Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Dear SOFA team,

We are happy to submit our contributions to the call. Please find our submissions attached.

On behalf of Impact Institute we would like to submit the following publications:

• External Costs of Animal Sourced Food in the EU

For any inquiries do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Simone van Klaveren

Dear SOFA team,

We're happy to submit our contribution 'External costs of animal sourced food in the EU - Study on the externalities attributed to current value chains of EU production and consumption of animal sourced food – and opportunities for change'.

This study monetises environmental, health and social costs of current animal production and consumption in the EU, with an innovative methodology for including animal welfare under social costs. It was carried out by Impact Institute in 2023.

Please find our contribution attached.

Kind regards,

Camilla Björkbom

Political Adviser Food Policy

Eurogroup for Animals

Dear SOFA team,

We are happy to submit our contributions to the call. Please find our submissions attached.

On behalf of True Price we would like to submit the following publications:

• The True Price of Climate Smart Agriculture
• Final report True Price of CSA Coffee

For any inquiries do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Claire van den Broek

Dear SOFA team,

We are happy to submit our contributions to the call. Please find our submissions attached.

On behalf of True Price we would like to submit the following publications:

• The external costs of banana production
• The external costs of banana production: A global study

For any inquiries do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Claire van den Broek

Dear SOFA team,

We are happy to submit our contributions to the call. Please find our submissions attached.

On behalf of True Price we would like to submit the following publication:

• True pricing at Ministry of I&W

For any inquiries do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Claire van den Broek

Dear SOFA team,

Global Salmon Initiative (GSI), a leadership coalition representing over 40% of the global farmed salmon industry, would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide contributions about our ongoing work related to the hidden costs and benefits of agrifood systems. The farmed salmon sector supplies most of the world’s salmon, producing 70% of the global salmon harvest.[1] Given the continued growing demand for healthy protein, specifically aquaculture, Global Salmon Initiative was founded to move the industry towards more responsible, healthier and environmentally friendly farming methods. Our members are based in Chile, Canada, Australia/Tasmania, New Zealand, the Faroe Islands, Norway and Scotland. We appreciate that the 2023 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report presents True Cost Accounting as a framework to assess the hidden costs of our food systems. We strongly believe that understanding these hidden costs is crucial to identifying gaps and strategically targeting interventions and investments that can transform our food system to amplify the many benefits and opportunities. Our contribution highlights two frameworks in development designed to help decision-makers in the salmon farming sector standardize accounting and data collection and identify risks in the supply chain, ultimately addressing the challenge of capturing more hidden economic costs in the global food system.

Salmon farming is one of the most technically advanced forms of protein production, partly due to continuing innovations and farming efficiencies in the sector. From reducing dependence on marine ingredients, lowering our greenhouse gas emissions, and improving fish health and welfare, we are continually working to improve industry performance and our members annually report on our progress via our public Sustainability Report.[2] Employing aligned metrics across companies and regions to monitor and report data on crucial environmental and social parameters enables us to pinpoint strategic areas of focus for further improvement where knowledge transfer between companies and regions can accelerate progress.

Through collective efforts in GSI, the industry has improved the feed efficiency ratio through reduced its fish in to fish out ratio and increasing use of industry by-products and novel ingredients, reduced the use of antibiotics by 50% in 7 years, and supported the uptake of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification from 0-60% in 10 years. Measures like these will help aquaculture deliver on its promise, and GSI shares learnings so that others in and beyond the aquaculture sector can incorporate sustainable production efforts as well. More information on how GSI is using collaboration as a driver for industry transformation has been captured as part of a case study by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), “The Business Case for Pre-Competitive Collaboration: The Global Salmon Initiative.”[3]

Blue foods, including farmed salmon, are not only nutrient-rich, but they also have low GHG emissions relative to other animal proteins and present an opportunity to contribute to more sustainable, climate-resilient diets.[4] Aquatic foods are more efficient than terrestrial systems in providing protein; their impact on climate change and land use is in general much lower than terrestrial animal proteins and their production is not limited by suitable area available. Such benefits are highlighted by the research from the Blue Foods Assessment published in 2022.[5]

One vital way to improve production and consumption of nutrient-rich and sustainable protein is through aquaculture, the world’s fastest growing food sector.[6] The Ocean Panel documented the ocean’s ability to sustainably produce six times more food if better utilized and managed responsibly —and it could do so with a low environmental footprint.[7]

