Dear colleagues,
Many thanks for your kind invitation to provide our comments which you will find below.
Best regards
Audun
Audun Lem, PhD
Deputy Director
Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
2. If there are key gaps in coverage of approaches, what are these and how would they be appropriately incorporated in the draft?
The following “salient dimensions” could particularly help characterize and compare these different approaches: human-rights base, local or global markets and food systems (short or long supply chain), specialization or diversification, ownership and use of modern knowledge and technology, and use of local and traditional knowledge and practices.
3. Are there any key aspects of agroecology that are not reflected in this set of 17 principles? Could the set of principles be more concise, and if so, which principles could be combined or reformulated to achieve this?
Principles 5-7 should specify small scale fisherfolk, as well as aquatic foods.
Principle 9, consider "producer" instead of "farmer" or "small scale farmer and fisher"
Principle 15-16 could be combined, or rephrased to encompass the role of "right to food" or food sovereignty
4. Along with the four agreed dimensions of FSN (availability, access, stability, utilization), the V0 draft also discusses a fifth dimension: agency. Do you think that this framework addresses the key issues? Is it applied appropriately and consistently across the different chapters of the draft to structure its overall narrative and main findings?
Where "Agency" is discussed and included in the framework, it is referenced to in majority from rights-based approach literature. This follows logically, but could be strengthened and better understood in the agroecological context by supporting with indicators of subjective awareness and consumer behavior and decision making. This could include items from literacy rates, to public polling on consumer satisfaction with products, origins, tenure, etc.
6. Chapter 2 suggests a typology of innovations. Do you think this typology is useful in structuring the exploration of what innovations are required to support FSN, identifying key drivers of, and barriers to, innovation (in Chapter 3) and the enabling conditions required to foster innovation (in Chapter 4)? Are there significant drivers, barriers or enabling conditions that are not adequately considered in the draft?
Chapter 2 typology of innovations is thorough, though possibly missing key fisheries and aquaculture approaches to SFS. Also, it is not readily clear how the innovations encompass the existing broad scope of food systems- where are the fish? Why is "Organic Ag" specified, but not other certification schemes?
8 Do you think that key recommendations or priorities for action are missing or inadequately covered in the draft?
Consider strengthening text on forging new alliances across disconnected domains/ key actors- building off IPES Food Oct 2018 report: https://ia601506.us.archive.org/7/items/CS2ExecutiveSummary/CS2_ExecutiveSummary.pdf
9 Throughout the V0 draft there has been an attempt to indicate, sometimes with placeholders, specific case studies that would illustrate the main narrative with concrete examples and experience. Are the set of case studies appropriate in terms of subject and regional balance? Can you suggest further case studies that could help to enrich and strengthen the report?
Case studies within IPES Food, Oct 2018: https://ia601506.us.archive.org/7/items/CS2ExecutiveSummary/CS2_ExecutiveSummary.pdf
10 Are there any major omissions or gaps in the V0 draft? Are topics under-or overrepresented in relation to their importance? Are any facts or conclusions refuted, questionable or assertions with no evidence-base?
Consider addition for climate change considerations, the recent study from Harvard U, findings of rising CO2 from human activity creating less nutrition staple crops (rice, wheat) in Asia. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0253-3.epdf?referrer_access_token=U9I9ylghWQszPPMsbuOs5tRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O5J0oP_LhVUOgym62AyF5ghuOS5aOCa4g0Agd33biHRPVvzshteII8s6f0432vmaDtwx28IbA_1rUF6bUFrcpPQmlkW8yIrssI3hK9jpJ8kZzTEIuIQmPgiyqj0FPn0ncunCPKX2u6ikr5IkKTJfRKB6Nk_AJt0lw9Z701SZMl9BwrSre6lOjBS9yodCaoCZb27oS0b16hW-aotQByRPF9Q5WAUeDWZwmZqFd6sg34DavohtVDVExWGF3wNLJFM0pqwjzXG9ULrw7uEV5geLZT&tracking_referrer=www.theguardian.com
Audun Lem