Глобальный форум по продовольственной безопасности и питанию (Форум FSN)

Feedback of SEWA

In the global south, the family farmers who are small and marginal farmers have larger contribution but do not have access to technology or infrastructure and therefore can’t afford access to the technologies. As a result, informal sector relevant data collection, dissemination and usage framework needs to be developed.

Feedback and suggestions by SEWA from the perspective of informal sector women worker’s contribution in the food supply chain.

1. The table of conceptual framework on page 16 needs to cover member-based organisations and farmers organisations under the translate and disseminate field and use findings to make decision field.
2. The example of a conceptual framework table for vegetable / grain / pulses may need to be included to better understand the system. This shall also cover all sources of food supply and not only specific government schemes where the data gathering sources are specific.
3. Informal sector workers and their organisations need to be included both in urban and rural areas to bring out their contribution in the food supply chain and their consumption patterns as consumers in the entire framework including data dissemination and decision making.
4. Gender disaggregated data needs to be collected at each stage of the supply chain. The data transmission should also reach to informal sector workers in their understandable language which can help them make information-based decisions.
5. The new technologies producing and processing data relevant to FSN needs to be informal sector and women user friendly. This means it needs to be accessible to small and marginal farmers. The small and marginal farmers shall afford it and be able to actively use it in their small fields and informal sector in entire food supply chain.
6. To access new technology, infrastructure needs be created in rural areas of developing countries which can map the smallest individual villages for weather information, pest information, irrigation status and crop loss data gathering for insurance which are part of the food supply chain. The infrastructure will cover the electricity, sensing stations, mapping availability of affordable accessible local population friendly tools and equipment and capacity building institutes.
7. To make these tools inclusive, infrastructure investments need be allocated specifically in rural areas.
8. To ensure that the framework and tools are used by the supply chain actors of the informal sector to gather data, the ownership and knowledge of usage is important and thus local rural and urban women and youth from informal sector need to be included in the process of creation of such facility and need to be given tasks through their member-based organisation to create such database and infrastructure e.g. in mapping of villages, installing infrastructure, data hubs, using of new technology.
9. Skill building programmes need to be designed for informal sector workers in the food supply chain who can use such technology and gather authentic and relevant data and information and can benefit from data driven infrastructure investment.
10. The system shall bring out the contribution of women in the food supply chain, remove the digital and gender divide which can help to make policies for bringing equal status, accessibility and ownership to women workers of food supply chain.
11. The new framework shall fill in the digital gap and divide to ensure the accessibility affordability and ownership to get authentic and relevant data. Women have a larger contribution in the informal sector and thus women friendly (affordable, access and infrastructure) needs to be considered in the framework.

CFS Policy Recommendations on Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition

Here: GER position on the e-consultation on the V0 draft of the corresponding HLPE Report

General remarks

We thank the CFS and HLPE for submitting the V0 draft of the report “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition” and for the possibility to provide input. We welcome that the CFS addresses the issue of data and data processing, especially in the context of food security and nutrition. We emphasise that data collection needs to be considered in a way that it can be used for policy making from the outset. In this context, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF'd) is an important multilateral instrument that aims to support a stronger data ecosystem and build shared capacity to use data to better anticipate, prevent and respond to complex risks in fragile and crisis-affected areas.

With regard to the distributed V0 draft of the HLPE Report we would like to suggest that it could be more goal-oriented in terms of how improved data collection and analysis can contribute to the overall goal of improved food security and nutrition, considering the following aspects related to the current structure of the report:

• Identify priority data gaps and analyse existing initiatives in terms of their distinct added value.
• Focus on how capacities at the national and international level could be strategically improved – particularly, more work regarding the international level is needed.
• Particularly consider initiatives, technologies and other solutions that could make a significant impact for food security and nutrition globally.
• Focus not on what an ideal governance would look like but particularly on how key aspects of data governance could be strengthened strategically.

Remarks with regard to the individual chapters of the report:

Chapter One

• The conceptual framework is well-developed in order to capture the relevant gaps and overlaps of information at different levels.
• However, additional dimensions could be added to this analysis regarding the quality of existing information.

Chapter Two

• Regarding the list of existing initiatives, specification in terms of the selection of criteria is necessary. Rather than being complete, the list could include the most relevant initiatives.
• Besides, criteria could be developed to determine the distinct added value of existing initiatives. This could be based on question such as: Who elevates primary data and what is the geographical scope? Who has capacities to analyse data? Ultimately, this analysis could contribute to the identification of priority gaps in data collection and analysis.
• Moreover, it would be helpful if the report came back to visualize at which level there are crucial gaps or overlaps of information.
• In addition, it should discuss missing pieces for strategic decision-making, not only at the national, but also at the global level (e.g. regarding what we really know about hunger and all other forms of malnutrition and which kind of information is needed).
• Finally, the establishment and the objectives of the FAO’s International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture should be considered.

