.

Dear colleagues,

I am a former principal scientist at ICRISAT Sahelian Center in Niamey, Niger. I would like make some comments regarding your V0 draft of the report “Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition. I apologise for the tardiness of my reaction, due to five funerals in the past month. I hope you can still have a look at my suggestions about two subjects that I feel are missing in your draft: the role of soil variability and the role of wetlands and their interaction with surrounding drylands, especially in semi-arid regions. To keep this message to a manageable size I will discuss the role of wetlands in semi-arid areas in a separate message.

The role of within-field soil and crop growth variability in semi-arid areas

In western, mechanised agriculture, where production circumstances can often be controlled to a large degree, homogeneity is desirable because it promotes homogeneous crop development. For subsistence farmers, however, who can control their production circumstances only to a very limited extent, homogeneity increases the risk of complete crop failure, especially in semi-arid regions. Soil variability can help spread risks for such farmers, risks caused by too little or too much rain as well as risks caused by pests and diseases.

I attach for you a 12-page, well illustrated brochure (pictures plus captions tell the story) on the role of soil and crop growth variability in the Sahel, based on peer-reviewed research. In my opinion many of the findings included in the brochure are also valid for other semi-arid regions, and some perhaps even in higher rainfall areas. The roles of trees (especially Faidherbia albida) and large mound-building termites (Macrotermes) are also discussed. See also the summary included below.

For your further I also attach my list of publications on dryland agriculture in the Sahel. Feel free to ask for more information on any of those publications. I attach the pdf’s of two key publications from that list:

- on the risk reducing potential of soil and crop growth variability (Brouwer et a. 1993)

- and on spatial variability of nutrient leaching (including P, on sandy soils) and ways of reducing leaching losses of animal manure (Brouwer & Powell 1997).

In Brouwer & Bouma (1997, not attached) the roles of other tree species are discussed, among many other things.

I hope you find this of use. Do feel free to contact me for further input.

With my best wishes for your very useful report,

Kind regards, Joost Brouwer

To whom it may concern,

Many thanks for sharing the zero draft of the HLPE report on ‘Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition’. I appreciate the opportunity to feed in at this stage and I am happy to share the comments bellow:

• The words ‘food security’ and ‘nutrition’ are used interchangeably throughout the report. It is fundamental that nuances associated with both issues are reflected in the report, especially as the impact of agroecology on food security may differ from its impact on nutrition. For example increased income can lead to better food security, but not to better nutrition, yet this does not transpire from the current text. While attention is currently mostly put on the food security element, the purpose of the report is to equally address both issue: more attention on the nutrition element is needed to achieve this.
• Section 1.2.2 should be focusing on the linkages between agroecology and food security and nutrition, yet the focus is specifically on food security (See table 1). It is important to separately highlight the nutrition element and to what extent agroecology principles can affect nutrition; this is an area that would significantly benefit from improved evidence and an area that the report must address (beyond a case study).
• The analysis of the NSA section needs to be strengthened. On the one hand the session appears reductive to child nutrition, on the other the different NSA approaches are not equally explored: for example, it would be interesting to focus more on NSA approaches that are replicable and can be use in larger scale farming (but not necessarily value chain approaches). In terms of women’s empowerment some attention is required to address tradeoffs and possible negative implications, especially for nutrition; this is an area in which there is extensive literature.
• The framing around reducing food losses and waste remains unclear; it would be interesting to link actions to reduce food losses and waste to a food systems approach – which is not currently highlighted. Additionally, the relation between food losses and waste and sustainable value chains approaches shall be explored.
• It is important to also start thinking about measurement and indicators to truly demonstrate impact.

We look forward to the next steps of the report development.

Regards,

Anna

Anna De Palma | Livelihoods Adviser (DESA) | Nutrition Team | Human Development Department | Department for International Development | 22 Whitehall, London SW1A 2EG | Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 174473; ECHO: 835 1203 | Email: [email protected]

The V0 draft has some interesting aspects but, in our opinion, needs significant improvement. Our comments suggest ways that the panel can address the more fundamental dynamics and contradictions necessary to enable sustainability transitions that can meet the SDGs, address climate change and confront food and nutrition insecurity. In this regard, agroecology when articulated as a transformative approach to food system, is the most promising “innovation” (and set of “innovations”) at play at the global level. Yet, the current dominant innovation systems, in a wider disabling economic and political context, are containing, undermining and suppressing agroecology by supporting deeply problematic approaches to innovation largely constructed within a neoliberal-economic development paradigm. Our more detailed comments, in the attached file, suggest ways that the panel can more deeply engage with this wider political and economic context within which innovation and agroecology are situated.

