Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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    • Dear Évariste Nicolétis and Paola Termine,

      This is an important step that can address various socio-ecological and economic challenges related to urbanisation and sustainability. I appreciate you for taking this timely and important topic for consultation.

      My comments will focus more on gaps in the scope related to urban agriculture that address questions A and B.

      A. Do you find the proposed scope comprehensive to analyze and discuss the key issues concerning the role of urban and peri-urban food systems in achieving food security and nutrition? Are there any major gaps or omissions?

      1. Recognising multifunctionality of urban agriculture: In the context of urbanisation, urban agriculture can serve multiple functions in addition to contributing to food security and nutrition. Recognising the multifunctionality of urban agriculture is crucial to explore its overall sustainability potential including contributing to food security and nutrition. The scope of this HLPE report has focused on mere food security and nutrition aspects of urban agriculture and has not addressed its multifunctionality. This might invite unwarranted sustainability challenges as it may be interpreted as mere expansion of present modes of food production into the urban areas. If urban agriculture can contribute to sustainability along with ensuring food security, it must be integrated into the urban fabric and it needs to consider all social, ecological, cultural, and economic outcomes urban agriculture can offer. It would be great if the report incorporates these aspects into its scope.
      2. Recognising diversity of urban agriculture practices: There are multitudes of urban agriculture practices. However, the scope of the report seems to focus more on land-based urban agricultural practices which is mostly mere expansion of conventional agriculture to urban areas. Although it is important to bring all possible unused urban land under food production, it may also lead to challenges that the dominant agri-food system already eliciting in the rural hinterlands. Also, such urban agriculture practices will not be well-integrated into the urban fabric. Therefore, to ensure long-lasting and sustainable urban agricultural practices, the emphasis of the report should be to promote various types of small-scale urban agricultural practices that are well-integrated into the urban fabric and use all otherwise unused spaces for food production. The types of urban agriculture practices that needs more policy attention and promotion may vary depending upon the geographical context and local specificities. However, there should be special emphasis not to ignore small-scale and non-commercial urban agricultural practices in the policy support.
      3. Emphasis on ecological, circular, and resource-efficient production methods: The scope of the HLPE report do not speak about sustainable production methods of urban agriculture that needs to be adopted in order to ensure ecological sustainability in addition to food security and nutrition. Ecological, circular, and resource-efficient production methods need to receive adequate attention in the HLPE report. As there is constant competition for resources in the urban areas, special emphasis should be given to develop and promote practices that are resource efficient. Ecological production practices need to be emphasised because otherwise urban agriculture may act against the concept of ecological sustainability and health if more agrochemicals are introduced into the urban areas. Also, to well-integrate into the urban fabric and to ensure circular food production, there should be more focus on integrating urban waste management with urban agriculture.
      4. Overcoming Global North-South divide in urban agriculture research: There is a large divide between Global North and Global South in carrying out the research on urban agriculture. Institutions from Global North has dominated in urban agriculture research and this has resulted in providing a world view that is largely reflective of urban agriculture practices from the Global North (Pinheiro and Govind 2020) (document attached). Therefore, urban agriculture practices and its intricacies from the Global South has been largely absent in the peer-reviewed research literature. It would be pertinent for the HLPE report to consider this knowledge gap and take measures to overcome it.
      5. Gaps need to be addressed by policy actors:
        1. Much of the interventions on urban agriculture, especially government initiatives, largely focuses on large cities. New interventions for urban agriculture promotion in large cities may act as mitigation measures to address climate change whereas in small towns and cities, urban agriculture can offer adaptation measures. Moreover, in small-towns and cities have more flexibility to incorporate urban agriculture in their interventions to build edible urban areas. HLPE report needs to emphasis this aspect to avoid bias in the interventions.
        2. The scope of the HLPE report do not talk much about inclusiveness in the interventions for urban agriculture. It needs conscious efforts to make sure that the benefits of urban agriculture are extended to all sections of society in an affordable and culturally appropriate way.
        3. Also, there should be integration of activities of various government departments to make sure that adequate steps are taken to integrate waste management with urban food production.
        4. Integrating urban agriculture into the urban short food supply chains are another area that need innovative policy attention. It may not be always possible to integrate urban agriculture produces into the existing marketing channels. Innovative measures need to be taken to create new urban short food supply chains where even small-quantities of home-grown or garden-surplus produces can be sold.
        5. There is a dearth of quantitative data on urban agriculture practices, its focus and production, and other sustainability outcomes. It will be pertinent to keep a database to keep track of urban agriculture policy interventions so that adequate measures can be taken for further improvement.