Chapter Three

• This chapter provides a thorough and sound analysis of many pressing challenges for data collection and analysis. While it is true that national level capacity is probably the principal challenge for improving global data on food security and nutrition, at the same time, the international level constraints in terms of, for example, lack of coherent indicators and comparable data deserve more attention.
• Chapter 3.3 could further discuss issues around ownership of national statistical system as well as challenges and opportunities for integrating data from different sectors. In this regard it could also address incentives for governments to improve and make use of data for decision-making.

Chapter Four

• The relevance and potential of several of the mentioned technologies as well as future technological innovations is undisputed.
• In the framework of this report, however, it would make sense to focus, firstly, on generally conducive framework conditions for policy makers to make better use of technological opportunities that could serve advancement of public goods and, secondly, focus on those specific technologies that have a clear relevance in terms of adaptability, geographical coverage etc. as well as potential to make a significant difference for food security and nutrition globally.

Chapter Five

• This chapter is particularly important and should be further developed in terms of opportunities and priorities for political engagement to improve data governance. It should detail how international governance mechanisms can provide incentives and put the right mechanisms in place to improve and develop global data and information systems strategically.
• Chapter 5.6 could identify possible pathways on how data governance could be improved to make a difference in terms of food security and nutrition, rather than providing a list of ideal conditions needed to be in place for “good data governance”.

Chapter Six

• The proposed recommendations should not only be directed at single Member States but also at the global governance level in order to identify pathways to contribute to improving data collection and analysis collectively.

This effort to bring together data streams and to address challenges and gaps in data collection and analysis across the food system is extremely valuable and timely. We like the conceptual food and nutrition system framework presented in section 1 and applaud the effort to combine previous frameworks (food systems, nutrition, food security, etc.) and to capture and simplify the systemic complexity. However, we note three key gaps in this proposed framework, which are also reflected in the subsequent sections on data collection and analysis:

1. The impacts of global food systems on the environment are not sufficiently represented or discussed. Given the clear need, articulated so well here in this report, to tackle the multiple linked challenges that relate to our current food system structure and functioning, it’s critical that we begin to conceptualize and target the multi-directional nature of systemic drivers and outcomes. See, for example, the recent report on how inland activities, including agriculture, are damaging rivers and freshwater fisheries, which are important food sources in their own right. Specifically, there is almost no discussion in this report of the impact of the global food system on the climate, or on biodiversity or ecosystem health at any scale. These outcome metrics should be given equal weight and attention as metrics of hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity.

In addition to global-scale trends, data on environmental impacts of specific policies and management decisions are needed in order to avoid the risk of investing in food system interventions that appear to be improvements to the current techniques, but that actually worsen problems. For example, there has been a strong push to integrate fish into rice paddies in rice-growing regions around the world, and specifically throughout Asia. However, there is evidence that doing so can actually increase the methane off-gassing from rice paddies, thereby increasing the already significant climate change impact of this crop.



We recommend reviewing and including the following key references:

Benton, T. G., Bieg, C., Harwatt, H., Pudasaini, R., & Wellesley, L. (2021). Food system impacts on biodiversity loss: Three levers for food system transformation in support of nature (p. 75). Chatham House. https://www.unep.org/resources/publication/food-system-impacts-biodiversity-loss

Tubiello, F. N., Rosenzweig, C., Conchedda, G., Karl, K., Gütschow, J., Xueyao, P., Obli-Laryea, G., Wanner, N., Qiu, S. Y., Barros, J. D., Flammini, A., Mencos-Contreras, E., Souza, L., Quadrelli, R., Heiðarsdóttir, H. H., Benoit, P., Hayek, M., & Sandalow, D. (2021). Greenhouse gas emissions from food systems: Building the evidence base. Environmental Research Letters, 16(6), 065007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e

References re: emissions from rice-fish systems:

Frei, M., Razzak, M. A., Hossain, M. M., Oehme, M., Dewan, S., & Becker, K. (2007). Methane emissions and related physicochemical soil and water parameters in rice–fish systems in Bangladesh. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 120(2), 391–398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2006.10.013

Sun, G., Sun, M., Du, L., Zhang, Z., Wang, Z., Zhang, G., Nie, S., Xu, H., & Wang, H. (2021). Ecological rice-cropping systems mitigate global warming – A meta-analysis. Science of The Total Environment, 789, 147900. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147900