Dear Sir, Madam,

Please find enclosed the submission to the HLPE report (Draft V0) from the Agriculture and Food Commission of Coordination Sud (prepared by Secours catholique – Caritas France, Oxfam France, Action contre la faim, Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, Gret, CCFD-Terre Solidaire).

Thank you for your attention to this submission. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

On behalf of the Commission

Katia ROESCH

Dear All,

It is commendable that Agroecology, Organic farming and Permaculture get some recognition. But it is lamentable and disheartening that any attempt for Food-Security & Nutrition should almost entirely ingnore soil!  The other blind spot is "earthworms" that not only recycle any & all organic matter (vermicomposting) but also aerate, drain and mix topsoils to depth.  If your soil has no worms then the soil is dying or already dead and you must move on...  Please search for "Topsoil", "Humus", "Compost" or "Earthworms" and there are zero hits. Then try "Fish" - 14, "Forest" - 135, "GM(O)" - 50+; "water" 50+

This lack of basic understanding about topsoil and agriculture is systemic in FAO who should know better and provide the proper direction. My other comments attached. See  report on earthworms, soil moisture and organic Ag.: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8789/2/2/33

Dear colleagues,

Here are my comments, I have focused them only on one topic:  Agroecological Crop Protection (ACP).

In the attached file, I made proposals to amend the text and I enriched the list of references. There is a shift in this area that is relevant to take.

Best regards.

Jean-Philippe Deguine (CIRAD)

Dear V0 draft authors,

Thank you for this first version of the ambition endeavor of analyzing the complex relationships between agroecological approaches and “other innovations” for sustainable agriculture and food systems and food security and nutrition. This HLPE report is timely and might help to make serious steps to go beyond somehow sterile debates between two opposed sides, and this open consultation around the proposal should allow this.

I warmly commend the expert group for this first version, based on a large corpus of references and making original propositions in terms of definitions, concepts, frameworks on this very broad and “risky” issue.

My major suggestions for revision refer to questions 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Question 1.

The report seems well balanced between agroecological approaches and “other innovations”, and the outline is respecting the order passed to HLPE, even though the addendum “other innovations” sounded a bit strange from the start. It gives the right volume to agroecology and makes a reasonable job to explain the connections.

Question 2

The range of innovative is diversified and satisfactory even though others could have been found. My main concern is that merging conservation agriculture, ecological intensification and sustainable intensification, you are losing some very important nuances. In the debate about “models”, sustainable intensification is closer to conventional “environmentally improved” and ecological intensification refers to a very different rationale, closer to agroecology (see Griffon M. 2018, Griffon M. 2014).

Question 3

I think this is one of the weak part of the draft. Because of your choice of consolidating various lists on principles, from different natures and maturity, you had to work with too many principles, sometimes redundant. Therefore, in your consolidated list of 16 principles, there is a strong bias toward social principles that are extremely detailed, and somehow overlapping, and environmental principles that are very poorly detailed (e.g. environmental footprint in the text and in box 4 that should detailed the positive and negative externalities). Incidentally, when speaking about dependency, it should be said that it refers not only on external inputs but also on credit, technologies, far away markets, etc. It is said latter in the text but it should appear earlier.

Furthermore, the report should carefully explain the aspirational nature of principles, especially social ones, avoiding to build a “perfect” wish list, that would make agroecology perfect and virtuous by construction.

I think that the four “overarching pathways” (resources efficiency, environmental footprint, resilience and social equity/responsibility”) represent a better base and the report should reduce the principles in a balanced way among them.