As noted within the 2023 SOFA report, GHG emissions are a large contributor to the environmental hidden costs of our food system and need to be reduced by 80% by 2050. And progress is still needed to further reduce emissions within the farmed salmon industry. We are collaborating with WWF to implement a standardized GHG Accounting Framework for the farmed salmon sector, with the eventual goal to expand it across the aquaculture sector. In partnership with IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, and Blonk Sustainability, we're testing a data collection tool aligned with this framework to make it easier for companies to collect aligned data points for their product footprint. Using standardized accounting and data collection, the tool will support greater opportunities to pinpoint mitigation opportunities, then employ GSI's pre-competitive model to quickly disseminate best practices and insights for faster emission reductions across the global salmon-farming sector. This framework will launch in mid-2024.

We also are working with WWF to develop an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Risk Assessment Tool to holistically assess feed ingredients across ESG indicators. This tool will make it easier to collect and share information between feed companies and suppliers, help identify hidden costs and risks, and will act as a starting point for continually increasing transparency across supply chains. It will be ready to launch in Q1 2024.   

GSI members are committed to sharing their knowledge to help other aquaculture sectors evolve responsibly and support seafood’s important role in providing a growing population with access to safe and nutritious food. We believe that the adoption and use of the standardized GHG Accounting Framework and the ESG Risk Assessment Tool will provide valuable estimates of the costs and benefits of salmon production and will enable greater transparency and better decision-making. 

Thank you for your leadership on this important dialogue, and for this excellent opportunity to provide comment. On behalf of GSI, I am very keen to assist in the development of the 2024 SOFA report and would be open to connect and support however required.

Sincerely,

Sophie Ryan, CEO, Global Salmon Initiative

Dear SOFA team,

We are happy to submit our contribution "Case study on hidden sustainability performance and hidden positive externalities in agriculture in Germany – pilot project in Lower Saxony".

Please find our submission attached. For further inquires as well as the full, unpublished version of the report, feel free to contact us.

Best regards

SOFA Hidden Costs

Though there is no recorded case of use as a TCA methodology, the market systems development (MSD) approach is a potentially useful tool that can be used to identify and understand the underlying causes of the hidden costs in agrifood systems. While the approach largely lends itself to the development of interventions to promote the inclusion of marginalised people in market systems; its focus on addressing the factors that influence outcomes of relationships and transactions between people, organisations, and institutions in the market system makes it a suitable approach to identifying the hidden costs. Furthermore, by placing the value chains at the centre of the framework of the approach, it can apply to a range of scopes which include the global, sectoral, and single-product scopes. The SOFA 2023 already had tenets of the approach when considering the markets, institutional and policy failures in the agrifood system but what may be required is to analyse the root causes of these failures which is what policy can try to address.

Dear FSN Moderator:

Please include the following contribution on the above topic.

"The hidden costs of agri-food systems transformation are related to making the foods safe and nutritious. In contrast to the cold chain that has been used for decades to minimize nutrient losses and improve food safety of high moisture content products, the dry chain was realized and proposed recently in 2018 for low moisture content seed/food/feed products.  We have previously elaborated on the need to implement the dry chain at farms to make low moisture content seed/food systems sustainable and safe.  In addition, we have gathered and produced research evidence including through a research project in collaboration with UNICEF-Nepal. 

Here, we would like to share the link by USAID Agrilinks that has embraced and appreciated the dry chain to reduce food losses in the developing countries “Cold and Dry Chain to Reduce Food Loss and Waste”. Since dry food losses in the developing countries are associated with infection by toxic molds and insects, and nutrient decline in the storage, there is an urgent need to embrace and disseminate novel intervention soon after harvest to enable dry seed/food/feed systems to be safe and sustainable.

Peetambar Dahal and Krishna Belbase (Formerly with UNICEF, New York)"

Subject Matter Expert (Food Loss and Waste Cohort 5)

Seed Scientist (Retd.), University of California, Davis, USA

Former Coordinator of NRNA Americas to Agri Promotion Committee; Asta-Ja RDC-USA; Nepalese Agricultural Professional Association  (NAPA)

Dear SOFA team,

We are happy to submit our contribution "Revealing data gaps in True Cost Accounting of European diets" to the FAO SOFA 2024 report. This contribution is part of the PLAN'EAT project, a Horizon Europe project funded by the European Commission and aiming at transforming food systems and food environments towards healthy and sustainable dietary behaviour. 



Please find our submission attached. For further inquires as well as the full, unpublished version of the report, feel free to contact us. 



Kind regards,

Siranush Ghukasyan