Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Additional Comments on the V0 draft on Agro-ecology etc.

As a supplementary suggestion, I would like to invite the drafters to propose a briefer and a clearer purpose the report intends to achieve. Would one be mistaken in assuming that its aim is to ascertain the suitability of agro-ecology and other methods as a means of achieving an adequate FSN with a view to form policies and implementation mechanisms to achieve that objective?

Should my assumption be correct, then one would proceed to identify the significant methods of food production/harvesting currently in use, including agro-ecology in its various guises. Here, one would take extra-ordinary care not to lump together all of them as one distinct category as their proponents do not seem to think so. Next, similar care should be taken not to conflate genome modification/alteration, and its use, and the quantitative aspects of its application, i.e., the size of area such plants are grown or animal raised, etc.

Then, one needs to present scientifically sound and up-to-date data on the following attibutes of those methods. After all, innovation is merely a fancy way of saying, use of a new method.

1. Its safety for environment and humans.
2. Its drain on eco-systems services.
3. The quality of its yield which certainly includes not only its mechanical nutritive value, but also taste, colour, flavor and texture and not just the size and colouration. Do please recall that most of eat not just to fill our bellies and get the right dose of nutrients, but also the total experience the pleasure we all associate with meal times. This is a common good of civilization that we should not deny to the coming generations.
4. The quantitative attributes of the yield from various methods applied to comparable crops. These include total quantity as well as individual quantities of the relevant nutrients and the eating experience enhancing elements. This should not be confused with various additives.
5. Ease of acquiring the knowledge and skill needed to apply the method involved.
6. Ease and cost of using the chosen method with respect to the abilities and resources actually available to its potential users, i.e., farmers, fishermen, dairymen, etc.

The above list is not exhaustive, but, it points at the line of enquiry to be persued when one evaluates various means of food production with a view to enhancing an adequate FSN.

Now, the structure of a ‘food system’ remains a moot point even though understanding what may justifiably constitute a food system presents no intrinsic difficulty whatsoever. This becomes self-evident when one considers the very obvious truth, that since we are not automatically fed by some putative super-natural agency, we have to find, prepare and consume what we need to satisfy our our need for nutrition. A food system constitutes the structure we use for this end.

It is here we often make a serious category error of mixing two or more unrelated sub-systems as in the V0 draft. When the subject under discussion is the evaluation of modes of food production including agro-ecological ones with a view to enhanced FSN by embodying the most appropriate ones in agricultural policy and means of its implementation, it includes its exchange sub-system at the wholesale and retailor level (recursively used selling sub-system) as though they are an integral part of a food production.

It should be obvious by now the ‘value chain’ it mentions has nothing to do with agro-ecology anymore than discredited slash and burn agriculture. Let us make it clear in our minds what we wish to do rather than groping around for inspiration. Please note that even the primitive man of the stone age had all the basic sub-systems of a food system that are in use today. The only ‘new’ sub-system, i.e., the selling or exchange system came into being after the introduction of the barter system, the much lamented father of modern economy. True, all the components of our food systems have been modernized, but we would commit a grave mistake if we should fail to distinguish between the technical changes in them and their original purposes that remain unchanged as they did thousands of years ago.

Best wishes!

Lal Manavado.