The V0 draft captures well the various controversies around the agroecology (1.3. and 3.2.) and, without expressing arbitration, provides different tools to evaluate the changes that might improve FSN. And this is very right. The text could go a bit further in saying that these controversies, and the diversity of possible change pathways, are a very good thing, they are part somehow of the “richness of biodiversity” (see Griffon 2012 and Hainzelin 2014); but they should be thought in the light the imperative of sustainability and FSN. It is not a model versus another model, it is the necessity of radical changes aiming at agroecological transition. The analysis the report makes of the “other innovations” illustrates the fact that each ones of them, by stressing one specific aspect (climate, sustainability, nutrition, value chains, etc.), can enrich the vision of the others.     

Questions 4

I think the idea to add a fifth dimension to “explicit ways of addressing critical aspects of human empowerment, recognition of rights and reinforcement of community capacities” is very good. However, if the argument / definition is rather clear, I do not find the term « agency » capture well the meaning of it. To be convincing, this fifth pillar’s name should be very easy to catch, which I do not think it is the case.

Question 8. In the recommendations, I strongly suggest to mention, beyond of public policies, the needs to mobilize funds to make the expected transformations possible. Public budgets, private investors, private sectors, international aid and cooperation, etc. should be mobilized in larger amounts considering the importance of agriculture and food system for SGDs. 10 years after the 2008 food price crisis, agriculture sector represent a very small part of investments (less than 8% of international aid, less than 10% of public budgets in Sub-Saharan Africa, etc.).

The introduction should be reinforced in terms of the reasons why it is extremely urgent to explore agroecology and other innovations. The balance of industrialized/green revolution agriculture, connected to industrialized food systems, should be made both in gains (yields, unit costs, etc.) and in losses (pollutions, fossil fuel and inputs dependency, social and environmental externalities, ultra-processed food, etc.) to explain why we have to change paradigm and cannot reduce any more agriculture performance to yields. This is very well treated in the text, but it should appear in the introduction.

Other comments

- To complete the references used in the 3.2.2., I invite you to use the very detailed foresight exercice « Agrimonde Terra », that has just been published “Land and Use and Food Security in 2050: a Narrow Road” (https://www.cirad.fr/en/news/all-news-items/articles/2018/ca-vient-de-s…)

- p. 33 l. 12: The text should stress the fact that agroecological innovations are completely connected to local conditions, both in terms of available biodiversity and resources and in terms of specific constraints. This is not the case for conventional intensification that relies on external inputs. Thence agroecology cannot be as prescriptive as conventional agriculture since basically each farmer will need to assimilate its principles and translate them into its own local context.

- in the 3.2.6., about GM technologies, the report should briefly mention the evolution of this technology, including the genome editing and Crispr Cas 9, that blurs the border between conventional and transgenesis breeding.

- Even though the report is centered on food systems, it should be mentioned in the main text (not in a foot note) at some point that agriculture sl does not only produce food (cotton, wood, biomass, fiber, rubber, etc.) and these other productions contribute to jobs and incomes, that will in turn affect food security and nutrition.

- on Bt Cotton and Box 16, two recent additional references in Burkina Faso and in China (Fok 2017 and Guiyan Wang and Fok 2017)

Additional references

Fok M. 2016. Impacts du coton-Bt sur les bilans financiers des sociétés cotonnières et des paysans au Burkina Faso (Financial impacts of Bt-cotton on cotton companies and producers in Burkina Faso). Cah. Agric. 2016, 25, 35001

Guiyan Wang, Fok M. 2017. Managing pests after 15 years of Bt cotton: Farmers' practices, performance and opinions in northern China. Crop Protection. Volume 110, August 2018, Pages 251-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2017.06.007Get

Griffon M. 2017 Ecologie intensive. La nature, un modèle pour l’agriculture et la société. Buchet-Chastel éditeur. 248 pages.

Hainzelin E., 2014. Introduction in Cultivating biodiversity to transform agriculture. Springer Netherland 262p

Hainzelin E. 2014. Enhancing the functions and provisioning in agriculture: agroecological principles. Invited keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Agroecology for Food Security and Nutrition. FAO 18-19 September 2014

Griffon M. 2013. Qu’est-ce que l’agriculture écologiquement intensive ? Ed. Quae, 2013

Le Mouël Ch., De Lattre-Gasquet M., Mora O. 2018. Land and Use and Food Security in 2050: a Narrow Road. Agrimonde-Terra. Ed. quae, 2018