Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

This member contributed to:

    • I am wiring near the deadline for responses.  It is great that they are transparent, but it seems that you have 55 write-in responses nearly all of which address only one or two of the 21 questions you posed and few (if any) of the responses contain more text than the questions.  Next time, consider a GoogleForm or Survey Monkey tool approach.  Here are some responses to the questions (in ALL CAPS).

      1

      Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces

       

      • Do you have an understanding of how agrifood systems policy is enacted in your country or at the regional or international levels?  I AM MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT NUTRITION AND OTHER POINT-OF-PURCHASE FOOD STANDARDS THAT AGRICULTURE, PER SE.
      • Are you aware of opportunities to contribute science, evidence and knowledge to policy at national, regional or global levels?  MY IMPRESSION IS THAT IT IS ACCEPTABLE TO PROFFER SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ALWAYS, BUT DECISIONS ARE OFTEN MADE BASED ON OTHER FACTORS AND SCIENCE IS ONLY CITED WHEN IT ALIGNS WITH POLITICAL DECISIONS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN TAKEN.  IN SOME CASES, SUCH AS THE APPROVAL OF PESTICIDES, GOVERNMENT EXPRESSLY PREFERS WHAT IT CALLS SELLER-SPONORS STUDIES TO THOSE PUBLISHED IN PEER-REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT IT ONLY CONSIDERS STUDIES NOT PROVIDED BY COMPANIES WHEN THEY ARE BROUGHT TO THEIR ATTENTION BY CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS OR ACADEMICS AND, OFTEN, EVEN THEN THEY ARE SUMMARILY DISMISSED.
      • What kind of knowledge and evidence is privileged in such processes?  INDUSTRY-SPONSORED STUDIES ARE OFTEN FAVOURED OVER INDEPENDENT STUDIES BY UNIVERSITY-BASED ACADEMICS IN SOME CIRCUMSTANCES.  THE USE OF SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ARE NOT UNIVERSALLY USED.
      • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the processes you are aware of? SEE ABOVE.
      • What opportunities and challenges have you faced for drawing from sustainability science, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity to inform policy?  I INTERPRET SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE TO REFER TO ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.  I RECALL WHEN CANADA'S FOOD GUIDE (ITS FLAGSHIP FOOD-BASED DIETARY GUIDANCE) WAS BEING REVISED IN 2004-2007, THERE WAS A PROPOSAL TO INCLUDE GUIDANCE ABOUT EATING LOCAL OR SOME SUSTAINABILITY MESSAGING WHICH APPEARED IN A DRAFT; UNKNOWN PARTIES CHALLENGED THE ADEQUACY OF THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR THIS AND RATHER THAN REDOUBLING EFFORTS TO LAY OUT THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS, THE GOVERNMENT SIMPLY REMOVED MENTION OF IT.  THERE IS CONSIDERABLE EVIDENCE THAT RUMINANT ANIMALS CONTRIBUTE THE LION'S SHARE OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM FOOD SYSTEMS, BUT MANY REPORTS EQUICOVATE ON THIS POINT.
      • How can power asymmetries among stakeholders be taken effectively into account in science-policy processes?

      2

      Knowledge production for policy

       

      • What actions do you take to align your research to problems and challenges faced by agrifood systems?
      • In what ways are the research questions in your sphere of work framed by academic interests and/or funders’ focus?  SEE ABOVE.
      • To what extent do you feel research and policy-making communities in your sphere of work are united in their understanding of the challenges facing agrifood systems?  THERE ARE DIVISIONS IN THE LITERATURE ABOUT SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT HEALTHFULNESS FOR HUMANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT THAT I BELIEVE ORIGINATE IN VESTED INTEREST IN FOOD, ALCOHOL AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES.
      • To what extent do you work across disciplines and/or draw on expertise from academic and non-academic actors including Indigenous Peoples and small-scale producers?  I DRAW UPON A LOT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH (NUTRITION, LAW, ECONOMICS, BIOCHEMISTRY, ONCOLOGY, AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, TOXICOLOGY, AND SOME SOCIAL SCIENCES, ETC., ETC., THOUGH I PRIMARILY RELY ON THE INDEX PUBMED).  MY IMPRESSION IS THAT INDIGENOUS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE, ESPECIALLY CONCEPTS LIKE IMAGING IMPACTS SEVEN GENERATIONS INTO THE FUTURE AND A CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL DEDICATION TO BEING CUSTODIANS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ARE INVALUABLE.   WHILE SCIENCE IS, ESSENTIALLY, A FORMAL MEANS OF GATHERING AND ANALYZING EXPERIENCE, EXPERIENCE FROM TRADITIONAL MEMORY CAN BE VALUABLE.
      • To what extent, and in what ways, is your research co-produced with other knowledge holders and non-academic-stakeholders important for informing policy in agrifood systems?  MY ORGANIZATION AND I ARE MORE DATA USERS AND POLICY REFORM ADVOCATES THOUGH WE DO GATHER INFORMATION FOR POLICY-RELEVANT DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS.