      B. Share good practices and successful experiences on strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems in the context of urbanization and rural transformation, including in the case of emergencies or conflicts.

      a. In one of the Indian states, Kerala, there were government interventions for promotion of urban home gardening in private residential spaces across the state irrespective of the size or population of the urban areas. Kerala has a rural-urban continuum and high urban population (almost half of the total population). From 2012-2013 to 2021-22, the government has taken measures to incorporate subsidised distribution of containers planted with vegetable seedlings at a cost as low as less than 7 USD, after 75 % subsidy. This enabled people from almost all sections of society to start home-garden vegetable cultivation in all possible spaces in their residential areas, be it ground, rooftop, parapet, balcony or top of boundary walls. Also, there were measures to distribute drip or wick irrigation units suitable for small house lots to ensure water-efficient vegetable gardening. In addition, there were also interventions to distribute waste management units under subsidy schemes so that home garden vegetable cultivation can be integrated with household waste management. These activities, carried out as part of ‘Promotion of urban clusters and waste management’ under Vegetable Development Program focused on reviving the traditional practices of home gardening with small-scale technological support to make it suitable for space-crunch urban areas. In other states where respective state governments promote urban home gardening/kitchen gardening in India, the scope has been limited only to large cities with a higher population.

      b. In one district centre in Kerala, there is an initiative led by a social media collective (Facebook-based agriculture group operated in the local language Malayalam) to link home-grown food production with urban short food supply chains. They use the Facebook group to disseminate information on the types and quantities of the produces that will be available in the urban weekly market. This group takes stringent measures to ensure that all the produce sold there is grown completely organically and ensures “know your farmer” or “vegetables with an address” to the customers. More details can be found in Pinheiro (200). The document is attached here.

      Enclosures for further reading:

      Pinheiro, A. (2022). Urban home gardening movement in Kerala—Role of social media collectives. LEISA-India. https://leisaindia.org/urban-home-gardening-movement-in-kerala-role-of-…

      Pinheiro, A., & Govind, M. (2020). Emerging Global Trends in Urban Agriculture Research: A Scientometric Analysis of Peer-reviewed Journals. Journal of Scientometric Research, 9(2), 163–173. https://doi.org/10.5530/jscires.9.2.20

      See the attachments:

    • 20 March 2021.

      Dear Cindy, Dear Mark,

      I would like to present an example of food system transformation through mainstreaming hom egarden vegetable production in Kerala, India. Part of the information presented here comes from my PhD research (on urban agriculture and sustainability in Kerala) carried out at Centre for Studies in Science Policy, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. This example can be adapted in other suitable regions with modification to suit the local context. Looking forward to hearing from you.

      Anita Pinheiro

      See the attachments:

    • This is an important effort to make a clear understanding on the concepts of sustainable food systems. I appreciate the efforts and hubmly present my comments to the draft are as follows:-

      Emphasis on ‘profitability’ of sustainable food systems will completely undermine subsistence production systems and similar decentralized initiatives that is integrated with the local economy.

      Resilience is a pre-requisite to sustainability and hence it cannot be used synonymous to sustainability. Although the draft has given a detailed account of resilient production systems, characteristics of a sustainable production system also needs to be given equal emphasis in the draft. It is important to distinguish what a sustainable production system will look like when it is compared with the conventional mode of monoculture production with intensive inputs-be it organic or chemicals.

      House-lot food gardens needs to receive attention in the glossary. House-lot gardening is a traditional form of economically viable local production in the Global South that provides inexpensive source of nutritious food to the family from the private spaces of a house such as backyards, rooftops, and setback. The purpose of house-lot gardens are primarily subsistence production of fruits and vegetables for the consumption of family members. However, the on-going movements that taking place in the state of Kerala (India) shows that house-lot gardens could be drivers of larger change to address the lack of larger pieces of land, if supported with adequate policy and institutional support. Apart from supplementing the family with fresh vegetables, the house-lot gardens also facilitates recycling the household organic wastes at the source. Moreover, the emerging initiatives that provides platforms to sell exclusively home-grown surplus produce in Kerala shows the potential of home-grown production to develop into a cooperative local marketing system. The example of Kerala is mentioned here to emphasis that house-lot gardens can do much more to the sustainable local food system if is provided with adequate policy and institutional support. Hence, it needs be considered to mention in the glossary.