2. Although blue/ aquatic foods are mentioned in this report, their treatment feels cursory and is insufficient. Despite their importance for meeting food and nutrition goals in the face of climate change, aquatic food production and consumption are not represented or included in the high-level framework, or in the discussion  around it (e.g., there are repeated references to agriculture in the Introduction section, but none to fisheries), and while there are a handful of references to aquatic foods or to fisheries in the subsequent report sections, the report misses an important discussion of the diversity of aquatic resources which have differential nutritional values, a focus on small-scale fisheries and inland fisheries, which both have a unique and important role in this challenge, and any mention of the problem of IUU fishing, which is a serious challenge to the sustainability of the world’s fisheries, and also a serious challenge to accurate data collection and analysis. Significant new data sources on the nutritional content of aquatic foods and their diversity which have recently been published in the peer reviewed literature emphasize the potential for aquatic foods to fill nutritional and food security gaps via local production, and highlight the need to continue gathering and analyzing new data as it emerges 

In more detail, we recommend:

Expanding the focus of the report to better capture needs in the realm of aquatic resource monitoring and management. A key barrier to good food system planning and coherent management of wild caught fish is lack of good stock status data, which is driven by the difficulty of (a) assessing a fishery stock at any point in time, and (b) predicting it into the future, given the unknowns of climate change impacts that are without precedent.

A specific recommendation related to this gap is to expand access to data collected through the Nansen surveys (which are referenced in your report) through open access agreements. The report calls for more open access data streams, and we applaud this movement. We note that the Nansen survey data have been particularly difficult to access, even for countries who have participated in them directly. Addressing this challenge would be extremely valuable to efforts to more sustainably manage aquatic resources.

Broadening data collection efforts to capture the diversity and differential nutritional potential of different aquatic foods in order to enable informed decision-making. For example, we might prioritize a given depleted species for recovery based on its nutritional value relative to national nutritional goals, rather than on its economic value on the export market.

Disaggregating the data on aquatic foods based on fishery type, sector, scale, and gender. Small-scale and inland fisheries provide the majority of aquatic foods that are eaten directly/ locally, and the fish they catch tend to be lower-trophic level species which tend to be more nutrient dense (and are also often eaten whole, which drastically increases the nutrient intake). In addition, small-scale fishing communities, especially those throughout the equatorial tropics, tend to be among the most food and nutrition insecure, and the most vulnerable to climate change.

Similarly, disaggregating the data based on gender would be an important improvement. Women tend to make up a significant, and sometimes majority, percentage of the fishery workforce, and they also tend to make many of the food decisions for a given household, but they generally lack ownership or fishery management decision-making authority. Increasing the amount and quality of gender disaggregated production data is critical to improving gender equity across this sector as well as food systems more generally.

​​​​​​​Examining the problem that IUU fishing, which is often occurring at unknown and unregulated levels, presents to accurate and useful data collection, and which may be seriously distorting what we think we know about stock biomass and sustainable fishing levels.

To address these gaps, we recommend adding the following emergent and innovative data streams to your report:

​​​​​​​FishNutrients component of Fishbase, which captures or estimates the specific nutritional content of a vast array of aquatic species caught around the world: https://www.fishbase.in/Nutrients/NutrientSearch.php

Illuminating Hidden Harvests, which seeks to quantify and standardize the immense contribution of small-scale fisheries to global fishery yields and livelihoods: https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/xavierbasurto/our-work/projects/hidden-harvest-2/ (forthcoming)

The Global Fishing Watch platform, being designed to enable the use of multiple open-source technologies and data sources to evaluate and manage fisheries: https://globalfishingwatch.org/news-views/mapping-a-new-world/

As countries operationalize their programs to comply with the Port State Measures Agreement, they are also developing systems for documentation and tracking of seafood which will create new and better sources of data that can contribute to the knowledge base for the HLPE. Since PSMA systems are in early stages of development now, those planning to use data for decisions could seize the moment while data being collected for oversight and compliance assurance are being designed to see that the systems are designed to be useful for both insofar as possible.

As well as the following references:

​​​​​​​Bennett, A., Basurto, X., Virdin, J., Lin, X., Betances, S. J., Smith, M. D., Allison, E. H., Best, B. A., Brownell, K. D., Campbell, L. M., Golden, C. D., Havice, E., Hicks, C. C., Jacques, P. J., Kleisner, K., Lindquist, N., Lobo, R., Murray, G. D., Nowlin, M., … Zoubek, S. (2021). Recognize fish as food in policy discourse and development funding. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01451-4

Fluet-Chouinard, E., Funge-Smith, S., & McIntyre, P. B. (2018). Global hidden harvest of freshwater fish revealed by household surveys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(29), 7623–7628. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721097115

