Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

I am submitting a consultation post and thank you for the opportunity to provide comment and feedback. 

Anna Spurek

COO, Green REV Institute

Poland

Overall, I found the draft excellent, although I have a few comments. Some of the comments are minor or involve just some literature references that I think it would be important to have, and are made directly on the draft attached, as comments.

But here I mention three things that I think are substantial and whose consideration will significantly improve the relevance of the report:

• There is little reference to the role of biodiversity in food systems. This is a bit unexpected, considering the various relatively recent reports indicating that biodiversity is extremely important. There is a brief reference to biodiversity of food systems, but perhaps it could be unpacked a bit more, both in terms of the role of wild diversity embedded in food-prducing landscapes and also the importance to have high intraspecific diversity of crops and farm animals, something that is being lost fast due to the dominant model of international food trade. I have provided a couple of references.
• There is almost no reference to the impacts of food systems (production and distribution chains). Again, this is a bit odd considering that food systems are considering one of the major (problably THE major) factor behind nature decline and climate change. Of course the focus of this report is different, but I think some mention should be made: food systems do not happen in a vaccumm and all the increased resilience and justice should not be sought after without considering the environmental impacts/ sustainability as well. 

In relation the the second point above, I think some explicit link should be made regarding the very advanced IPBES 

Thematic assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health

I think it could be mentioned and explain why and how it will not be yet another partially overlapping international report (:) ) but something complementary and synergistic. 

Thank you again for involving me in this great initiative.

All the best

Sandra Díaz (ella)

Investigadora Superior CONICET

Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal

Profesora Titular Ecología de Comunidades y Ecosistemas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Dear HLPE-FSN Secretariat,

Please find in attachment some inputs that we hope will provide a valuable contribution to your work for the development of this important report. We look forward to the opportunity to further collaborate on this significant endeavor.

Sincerely,

Stefano Marras
Director of Global Partnerships - UN Affairs
Bayer AG, Crop Science Division

HLPE – FSN Consultation

Inputs provided by
Bayer AG, Crop Science Division

DIFFERENT WAYS OF DEFINING RESILIENCE

How do farmers define resilience?

From a farmers’ perspective, resilience encompasses their capacity to adapt to and withstand climate and environmental stressors (e.g. droughts, floods, extreme weather events, water scarcity, soil erosion, pests, diseases, etc.) as well as socio-economic challenges (e.g. trade and market disruption, unrests and conflicts, pandemics, labor shortages, price fluctuations, etc.) while ensuring the productivity and economic viability of their farming operations both in the short and long term, by preserving and enhancing key natural assets such as soil, water, and pollinators that are critical to achieving that in a sustained way.

What are the main types of vulnerabilities facing farmers and what are the potential consequences for them, considering different kinds of potential shocks?

The main types of vulnerabilities faced by farmers include climate and environmental stressors – e.g. droughts, floods, extreme weather events, water scarcity, soil erosion, pests, and diseases, as well as socio-economic challenges – e.g. trade and market disruption, unrests and conflicts, pandemics, labor shortages, and price fluctuations. The potential consequences for farmers include reduced agricultural productivity, financial losses, increased food insecurity, and long-term environmental degradation.

What kind of inequities and power imbalances are present in food systems and how do they affect resilient FSN and especially for those groups facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability?

In food systems, inequities and power imbalances can impact the resilience of farmers facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability. Some of the key inequities and power imbalances include:

• Access to Resources: Farmers from marginalized communities often face challenges in accessing essential resources such as land, water, and capital, which are critical for building resilience in the face of environmental and socio-economic challenges.
• Market Access: Small-scale and subsistence farmers often encounter barriers to accessing markets and fair prices for their produce, leading to economic vulnerability and limited capacity to invest in resilience-building measures.
• Gender Inequality: Women farmers frequently face unequal access to resources, land ownership, and decision-making power within agricultural systems, impacting their ability to build resilience and adapt to challenges.
• Knowledge and Technology Disparities: There are disparities in access to agricultural knowledge, training, and technology, with marginalized farmers often lacking the resources and support needed to adopt resilient farming practices and technologies.
• Policy and Governance: Power imbalances in policy and governance structures can lead to unequal representation and limited voice for small-scale farmers and marginalized communities, hindering their ability to influence decisions that affect their resilience.

