المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Thank you for the opportunity to share some inputs on the draft scope of the HLPE-FSN report.

In this input (document attached) I focus on my concern with the centring of supply chains throughout the draft scope document. I believe we have moved in our thinking beyond the limitations of supply chain thinking. The supply chain approach is limited by its narrow focus on vertical production and economic links and is also rooted in and still overly influenced by corporate supply chain management thinking. This leaves it missing completely or undervaluing the horizontal relations including the social and ecological factors that shape the food system and are shaped by it. These social and ecological factors are clearly central to resilience that this report is focused on. Supply chain thinking has been widely critiqued for this narrowness, I believe suffering the same limitations as the value chain approach it is related to that has also been criticised for the same reasons.

The development of the concept of food systems was in part to specifically address the limitations of supply/value chain thinking and there are other more holistic approaches available to us. Appeal that this report and the process of its production put aside the supply chain thinking central to the current draft scope and embrace amore holistic approach.

Input from Dr Marc Wegerif on the Centring of Supply Chains Approach

Thank you for taking forward discussion and work on the essential process of building resilient food systems. I appreciate the opportunity to share some inputs on the draft scope of the HLPE-FSN report.

I am concerned about the centring of supply chains throughout the draft scope document. I believe we have moved in our thinking beyond the limitations of supply chain thinking. The supply chain approach, which is closely related to the value chain concept, is limited by its narrow focus on vertical production and economic links and is also rooted in and still overly influenced by corporate supply chain management thinking. This leaves it missing completely or undervaluing the horizontal relations including the social and ecological factors that shape the food system and are shaped by it. These social and ecological factors are clearly central to resilience that this report is focused on. Supply chain thinking has been widely critiqued for this narrowness, I believe suffering the same limitations as the value chain approach it is related to that has also been criticised for the same reasons.

The FAO (2021) State of Food and Agriculture report, which the scope draft refers to, defines food supply chains as the “series of activities” involved from primary production to retailing of food. There is no mention of the wider policy, social, economic, or ecological environment which are factors that chape food systems and fall outside the notion of “activities”. The definition also confirms the similarity of supply chain and value chain thinking in its definitions where it says that the food supply chain “definition differs from that of “food value chains” as proposed by FAO (2014) by excluding food consumption and disposal”. This makes clear that the supply chains are the same thing, in the FAO view, as value chains except they stop before consumption, so are even more limited. Further, to exclude consumption when part of the vision is SDG 2 and to exclude disposal (that is waste) when sustainability is central does not make sense.

The same FAO (2021) report goes on to define three different subcategories of food supply chains from the “Traditional”, to the “Transitional” and ending with the “Modern”. This clearly reveals the modernisation paradigm underpinning the supply chain concept and some of the quite specific assumptions involved, such as that it is the “Modern food supply chain” which feeds large urban populations and that these are “dominated by supermarkets and large processors”. This is simply not the reality of many food systems that feed large urban populations, at least across much of Africa and Asia. To go into this report with a scope informed by such assumptions would be highly problematic. It is within wider food systems, not narrow supply chains, that we need to look for the factors that could hinder resilience as well as the existing practices that could enhance resilience. It is also within some of the non-corporate parts of the food system, including those parts feeding many African and Asian cities that we might find important lessons for resilience[1].

We do not need to broaden the definition of food supply chains or try to clumsily add on areas of analysis that really don’t fit within the definition. Firstly, this is not the process within which to challenge and try to change an entrenched (including within FAO) definition and approach to analysis. Secondly, it does not need to change, it is a useful definition that is needed for discussions that are more narrowly focussed on “the activities” involved in production. This study, however, is not one of them as a broader approach is needed to explore options for resilient food systems. There are other approaches and other language that can be used for this report on food system resilience. Of course, the food system approach itself, which is being developed in practice by different researchers. Other approaches include, for example, the systems of provisioning approach that was developed precisely to find a better balance between overly horizontal analysis (focused on social and cultural influences) and the narrowly vertical focus of supply chain management and analysis[2].

The very development of the concept of food systems is in part to overcome these limits of supply chain and value chain analysis and interventions. As the FAO (2018) document “Sustainable food systems concept and framework” puts it: “The VC [Value Chain] development approach nonetheless focuses on one particular commodity and therefore tends to overlook the interdependencies of different VCs… Achieving broad-based developmental impacts, thus, requires taking a broader look at the interactions of all food VCs at the food system level.”[3]

The FAO (2018) document goes onto argue that given the limits of the value chain and some other approaches the “food systems approach is a way of thinking and doing that considers the food system in its totality, taking into account all the elements, their relationships and related effects. It is not confined to one single sector, sub-system (e.g. value chain, market) or discipline, and thus broadens the framing and analysis of a particular issue as the result of an intricate web of interlinked activities and feedbacks. It considers all relevant causal variables of a problem and all social, environmental, and economic impacts of the solutions to achieve transformational systemic changes.” That is part of what this report on food system resilience needs to do.

I appeal that the supply chain focus be replaced with a more holistic approach to analysis and seeking solutions in this report and the process of its production.