Gephart, J. A., Henriksson, P. J. G., Parker, R. W. R., Shepon, A., Gorospe, K. D., Bergman, K., Eshel, G., Golden, C. D., Halpern, B. S., Hornborg, S., Jonell, M., Metian, M., Mifflin, K., Newton, R., Tyedmers, P., Zhang, W., Ziegler, F., & Troell, M. (2021). Environmental performance of blue foods. Nature, 597(7876), 360–365. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03889-2

Golden, C. D., Koehn, J. Z., Shepon, A., Passarelli, S., Free, C. M., Viana, D. F., Matthey, H., Eurich, J. G., Gephart, J. A., Fluet-Chouinard, E., Nyboer, E. A., Lynch, A. J., Kjellevold, M., Bromage, S., Charlebois, P., Barange, M., Vannuccini, S., Cao, L., Kleisner, K. M., … Thilsted, S. H. (2021). Aquatic foods to nourish nations. Nature, 598(7880), 315–320. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03917-1

Harper, S., Adshade, M., Lam, V. W. Y., Pauly, D., & Sumaila, U. R. (2020). Valuing invisible catches: Estimating the global contribution by women to small-scale marine capture fisheries production. PloS One, 15(3), e0228912. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228912

Hicks, C. C., Cohen, P. J., Graham, N. A. J., Nash, K. L., Allison, E. H., D’Lima, C., Mills, D. J., Roscher, M., Thilsted, S. H., Thorne-Lyman, A. L., & MacNeil, M. A. (2019). Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies. Nature, 574(7776), 95–98. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1592-6

Maire, E., Graham, N. A. J., MacNeil, M. A., Lam, V. W. Y., Robinson, J. P. W., Cheung, W. W. L., & Hicks, C. C. (2021). Micronutrient supply from global marine fisheries under climate change and overfishing. Current Biology, 31(18), 4132-4138.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.067

Vianna, G. M. S., Zeller, D., & Pauly, D. (2020). Fisheries and Policy Implications for Human Nutrition. Current Environmental Health Reports. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-020-00286-1  

3. The report and framework are missing the “group” and “farm/ fishery” scales/ levels of analysis. In both the introductory framework and the subsequent report there are discussions of data collection challenges and gaps at macro, systemic, global, national, community/household, and individual scales, but the specific challenges and data needs associated with the “group” and “farm/fishery” scales of analysis are overlooked. Many of the issues discussed in this report around barriers to data collection and use at the national and global level are even more pronounced at the “group” and “farm/fishery” levels.



And in addition:

The “group” level may be larger or smaller than “community,” as “group membership” can be defined by, for example, culture, race, gender, Indigenous status, income, or scale of production (for producers), among other factors. However, despite its imprecision, a focus on the “group” level is critical when approaching food system challenges, as group membership has relevance for both food system drivers (e.g., social norms and cultures around food that drive demand) and for how the current food system will be experienced across the 6 FSN dimensions (agency, stability, sustainability, access, availability and utilization). Explicit inclusion and examination of the food system at the scale of the “group” will help ensure inequities are identified and addressed. 

The “farm/ fishery” level is especially critical to explicitly discuss in relation to data collection. We strongly suggest the incorporation of a section in this report dedicated to the need for measurement, metrics, and indicators of the climate forcing, biodiversity, and other environmental impacts of various methods of food production at the farm/fishery level. Such data are desperately needed, especially throughout the small-scale farms and fisheries of the world, to enable more accurate and appropriate valuation of different food resources, and to facilitate the creation of policies and management plans that incentivize more sustainable and regenerative practices. If we seek to make progress on the challenges of food system transformation in an equitable way, we must be able to account for farm-level differences in performance along a variety of metrics. Without this precision, policies and market incentives will favor larger-scale, industrialized operations that can afford to adopt expensive new technologies, and smaller-scale farmers and fishers will be left behind.

Comments of the HLPE Report V0 draft

Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition (Dec 2021)

By

Pierre-Marie Bosc, Cédric Gaillard, Sandrine Dury and Mathieu Roche

January 26th 2022

About the conceptual framework

In the setting the stage part, the macro factors are too narrow and limited to public national

policies. The role of international economic and political actors (public- States- or privatecorporations-) and their activities is missing.

The following activities related to food and agriculture have a direct impact on FNS of individuals

though availability, accessibility of products and should be mentioned.

- Trade of agricultural inputs and commodities and other agricultural products, + International & regional trade regulations and activities of private actors

- Foreign investments, both public and private. Ex : Land acquisitions for large scale production.