These inequities and power imbalances have significant implications for the resilience of farmers. They can exacerbate vulnerability to climate and environmental stressors, limit the adoption of sustainable and resilient farming practices, and perpetuate cycles of poverty and food insecurity. Additionally, intersecting aspects of inequality, such as gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, can compound the challenges faced by farmers, further undermining their resilience in the face of complex and interconnected vulnerabilities. Addressing these inequities and power imbalances is essential for building inclusive and resilient food systems that support the well-being and livelihoods of all farmers.

What resilience frameworks are there that should be explored? 

The world faces the urgent challenge to create agricultural systems that help farmers adapt to climate change impacts and run a commercially viable business, while also protecting our planet, limiting the further expansion of farmland and renewing Earth’s natural ecosystems. The way forward is to radically transform today’s farming systems and switch to practices that “produce more with less, while restoring more.” Regenerative Agriculture (RA) can provide the framework to achieve this and thus increase farmers’ resilience. RA refers to an outcome-based production model aimed at improving the overall environment with a strong focus on improving soil health and enhancing the ecosystem services provided by agricultural systems. While improving soil health is a key part and often foundational to RA, other key aspects include mitigation of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions reductions and increased carbon removals, maintaining, preserving or restoring on-farm biodiversity, conserving water resources through improved water retention and decreases in water run-off, and improving the social and economic well-being of farmers and communities. If adopted widely, RA has the potential to drive production gains and income growth for farmers while also providing net benefits to nature, such as sequestering carbon on a global scale. This would make the future of farming more sustainable and create a win-win-win for farmers, society and our planet.

RA builds on sustainable agriculture and has many of the same aims. Regenerative agriculture goes one step further, however. It places an emphasis not just on minimizing agriculture’s negative impact on the environment (for example, by reducing carbon emissions and the impact of crop protection) but also on delivering positive benefits to nature and leaving the land in a better condition than before (for example, by sequestering carbon, improving soil health, and restoring biodiversity). Sustainable agriculture, narrowly defined, is mainly a ‘do no harm’ approach. It is about reducing the negative impact of agriculture and limiting its environmental and climate footprint while producing more yield (“producing more with less”). RA is similar in that it focuses on lessening agriculture’s negative impact on the environment and our climate.  In addition, it also aims to provide positive benefits to nature and help farmers adapt to shifting climate conditions, so that they are able to produce more yield and raise incomes in a sustainable way (“producing more with less, while restoring more”).

What are the determinants, assets and skills that lead to resilience? 

What makes RA a model enabling to fully unlock farmers’ resilience is its outcome-based and system approach to farming. First of all, it’s all about focusing on what we want to achieve (the outcomes) – be that water conservation, carbon emissions reductions or sequestration, yield and output increases, or limiting deforestation – and then using a combination of existing and new technologies in efficient and adaptive ways to create the most impact, adjusting as we go along and doubling down on the solutions that work best. Secondly, keeping a system approach gives us the ability to truly manage the variability from farm to farm in a tailored way, unlocking productivity and sustainability at the same time. Fundamentally, the RA approach treats each farm as an individual ecosystem. It combines innovations (e.g. in seed breeding, crop protection and digital) to deliver a holistic set of solutions, tailored to each individual farm and its specific soil conditions. Farmer centricity is key to understanding and properly addressing farmers’ needs with the optimal mix of solutions. Implementing RA means establishing a farming operation that, when combining the optimal mix of solutions and practices, not only yields better harvests with a lower climate and environmental footprint but also delivers nature-positive outcomes – where aspects of the natural world, such as species and ecosystems, are being restored and the land is left in a better condition than before. In the absence of a single one-size-fits-all product or solution, the only way to achieve these benefits is by adopting an outcome-driven, system approach that aims to deliver measurable outcomes in terms of both productive capacity and sustainability – and then bringing it to scale.

For farmers, RA creates long-term value by future-proofing farming operations and making them more climate-resilient. It opens new opportunities for farmers to meet future expectations at a time of uncertainty and change. For example, it lets farmers tap into new sources of revenue, such as receiving payments for carbon sequestered, and grow their business in compliance with stringent new climate regulations, such as policies under the EU Green Deal. In addition, a digitally-enabled, system-wide approach to RA enables traceability in the food chain, which helps connect what is happening on the farm to consumers who are demanding and buying food with new expectations.

Digital precision farming is a key enabler in finding the optimal solution for each farming system. Data-driven insights from sensors and other digital field technologies can be used to tailor the right solution to the specific conditions of each individual farm. This allows farmers to make informed decisions about where and when to apply nutrients, crop protection and water on their land, which means they not only grow more crops with fewer resources and less environmental impact, but also improve the profitability of each acre. 

Besides data and digital technologies, precision breeding and precision crop protection – which involves designing new seeds and traits and small molecules levering artificial intelligence and big data – can play a key role because they help adapt individual cropping systems to changing climatic and environmental conditions and offer the right solution for each farmer.

Broadly speaking, key innovations that have potential to shape the regenerative future of agriculture include, but are not limited to:

• Next generation breeding and biotechnology (e.g. gene editing) to develop improved crops that can better withstand biotic and abiotic stressors (e.g. short corn, hybrid wheat, improved orphan crops).
• Smart cropping systems (e.g. direct seeded rice, cover crops).
• Sustainable crop protection based on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) including biologicals and new chemical profiles based on small molecules.
• Nitrogen fixation.
• Innovations in carbon farming, data and digital solutions.

It’s worth stressing that there is not one single solution, but always a combination of these solutions, that deliver a regenerative agriculture system and its benefits.

How can farmers’ resilience be evaluated and/or measured? What indicators would measure that food production is resilient?

RA most be supported by a foundational set of metrics and harmonized methods so that farmers, governments, and all the other stakeholders involved in agriculture and along the food value chain can establish a baseline and track progress. Metrics should be based on the following principles and criteria:

• Metrics should be as simple as possible while maintain scientific rigor and robustness.
• Metrics should be easy to understand and feasible to measure.
• Metrics should be clearly linked to ultimate outcomes desired.
  • Since certain outcomes are hard to measure (i.e., biodiversity impacts) metrics can be based on a combination of practice and outcomes measurements utilizing the best available science.
• Assessments should be risk-based, not hazard-based.
• Innovative technologies and practices leading to an environmental improvement should be taken into account by the metrics, meaning a metric should allow for progress to be demonstrated by levers that a farmer can use.
  • Example: many crop protection-related metrics are not able to consider modern application technologies.
• Metrics sets should provide the ability to demonstrate both intensity-based improvements and absolute improvements. For instance:
  • Need for food production will increase, so absolute reduction in GHG emissions will be a challenge in the near term, but should be the ultimate goal to align with the current state of science and the global carbon budget for agriculture
  • Intensity based in the short term (kg CO2/kg; or m3/kg) with longer term strategy focused on absolute reductions and decouple of growth and emissions/impacts
• Thresholds or reference values that are rigid and do not allow for the local conditions to be respected should not be supported. Examples include: 
  • Environmental Impact Reduction (EIR): Some food value chain companies define thresholds (e.g. McCain for EIQ). Thresholds should make agronomic sense and should not cause trade-offs such as yield loss or risk for resistance.
  • Soil Health of arable land: a soil under arable land has different properties than a soil under natural vegetation. This does not mean that soils under arable land are unhealthy. Reference values for healthy soils should take site conditions into consideration as well as soil functionality;
  • % natural/ semi-natural habitats: general thresholds like minimum of 20 % natural/ semi-natural habitat should not be used, because this is not realistic for many crop regions. Rather than demanding such a high threshold for RA, it is better to ensure that whatever % of natural or semi-natural habitat exits or is desired, it should be established with the support of local experts to make sure that desired species are attracted and that habitats are connected - without causing agronomic problems for farmers (e.g. increased weed/ disease pressure)
• Spatial scope (i.e., field, farm, corporate, project, etc.) of metric should be clearly articulated and metrics should ideally only be used for the scope intended.

Which and where are the weak points in global food systems in terms of ensuring the resilience of food security and nutrition? 

Food and nutrition security has become a topic of concern for all of us as we see climate change, geopolitical tensions and economic volatility impacting food production, distribution and access. We have also seen significant food price inflation in some parts of the world further impacting affordability and availability of a healthy diet for millions of people. 