      3

      Knowledge translation for policy-making

       

      • To what extent does your organization/university support you to produce and disseminate knowledge products to a range of audiences?  WE HAVE A LARGE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION NETWORK AND OCCASIONALLY PUBLISH IN OTHER FORA (SUCH AS ACADEMIC JOURNALS AND BOOKS) WITH LIMITED REACH TO EXPERTS, AND SOMETIMES COMMUNICATE WITH NEWS MEDIA, ESPECIALLY IN CANADA, WHICH HAS A VERY LARGE REACH TO GENERAL AUDIENCES.
      • How does it create/maintain institutional linkages between producers and users of research? Describe any dedicated resources for knowledge translation that are in place.  MY ORGANIZATION IS MORE GOAL ORIENTED THAN INSTITUTION-BUILDING-ORIENTED.  THE STARTING POINT FOR EFFECTIVE SCIENCE-INFORMED INNOVATIONS, ESPECIALLY IN LOW-RESOURCE POPULATIONS, IS LAW REFORM, NOT BUILDING NEW ORGANIZATIONS THAT REQUIRE FUNDING.
      • Please describe any incentives or rewards in place for effective, sustained policy engagement, for example successfully conducting policy-relevant research and for its dissemination.  IN MANY LOW-RESOURCE ECONOMIES--OFTEN WHERE MORE THAN 40% OF THE POPULATION IS EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE AND WHERE THE MAIN SOURCE OF FAMILY NUTRITION IS THE GARDEN IN BESIDE THE HOUSE, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AND PRODUCING FOOD THAT MEETS DIETARY NEEDS (OFTEN, MORE PROTEIN, FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND POLYUNSATURATED FAT) MUST BE THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE; HOW CAN A COUNTRY PROSPER IF MOST OF ITS POPULATION STRUGGLES TO MAKE ENOUGH FOOD THE FEED ITSELF.
      • Please tell us about any activities that you or your organization / university engage in to collate evidence for policy, such as evidence synthesis activities, or guideline development.  TOPIC-SPECIFIC SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS.  WHILE OUR SMALL ORGANIZATION ACCUMLATES THIS ON OUR WEBSITE, BETTER EFFORTS SHOULD BE MADE TO CREATE REPOSITORIES OF GOAL-SPECIFIC KNOWLEGE. THERE SEEMS TO BE A PROBLEM OF RELYING ON EXPERTS TO GATHER THE INFORMATION TO PRODUCE REPORTS, RATHER THAT CURATING WISDOM IN PLACES WHERE ANYONE CAN ACCESS IT TO ACHIEVE FOOD SECURITY GOALS.
      • Do you or your organization / university engage in processes to build evidence into agrifood policy processes such as government consultations, government knowledge management systems, digital decision-support systems, web portals, etc.? Please tell us more.  I HAVE PROVIDED SOME ADVICE TO INSTITUTIONS ABOUT BUILDING REPOSITORIES OF ACCUMULATED KNOWLEDGE (AND "KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES AND PLANS" TO SOLVE RECOGNIZED HEALTH PROBLEMS, BUT THERE SEEMED TO BE RELUCTANCE TO DO SO, POSSIBLY BECAUSE PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS BECOME WEDDED TO CONTINUING PROGRAMS THAT THEY HAVE STARTED AND FUNDRAISED TO CONTINUE.  ACCUMULATING EVIDENCE THAT MIGHT PUT THOSE PROGRAMS INTO QUESTION MAY BE PERCEIVED AS HERETICAL.
      • Do you or your organization / university contribute to efforts to ensure that evidence is provided for policy making which is grounded in an understanding of a national (or sub-national) contexts (including time constraints), demand-driven, and focused on contextualizing the evidence for a given decision in an equitable way? If so, please tell us more.  I DO THINK THAT FAO DATA IN THE STATISTICAL YEARBOOK IS INVALUABLE FOR INFORMING NATIONAL LAW AND POLICY REFORM DECISIONS; I WORRY THAT TOO MANY EXPECTATIONS ARE POURED INTO LAUNCHING PILOT STUDIES FUNDED BY POCKETS OF MONEY THAT THERE IS NO REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF SCALING UP TO BENEFIT ENTIRE POPULATIONS.  SEE THE ATTACHED LETTER TO FAO ABOUT THE ITS "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022." (https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cc0639en)

      4

      Assessing evidence

       

      • What makes evidence credible, relevant and legitimate to different audiences, and how might we balance their different requirements?  CREDIBLE EVIDENCE INDICATES THAT IS BASED ON A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE BEST AVAILABLE RESEARCH AND THAT MEASURES WERE APPLIED TO TAKE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT RESEARCH THAT WAS CONDUCTED BY, FOR INSTANCE, THE COMPANY SELLING THE PRODUCT BEING STUDIED.  OF COURSE, ENSURING THAT RESEARCH IS RELEVANT TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE IT WILL BE APPLIED IS VERY IMPORTANT.  APART FROM THESE TWO IMPORTANT FACTORS, HAVING WELL-DEFINED VARIABLES, ACCURATE MEASUREMENT, CAREFUL STATISTICAL ANALYSIS, AND ALL THE STANDARD FEATURES OF GOOD SCIENCE ARE IMPORTANT.  THOUGH SOME GOAL-ORIENTED JUDGEMENT IS REQUIRED; RESTIRESTRICTINGCY-MAKERS' ATTENTION TO ONLY RANDOMIZED, DOUBLE-BLINDED, CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTAL TRIALS CAN DEPRIVE THEM OF A VOLUME OF VALUABLE INFORMATION AND RESEARCH AND LEAD TO UNDESIRABLE ENDS. 
      • How can evidence be assessed in a rigorous, transparent and neutral manner?  BY BEING CONSCIOUS.
      • How can assessments of evidence best be communicated to all stakeholders?  BY BEING CONSCIOUS.

      5

      Examples

       

      • Please share any examples of how the science, evidence and knowledge generated through your work or the work of your organization / university has subsequently fed into decision-making.  THAT IS ALL WE DO; A SUMMARY OF ADVOCACY IN RECENT (COVID-19) YEARS WILL BE PUBLISHED ON OUR WEBSITE IN FEBRUARY: http://healthscienceandlaw.ca/

       

      See the attachments: