المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

On behalf of the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture FOAG, I would like to thank the HLPE for this opportunity to comment on this timely and important initiative.

We are very pleased to see that the report will adopt a food systems approach to look at nutrition, from farm to fork. In fact, Switzerland plays an active role in promoting sustainability all along the food chain at global, regional and national level. Switzerland is co-leading the Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) Programme of the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP), a global multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to accelerate the shift towards sustainable food systems by adopting such a systemic approach. This Programme addresses several of the elements presented in the Issues Note (e.g. sustainable diets) and we believe that it could be highly valuable to build on these interlinkages and make best use of synergies between the work of the 10YFP SFS Programme and the HLPE report.

Regarding the main elements as presented in the Issues Note, we would like to underline that they are very relevant and overall they capture the main issues in the context of nutrition and food systems very adequately. In the first paragraph on page 1, we would propose to highlight also SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production, in addition to Goals 2 and 13. Further, it could be valuable for the report to highlight some existing case studies on sustainable diets (e.g. Mediterranean diet).

We agree with the importance of the proposed questions to be addressed by the report, and in this regards, we would like to suggest to take into account the following core questions:

- What are the main factors determining nutritional outcomes, along the different stages of the food chain and in different regional and national contexts? Consequently, where lies the largest potential to act upon food systems in order to achieve better nutritional outcomes?

- Which are the food systems and/or elements of certain food systems that have the most positive impact on nutrition?

- What actions should be taken and/or what policies should be promoted in relation to food systems, in order to achieve better nutritional outcomes? How important is the cultural dimension with regard to the success of such actions and/or policies?

- Are there trade-offs between nutritional outcomes and the sustainability of food systems, or does better nutrition reinforce more sustainable food systems?

Thank you and we remain at your disposition for any additional information regarding the 10YFP SFS Programme.