Agriculture is a core field to focus on. While farmers primarily run an operation, they all play an essential role for the greater good. Without farmers, there is no food security. 

Agricultural productivity continues to differ significantly between regions and countries, despite scientific breakthroughs, and we see the impact of changing and more extreme weather patterns on yield, commodity prices and more. Farmers today are under pressure to produce more nutritious food for more people with less environmental impact and less resources. It’s a Herculean task that is not fully or adequately recognized by society. 

The private sector, the market economy, and investments in research and development play a crucial role in combating hunger. Currently, siloed work can slow progress, there needs to be more connectivity across sectors which includes working  side by side with farmers to help them sustainably grow more abundant, diverse, and nutritious food. Higher productivity needs to be achieved with regenerative practices, reducing agriculture’s environmental impact, respecting planetary boundaries and restoring nature.

Political and regulatory frameworks need to be reliable and consistent across country borders as well as more supportive of innovations, for example biotechnology, that can be game changers for food production in the face of climate change.

What evidence bases are there to measure resilience and the effectiveness of interventions?

Some solutions that are proving to help farmers be more resilient:

• CoverCress (low-input winter oilseed cover crop) + Short stature corn + Soybean + Digital tools
  • Supports reduced/minimum till settings.
  • Provides a living root in the ground to support soil biology.
  • Carbon sequestration due to extensive root system.
  • Utilizes residual N when following corn crop.
  • Keeps the soil covered and protected from erosion. 
  • Improves soil health, specifically building soil structure and improving nutrient cycling.
  • Low carbon intensity biofuel vs. fossil fuel/electric grid.
  • Adds diversity to typical corn:soy rotation.
  • Support pollinators with early spring flowering.
  • Suppresses winter annual and early spring weed pressure.
  • Potential for early seeding when built into the Preceon Corn System.
  • Have a complementary Roundup Ready Xtend Flex soybean portfolio for use after CoverCress harvest.  
  • Have a complementary herbicide portfolio to enable successful use of CoverCress.

Business Potential: net $50/acre profit for growers with potential for growth based on yield and policy improvement.  This would create opportunities for growers and compete well against winter wheat.  Market of renewable oils from oilseeds is expected to increase. ​

• Ansal tomato (India, Kenya)
  • Improve productivity, social and economic well-being: Most Ansal tomato farmers surveyed last year in Kenya reported positive effects: 86% increased production, 91% increased income, 89% improved quality of life.   
  • Mitigation of climate change: Because of the great shelf life and fruit firmness Ansal significantly contributes to lower postharvest losses  from about 20-25% to less than 8-10%* resulting in ~23% reduction of GHG emissions per kg of marketable crop (versus the same leading competitor variety) (*based in a 2019 case study by Wageningen University for Bayer,* using product performance data from 2013-2017 from ~65 Bayer internal trials and post-harvest data from ~60 growers and ~10 dealers and exporters for the south and west India markets)
• Aryaman tomato (India)
  • Conservation of Water: Seminis® Aryaman is one of the major hybrids helping smallholder growers with better crop protection management with its disease resistance package and earliness as well as contributing to lesser food loss with its excellent fruit quality attributes. Because of its earliness, we can expect a week early in maturity which potentially could save ~6.5% of water per acre. It also has a potential to increase yield in 10-15% while reducing the losses in 8-9%. ​(Based on 62 trials in 2016-2019 by Bayer in the primary target market - central west India - Maharashtra region)  
• SVTE8444 tomato (Mexico)
  • High performing in its fruit class with optimum disease package and excellent yield potential which can result in more potential income for growers in Mexico. SVTE8444 is a vigorous and productive saladette tomato, which can be used for both long and short cycles with high resistance to tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV). In 21 Bayer trials in Sinaloa, Mexico (2020-2021), Seminis® SVTE8444 has shown advantages over Seminis® SV8579TE’ of +22% yield potential and +36% income potential for growers in XL fruit class
• SVTE 6653 tomato (Kenya)
  • Climate resilient tomato variety for smallholder farmers in Africa. SVTE 6653 has good disease resistance package​, compact plants with high vigor​ and it has shown uniform fruit from truss to truss and adapts well in adverse weather conditions​. Data from five trials in 2020 conducted by Bayer in Kajiado, Machakos, Laikipia, Baringo and Nakuru in Kenya show SVTE 6653 had +4% yield potential and -44% cost in crop protection on average when compared to Bayer’s variety DRD8551.