- Level of the debt

Other « distal » factors may also be mentioned, such as the level of the debt accepted by the IMF and

the global level of investment by international and other financial institutions. Recent expertise on the

effects of Covid-19 on FNS in southern Cameroon showed the key role of imports (of chemicals from

China) to the production stage of fruits and vegetables and the dramatic consequences of the border

closure (from other African countries) for farmers who are unable to export their produce and lead to

bankruptcy and poverty (Mathe et al, 2021).

Regarding the approach proposed page 17. We suggest to present together Meat, Fish and aggregate

with poultry as recommended by FAO and FHI (2016) because lack of micronutrient is one of the most

stringent nutritional problem. But even aggregate d it remains a “product” approach, which is not

holistic and therefore we suggest to develop another example about the lack of dietary diversity,

with a focus on rural settings and farming households. (as it is suggested to give an example).

Looking now at the proposed conceptual framework, we only see the levels of potential factors and

outcomes.

The framework seems lacking some key elements. The observation unit is the individual “citizens,

individuals” which means the report deals with the global population as a whole. But, as far as the

report has the ambition to deal with the food system globally, the production stage should deserve a

specific attention. Producers are often consumers of the food products they also sell. They are key

stakeholders of the system and most of the smallholders are considered poor and vulnerable

regarding food and nutrition security. The leads to some questions: What is the population from

which data is produced? What is the place of the agricultural / rural sector? Wouldn’t it be useful to

distinguish urban vs rural sector? What about the farm level, the smallholders [holding level] and the

household and their interrelations? In the agricultural / rural sector food and nutrition security does

not depend only on agricultural or natural resources-based activities. 

The geographical dimension is not clearly apparent from the farm / household level with specific

territorial settings within national and regional levels. The territories present highly diverse

potentials that shape the possibility to achieve food security.

In the literature we can identify various conceptual frameworks developed on agriculture/food

linkages (or even those on sustainable livelihoods) that could be used to enrich the proposed

framework. We quickly identified three frameworks that the authors could consider. There might be

others and they are suggested for possible adaptation and fine tuning to the scope of the report. A

good example is in my opinion the FAO/FIVIMS (2008). It still seems difficult to integrate the agency

dimension in these conceptual frameworks.

Another example that could be inspiring is provided by Kanter and al. (2015) or by HLPE (2017) that

focused on Nutrition.

In these frameworks, we have potential impact paths and indicators at each stage of the process (or

for each observation unit). This is missing from the proposed framework.

About the indicators

One key and essential dimension for which FAO has a key role to play, is the use and promotion of

standard scientifically grounded indicators, in national or international surveys or even in the work of

researchers.

In the field of economics, indicators that measure household assets (agricultural or not), women's

empowerment (WEAI), wealth proxies (Wealth index). Indicators of perceived food security (such as

the HFIAS) or for nutrition, proxies of nutritional adequacy (such as measures of diversity with the

HDDS or MDDW indicators). This harmonization would also allow a better interoperability between

the different surveys without standardizing the surveys which would keep their specificity according

to the geographical areas and the research questions.

About the existing initiatives

The list of initiatives presented in table 2 is wide, heterogeneous (nutritious contents data bases) and

sometimes overlaps (50x30 is a funding mechanism to support Agricultural Censuses). Most of them

concentrate on individual levels. The are some missing initiatives such as LSMS (Living Standards

Measurement Surveys).

Under FAOSTAT are multiple components which have various focus, various levels of data

collection…: what are the observation units? They are different and obviously not coordinated. These

systems are not handled by FAO but by the countries. Data are part of the sovereignty of each

country and collected by their respective administration. FAO produces guidelines like for the

Agricultural Census but the production of data is under the responsibility of each country. Analysis of

the existing data sets is missing. Are data sets up-to-date? Which countries produce data on a regular

basis? Are there countries without data? This could be a useful addition to Table 1. See Viberti and

Bosc (2020) for a review of actual data availability.

There is much more information on the constraints to data collection than on an in-depth analysis of

the existing data sets. Which is obvious is the total absence of coordination among all these

initiatives and the donor community is part this lack of coordination. 

About capacity constraints (page 26)

The first paragraph underlines the insufficient capacity that exists… This is quite in contradiction with

the previous chapter showing the blooming initiatives and regretting the disconnection and lack of

use.

Concerning the whole document, we feel like there is a need to go further in the analysis of the final

users of the existing statistics. Who is using which statistics and for what purpose? this should be

added for example at minima in the table 1: two columns: 1. who are the users of the statistics. 2.

For which decision?

About the decision cycle

The decision cycle as proposed is very generic. Could it be more focused? In the decision cycle, I

could be important to enter into more detail, following "Define priorities evidence and question" to

define the availability of data. Even a partial availability of data can considerably alleviate the

strategy of collecting additional information.

