EGM on SDG 2: Magdalena Ackermann Statement, Session 3

Magdalena Ackermann

Co-coordinator ad interim of Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) Secretariat

Session 3: SDG Target 2.3- Double Agricultural Productivity and incomes of small-scale producers

• Where I come from: The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) for relations with the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is the largest international space of civil society organisations (CSOs) working to eradicate food insecurity and malnutrition. The purpose of the CSIPM is to facilitate civil society participation in the CFS. The CSIPM counts with the participation of organizations of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, agricultural and food workers, landless, women, youth, consumers, urban food insecure.
• What I bring to this session: what has been the collective analysis by the CSIPM on the barriers to achieve SDG2, an analysis based on the experience of the constituencies in the territories. We have several reports which I believe will be uploaded on the website of this EGM.
• Based on this analysis: the trajectory and the evidence from the organizations has shown that the question of increasing hunger and malnutrition is one that unfolds structural causes that impede the access to adequate food by people and threaten the production of adequate food by small scale food producers. At the same time it is small scale food producers themselves who have been guaranteeing the access to adequate food through local networks, particularly territorial markets.
• On these experiences and evidences, I would like to challenge how Target 2.3 has been initially formulated, to stimulate our reflection here. It is clear that a profound transformation of food systems is needed, but the direction of this transformation needs to go beyond the focus on doubling productivity. It is broadly accepted today that enough food is produced around the world, the issue is how this food is produced and distributed and who has access to it. Our societies have become extremely vulnerable to food and nutrition insecurity actually due to overdependence on global value chains and fossil fuel-based production inputs, and concentration of power in almost all aspects of food systems, including concentration of land driving food producers off the land.
• We heard from session 1 on ending hunger that food systems need to be localized. The evidence from constituencies also aligns with the need to localize food systems so as to support the solutions that are already in place by those who actually produce the food.
• Instead, supporting the agroecological transition which is based on territorially-based processes and on the co-creation of knowledge, can provide contextualised solutions to local problems and reducing dependence not only on external inputs, but also from food imports.
• We have heard the need for more data, but who collects, owns and controls the data and which technologies are used to collect that data remain a challenge to be addressed. Digital technologies and processes affect landscapes, communities, and production systems globally, but also reshape our very perception of the food systems through defining what counts as “data,” including or excluding knowledge based on this definition, and therefore disciplining what food futures are imaginable. The CFS has developed policy recommendations on data which are relevant here.
• I have highlighted some of the main structural causes that demanded to be addressed by people in the territories. The increase in conflicts and occupation, and the use of food as a weapon of war already mentioned by participants is another one. The support towards the production and productivity by small-scale food producers, and their livelihoods, for the human rights based transformation of food systems needs to overcome these structural factors.
• In this sense, one key dimension is the governance of food systems and ensuring that public policies are able to address and eventually revert the direction towards food systems that will keep us off track SDG2. The governance of food systems needs to be human rights based if we are to walk towards the just transformation of food systems for ensuring zero hunger and malnutrition. It needs to put at the centre the evidence, experiences and demands from those most affected, who are often at the same time those who produce most of the food consumed today.
• Inclusive and meaningful participation of civil society and Indigenous Peoples in governance of participation is a determinant condition for the progressive realization of the right to food.
• In this sense, the UN Committee on World Food Security remains a key space that has a specific mandate for the realization of the right to food, while ensures the participation of civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations inthe global governance of food systems. The CFS has been able to develop key instruments that still until today support the work of food producers organizations: the RtF guidelines have been mentioned, but also the Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure and Policy recommendations on connecting small-holders to markets.
• Now we have CFS Policy Recommendations on Youth as well as Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality, which have counted with the active participation of our constituencies and include important recommendations to respond to some of the structural issues, for instance the need for redistributive reforms of land, the redistribution of unpaid care work and the need for eliminating sexual and gender based violence to ensure the right to food.