      It would be good to define urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture separately. There is considerable difference in the practices and socio-economic-environmental aspects of peri-urban agriculture and urban agriculture. Peri-urban agriculture is a commercial activity that is carried out on land whereas urban agriculture may not necessarily be a commercial activity and sometimes it doesn’t require land for production. The given definition in page 48 under the sub-heading ‘urban agriculture/urban gardening’ could be modified to incorporate urban house-lot gardens, rooftop gardens, vegetable and fruit gardening on the small private spaces of balcony, patio, and set back areas. It is also important to mention that urban agriculture could be of building-integrated capital-intensive production systems such as rooftop green houses and vertical gardens or low-budget house-lot vegetable gardening using the available spaces at rooftop, balcony and set back. In both these forms of urban agriculture, the importance is that it does not require any additional land for growing vegetable and fruit crops. There are efforts to bring environmental consciousness in capital intensive urban systems by adopting solar energy to power up the production. As the methods and practices of urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture are different, it would be appreciated if the terms could be defined separate in the glossary.

    • The dominant notion of agri-food system emphasis on the calory requirement and the quantity of grains required to feed the growing population and hence demand for techno-managerial solutions for further intensification of production and incremental innovations. These incremental changes in the existing agri-food regime are in favor of large-scale farming systems and hardly address the concerns of smallholder farmers and resilience of marginal and small-scale food production systems. Moreover, the dominant agri-food regime has failed to ensure increased food and nutrition security with respect to the increase in food production. In this context, what we require are system level changes that acknowledge the multifunctionality of agriculture and de-linking agriculture from the notion of large-scale intensive production.

      Decentralization of safe-to-eat food production is inevitable to address the increasing vulnerabilities elicited by the conventional mode of food production. Food production has to be concentrated in marginal and small-holders farms and it has to be further extended from farms to food and nutrition gardens in backyards, rooftops, and all other available spaces. Urban food production also needs to be adopted to ensure the resilience of urban systems and to minimise the export of wastes outside the urban setting. The ongoing interventions to ensure self-reliance on the production of safe-to-eat vegetables in Kerala (India) would be of importance in this context.

      To address the vulnerabilities experienced due to dependent food economy and conventional agriculture, Kerala is in the making of a transition towards self-reliant and sustainable agri-food systems, especially in the case of vegetables. Adoption of food system localization and agroecological practices have become an agenda of the government and R&D. In order to facilitate this, the Vegetable Development Program (started in 2012) of the state government of Kerala explores every possible space for safe-to-eat food production that includes schools, government institutions, backyards and on rooftops of both rural and urban areas. The rural-urban continuum, high population density, and space constraints made it inevitable to consider food production in the urban setting as well. This is mainly carried out through the promotion of home-based nutrition gardens and also by providing portable composting units and/or biogas units to recycle the biodegradable kitchen wastes so as to use for vegetable gardening. Both the government and social actors play key roles to develop new technologies and practices for vegetable cultivation. New and improved technologies and methods of vegetable cultivation in the backyards and rooftops of rural and urban premises have received a place in the government policy as well as in the R &D agenda of Kerala. The main emphasis of both the actors is to develop solutions to overcome the spatial constraints of Kerala and to adopt agroecological methods of cultivation. The government subsidy schemes facilitate diffusion of grow-bags (with vegetable saplings) and protected cultivation technologies (polyhouse/greenhouse and rain shelter) amongst the rural and urban residents, along with drip-irrigation units for water conservation.

      The bottom-up actions from the social actors take a complementary approach. Social media, particularly facebook (FB), has become a platform for the enactment of these activities. Interested people started different groups on facebook which aimed to promote different aspects of food system localization and agroecology including grassroots innovations. These groups are operated in Malayalam, the vernacular language of Kerala and the group member comprises of Keralites living in different parts of the globe. The objectives of these groups includes promotion of kitchen gardening, promotion of commercial farming adopting organic and agroecological practices, marketing of organically grown produce etc. Some of the activities prominent in these Facebook groups include sharing of seeds of local and traditional crops, conducting annual kitchen garden competitions, providing platform for sales of home-grown surplus produce, annual meets to further strengthening their activities etc. Apart from adopting some of these technologies (and also while rejecting some), they develop their own methods and technologies which are shared to each other through these facebook groups and thereby reinforce the government intervention by filling the gaps.

      The ongoing transitions in the agri-food system of Kerala are entrusted upon extending food production from farms to gardens and replacing hazardous chemicals with locally available or locally developed measures. In this way, food production is becoming a routine of many of the households, schools, and government and private institutions. This does not only enhance the resilience of the entire locality to withstand the externalities of a dependent food economy but also helps to strengthen the local level production for local level consumption.

      More details can be found at https://steps-centre.org/blog/kerala-making-transition-towards-healthy-…