About the new technologies

We agree that there are many new opportunities to collect data, monitor and inform on food

security and nutrition using new computing powerful methods. For instance, in order to

automatically predict food insecurity, new pipelines based on Artificial Intelligence approaches (i.e.

machine learning) can integrate multisource heterogeneous data like rasters (e.g., population

densities, land use, soil quality), GPS points (hospitals, schools, violent events), line vectors

(waterways), quantitative variables (maize prices, World Bank variables, meteorological data) and

time series (Smoothed Brightness Temperature (SMT), rainfall estimates, maize prices) (see for

example (Deléglise et al, 2022)).

Even if we agree that it is important to be forward looking, the balance of the report should

acknowledge the fact that there is still a lot to do to improve the existing tools – including the

introduction of the digitalization – before developing new tools.

Regarding Ethical issues

As it is mentioned, but we want to stress that point, here is a bias regarding the use of new

technologies. The most vulnerable have not the means to be connected and to be include in

the processes that became even more disconnected from these technologies that can be run

100% with no local inputs. Citizens and even public national bodies get out of control on

these technologies. However, as mentioned in one of the contributions, quantitative analyses

alone are insufficient to guide public policies. Understanding contexts, through

multidisciplinary approaches, partnerships and qualitative surveys, remains essential.

Governance

As for now the civil society organizations including farmers’ organizations are not part of the

governance of data production and use. As information is a key asset for strategic decision making

and in order to cope with this situation many of them tend to develop their own information system.

As the CFS is now open to CSO and farmers’ organization the report should address this issue. 

References

Deléglise, H., Interdonato, R., Bégué, A., Maître d’Hôtel, E., Teisseire, M., & Roche, M. (2022). Food

security prediction from heterogeneous data combining machine and deep learning methods. Expert

Systems with Applications, 190, 116189. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.116189

FAO and FHI 360. 2016. Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women: A Guide for Measurement. Rome:

FAO.

HLPE. 2017. Nutrition and food systems. A report by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security

and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome

Kanter, R., Walls, H. L., Tak, M., Roberts, F., & Waage, J., 2015. A conceptual framework for

understanding the impacts of agriculture and food system policies on nutrition and health. Food

security, 7(4), 767-777

Mathé, S., Dury, S., Temple, L., Tata Ngome, P. I., Nsangou Njankouo, A., & Otou, M. (2021). Étude

d'impact socio-économique des effets de la COVID 19 sur les stratégies paysannes et l'adaptation des

filières agricoles et alimentaires au Cameroun. Résumé exécutif. Livrable 3 Cirad.

Thompson B., Cohen M.J. Meerman.J. 2012. World Food Insecurity and Malnutrition: Scope, Trends,

Causes and Consequences. In: The Impact of Climate Change and Bioenergy on Nutrition FAO

Springer. August 2012, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-0110-6_3

Originally published in: FAO, 2008. Bioenergy, food security and sustainability. Towards an

international framework. In Information paper n°3 for the High-level Conference on world food

security: the challenge of climate change and bioenergy (HLC/08/INF/3). Rome, FAO.

Bosc, P.-M., Viberti F., 2020. Updated data sets for more efficient investment strategies adapted to

the diversity of family farms. Agriculture for Development, 40 (2020): 15-17

HLPE Report Response

The Global Partnership welcomes the opportunity to comment on the V0 draft of the HLPE report on “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition.”

We have identified four gaps in the report that we would like to highlight and comment on as an organization with experience collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders engaged in creating, curating, and analyzing agricultural data and statistics. Furthermore, we have several suggestions for case studies for national-level data collaboration and have included links to further information that the authors could incorporate into the draft where applicable.

We inform our input based on a series of informal dialogues and informant interviews with key stakeholder groups over the period December 2020 to April 2021 as part of our research for the publication of the following reports: Data for Food Security: How can the international community drive transformative change? (June 2021) and From local Needs to Local Knowledge: Better data to End Hunger (July 2021).

Our comments on the report are as follows:

1. Absence of a defined strategy for the production and use of data that explicitly addresses the incentives, privacy, safety, and agency of smallholder producers.

Chapter 5 of the V0 report highlights the intricacies of good data governance. It also considers governance principles, data protection, transparency, mechanisms, links to conventional and novel data sources, and the global and regional initiatives addressing governance challenges. However, there is a gap and a potential opportunity to build consensus on the norms and principles of good data governance for Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) as it pertains to the needs of smallholder producers as the most vulnerable members of the FSN system.

Creating a clear vision and integrated strategy supported by a data governance framework that protects smallholder producers' privacy, safety and agency is key to reducing inequalities in global food systems. Using the V0 report as an opportunity to share real-world best practices and case studies while addressing the balance between government, corporate, and farmer interests is critical to reducing systemic inequalities in the FSN system.

