Elevating indigenous and native food systems.
I want to thank the FAO CFS Secretariat to contribute this guidelines Zero Draft with the following submissions on part 3.
With the ever growing population and too many mouths to feed in developing countries, economic and technological empowerment of women smallholder farmers who carry out 70% of the agricultural activities will help in curbing the double hazard impact of climate change and COVID-19 pandemic. Harnessing their traditional ecological knowledge, skills and experiences in halting biodiversity loss, ecosystem restoration and conservation of indigenous food heritages will not only promote human and environmental resilience but also combat malnutrition and create more economic opportunities for women and girls in the socially and economically disadvantaged communities.
Asikaralu Okafor
Maklumy Technology Services Limited
Nigeria
Part 3 of the Zero Draft
"Under section 3.2: Elimination of violence and discrimination against women for improved food security and nutrition, No 40 cited indigenous peoples and socially and economically deprived women as being at heightened risk of violence".
I want to state it more clearly that the type of gender violence that is commonly experienced in Nigeria is not sexual abuse but psychological and economical violence as a result of patriarchy. More especially in polygamous households, where the man as head of household mandates the women and girls to work on the family farm without allowing them full access to ownership or use of profit earned to take care of their personal needs. In a situation where the woman is the head of the household, she is not allowed to have full ownership of farmlands or proceeds from ornamental trees or cash crops to raise her kids and take care of her needs.
In section 3.3: Access to education, capacity building, training, knowledge and information services, one of the significant barriers to women and girls' education is early marriage and child marriage mostly caused by an age long tradition that cannot be influenced by civilisation nor religion.
Ms. Asikaralu Okafor
Dear Sir/Madam,
Having gone through the highlights of the V0 draft report, I'm sharing my personal view in the following manner:
In terms of data collection and utilisation and for equity and inclusion, the global community and international organizations need to seriously engage indigenous knowledge and innovations from the grassroot and local levels. This will provide a better opportunity to gain an appropriate insight into the current state of world food security and to agree on and design international action to improve it, leaving no one behind.
We need to decolonize our food systems by promoting indigenous food heritages. In countries with diverse geographical, climate and weather conditions, government and citizens generated data should not only be based on a particular geo-location. I have observed and noticed that researchers and policy-makers rely mostly on regions that favour their interest or are convenient for them, this attitude has led to monocropping, near-extinction, non-accessibility and unavailability of most staple foods that serve as food and raw materials for the people at the bottom of pyramids in these countries.
For a more effective decision-making for food security and nutrition and to inform policies for the transformation of food systems, especially in developing countries; we need to improve equity in access to data for FSN policies and decisions at grassroot and local levels with regards to cultural diversity and geographical locations.