There are many examples of initiatives that promote good data governance norms and principles that integrate the needs of smallholders, such as in Tanzania, where the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, and FAO worked together with farmers and the Tanzania Bureau of Statistics to use data to improve the uptake of extension services and livestock vaccination.

An example of a platform with a clear vision and integrated strategy for data governance is the Africa Regional Data Cube, now known as Digital Earth Africa. This project piloted the use of Earth Observation (EO) data and satellite technology to support Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Tanzania to develop policies for agriculture, food security, deforestation, urbanization, and water access.

Ensuring that data collection and analysis benefit those impacted by those most marginalized in the global food system of the global food system and that all stakeholders see direct benefits to data sharing as an incentive, instead of only as a means of gathering aggregated statistics, is critical to avoid exacerbating inequalities and building trust amongst stakeholders.

As it stands, the HLPE draft recognizes the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration in section 4.5.2 but does not address the issue at a global level, nor does it explicitly mention smallholder producers.

Therefore, we recommend the report reflect upon whether a global multilateral dialogue on FSN data and agricultural statistics issues, including issues pertaining to smallholder rights and governance, could be of use, what value this type of forum could add, and how it could be established. The report should also consider the role of Rome-based agencies, member states, and other stakeholders in facilitating dialogue and building trust and consensus.

2. Insufficient emphasis on the importance of national data and statistics systems and local capacity building.

As the report highlights, the capacities of national statistical offices (NSOs) are often lacking at the country level. Despite the limitations of the NSOs, they rely heavily on agricultural surveys and censuses, which due to their time and resource-intensive nature, lead to data quality and timeliness challenges to data collection and analysis at national and sub-national levels.

Resource constraints at the national level are also detrimental to the digitalization of data and statistics pertaining to FSN and impact the quality and availability of data and data infrastructure and the ability to train and upscale staff, resulting in a vicious circle of insufficient resource allocation towards national data and statistics systems.

Furthermore, the inadequate and unsustainable funding of activities undertaken by national statistical systems often leaves them reliant on external financing, which is often short-term and project-based.

Without nationally trained staff and alignment on data and statistics for agri-food systems at national and subnational levels, there is a risk of financing projects and initiatives that do not align with country priorities and that leave projects with high national importance underfunded or discontinued.

Strengthening countries' capacities requires time, resources, and persistence to facilitate realistic solutions that collect, analyze, and maintain country-level FSN data and statistics. The HLPE report could be an opportunity to discuss the importance of developing national data strategies for collaboration on agri-food system data, including guidelines for data sharing and use, legal mandates, and the roles and responsibilities of different actors in the data value chain, including donors and international organizations.

A good example of country level work initiated by a national statistical office partnering with public and private sector actors collaborating on agri-food system data can be found in Ghana where the country’s Statistical Service set up a multi-stakeholder data collaborative. This collaborative brings public and private actors together to enable the use of mobile technology and data on weather patterns and crop market prices to provide climate-smart agricultural services to farmers.

Novel approaches bolstered by digital skills and the ability to use new technologies for data collection and analysis are fundamental as countries transition from paper-based data collection to digital data collection. These points can be elaborated further when considering the benefits/opportunity cost (aim number 3 of the HLPE report).

3. Addressing the need for a framework for aligning and coordinating assistance from international organizations and donors.

There is a deluge of projects in the FSN space, each focused on different issues or aspects of the global food system. The draft report mentions this problem, but a gap remains in addressing the need for a framework to align donor support and extrabudgetary contributions to international organizations like FAO and the other Rome-based agencies (RBAs).

Emphasizing country-level alignment and collaboration is needed between donors, government, and other stakeholders. This alignment is essential at the country level, as projects funded by international organizations and private donors can produce positive results but are often limited to the end of project cycles, thus severely limiting their sustainability.

Several of our national partners reported an overreliance on donors to fund and sustain digital innovations, creating a scenario where their national statistical offices are left chronically underfunded.

A forum for the RBAs to regularly interact with member states on data and statistics could be a valuable starting point to build mutual understanding on FSN data and statistics, governance issues, and a consensus on the principles and norms that should guide resource allocation.

Global Partnership emphasizes this need and outlines arguments for this forum in our Data for Food Security report. We argue that this approach can have a knock-on effect in accelerating action to support FAO’s digital transformation by ensuring more predictable and sustainable investment and support for its data and statistics activities and improving the visibility and effectiveness of its data and statistical work and country-level support using flexible approaches to strengthen national capacities.

4. Failure to connect key sections with the overarching goal of the report.

The HLPE V0 draft addresses many challenges and issues related to different aspects of FSN data and statistics but fails to link these discussions across the different sections and create a coherent call to action with clear steps for different stakeholders.

Currently, the conversations surrounding new technologies, ethics, data governance, collaboration, and partnerships with key stakeholder groups, ranging from smallholder farmers to the diplomatic community in Rome, are driven by the perceived risks in the system. There is a particular concern about data extraction and the motivations of powerful actors, leading to significant mistrust in the system.

A discussion that emphasizes the incentives and benefits of being part of the solution to these concerns and addressing even the most marginalized stakeholders in the FSN data ecosystem could provide a powerful way to contextualize the report's content with current policy failures.

Given the timeliness and continuing concerns about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on FSN, solutions focused on real-time and accurate data that benefit marginalized stakeholders can serve as a compelling narrative to link several aspects of the V0 draft with real-world best practices.

For example, the Kenyan national government has worked with government and non-government stakeholders to find data-driven solutions to enable the Ministry of Agriculture to track the availability of food staples at the subnational level and identify appropriate subnational responses to food security challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlighting legal and regulatory frameworks and emphasizing the role that partnerships and multi-stakeholder collaboration have in building trust, giving all stakeholders a voice, and evening the playing field could serve as a compelling way to frame the conclusion section of the report in a way that connects several key sections of the report.

Dear High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition,

We appreciate your work towards “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition- V0 Draft”.

As the Agrobiodiversity Coordination and the Directorate of the Mexican Agrobiodiversity GEF Project (GCP/MEX305/GFF) of CONABIO - Mexico (Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad; English: National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity), we would like to share with you the following comments and messages expressed in the attached file.

Thank you for your consideration,

Kind regards,

MSc. Irma Angélica Hernández

Dear colleagues,

I would like to contribute by pointing out the lack of any references to agroecology, which is the most promising approach for achieving sustainable food systems that enhance FSN. Agroecology goes hand in hand with participatory methodologies for data collection and analysis, which are also lacking in the text, where a top-down approach to data collection seems to be preferred.

Regarding FSN tools, the V0 draft lack any reference to FAO's Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), which has proven to be a simple, yet innovative and comprehensive framework that uses agroecology to evaluate the sustainability of production systems in agriculture and can be used to generate evidence on their multidimensional performance.

Kind regards,

Dario Lucantoni

To whom it my concern.

I wish to express compliments to the HLPE and its Project Team and Steering Committee Members, along with the HLPE Secretariat and Drafting Team for the comprehensive document.

I fully agree that availability of reliable data is essential for any decisions to transform our failed/broken food systems. The zero draft provides an excellent basis for further discussions and in this regard the inclusive and transparent preparatory process is much appreciated.

I am making now some comments only on the collection/control/ownership of data and the privacy/security/protection of data. These are undoubtedly the most important issues and the Authors touched the related valid concerns in Chapter 4.1.1. However, it would be indispensable to make further efforts to provide a deeper analysis of the situation and include in the conclusions some guidance and recommendations in this regard.

Ownership of data and information means power to control and it would be unacceptable and a huge mistake to give this power to corporations and monopolies, for obvious reasons.

In addition, some data to be collected might contain confidential, sensitive personal data, including data of smallholders, family farmers, consumers and others.

For the above reasons, guarantees and appropriate safeguard mechanisms are required, to protect privacy and security but also to build confidence and trust.

As the document itself mentions, there is a risk that people may have concerns that “…their data may end up in the wrong hands, be used against them, be used to exploit them, or put them in precarious positions in the future.” This issue should be duly addressed in the next version, because it is a real danger, again as acknowledged by the authors: “This can also lead the risk of agro-food market dominance by few monopolies that have control or ownership of data.”

There is another challenge mentioned in the chapter 4.4.2. Trust and transparency issues: “If the decision-making process is hidden from the person directly affected by the outcomes, then the underlying technologies can raise trust issues.” This again confirms the need for respecting the principle of inclusivity.

I think the above short comments can clearly confirm and justify the need for elaborating this part in more details, in addition to the summary of governance challenges mentioned in chapter 5.4.

It would be also necessary that in its last (“to be completed”) chapter on Conclusions and Recommendations, the document could provide clear guidance, including on the needed appropriate safeguard mechanisms.

I am looking forward to the revised version of the draft.

Best regards,

Zoltan Kalman

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division please find attached our comments to the V0 draft of the HLPE Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition report. 

Kind regards,

Manuel Barange, PhD

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am pleased to send you my contribution to: HLPE e-consultation on the V0 draft of the Report on Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition. The attached contribution is in MS Word (20 pages). I hope you (your office) will find my inputs meaningful. 

Best regards,   

Dr. Santosh Kumar Mishra