I made a separate submission specifically critiquing the centring of a supply chain thinking in the scoping document and appealing for a more holistic approach to be used. Here I make some other inputs in the attached in response to the prompting questions in the online consultation page.

Key points include:

• The need to give attention to the impact of advertising on food choices.
• Inequalities that shape food system decision making and outcomes and are unsustainable.
• The importance of learning from and building on the food systems created by the subaltern, especially in poorer countries. These are people’s solutions that work in their particular contexts and have shown great resilience. An example is a recently (2023) completed PhD by Dr Stephen Hahlani focussed on the resilience of the Mbare Musika market in Harare: https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/94268
• More attention needs to be given to the impact of conflict as shown in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere. This will require looking at international and regional peace keeping and justice, which are under extreme pressure at this time.

More details are in the attached. I hope these inputs are of interest.

Marc…

Input two from Dr Marc Wegerif

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 made a separate submission specifically critiquing the centring of a supply chain thinking in the scoping document and appealing for a more holistic approach to be used.

Here I make some other inputs in response to the prompting questions in the online consultation page.

Consumer choices are mentioned as a factor affecting whether or not people get enough nutrition, even when they have the resources. Access, education and awareness are mentioned as factors affecting this. There is no mention, however, of the probably far bigger impact of advertising. I urge that this be added. Food companies are some of the biggest spenders on advertising and clearly shape often bad food choices. This needs to be addressed.

While your questions to guide the consultation mention inequality, the scope document does not. I believe inequality is one of the major factors shaping our current food system/s and their outcomes and should therefore have a bigger place in the scope of the study. Inequality directly affects nutrition outcomes; who gets what. Inequality also exists in food system decision making power often leading to decisions that are shaped by powerful vested interests and not in the best interest of equity and sustainability. Inequality is also a factor of social division that can cause instability which threatens food systems.

We need to do more to recognise and learn from the food systems created by the subaltern, especially in poorer countries. The food systems I am talking about are the ones made up of many small-scale farmers, traders, local markets, etc. that feed many countries, including their cities, in much of Africa and Asia. As these are what people, especially those in poverty, create and have sustained for themselves over centuries, they have strong resilience and lessons we can learn. Understanding and building on what people are already doing, including what is working well, needs to be a principle of work on building a resilient food system. It is not that these are perfect but they should be a starting point to build on and they should not be undermined. These food systems are not utopian dreams, their strength is their pragmatism and their real-world proven ability to survive and operate within their particular and often challenging contexts. That is what we need for sustainability.

I believe my own work on food supplies to Dar es Salaam has useful insights into the nature of food system that provides for that large and fast-growing city[1]. My current and ongoing urban food system research in South Africa is showing how even in that corporate dominated economy street traders and public (municipal) markets are playing a large and important role at least in fresh produce supplies. They are out competing the supermarkets on price and other factors of accessibility, which is very important for food security and sustainability[2]. A range of other work has shown the importance of the informal sector for food accessibility in low income neighbourhoods[3].

A recently (2023) completed PhD by Dr Stephen Hahlani focussed on the resilience of the Mbare Musika market in Harare, which is the largest fresh produce market in Zimbabwe (https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/94268 ). This market has survived and prospered, playing a key role in food supplies, within changing and difficult times of political and economic crises from the colonial to the post-colonial times. 

There is too little of this kind of research that looks at the existing food systems, the economic organisation of the subaltern, and public markets. This requires more research that is not on supply chains and not applying the lens of supply chain thinking.

As has been shown by FAO et al state of food and nutrition security reports, and others, conflict is a major cause of food and nutrition insecurity. The wars and military conflicts including in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan clearly highlight that we cannot ignore the military and issues of peace and security if we want to ensure resilient food systems. Armed conflicts severely disrupt food systems from local to global levels. Therefore, measures to ensure peace and security, difficult as they are, need to be central in food system resilience strategies. This is not given much focus in the scope of work document and needs more attention than ever as the international system is under extreme pressure.

My input based on the queries posed for the consultation:

1. Different ways of defining resilience :

• How do different groups define resilience (e.g. Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations, the scientific / peer reviewed literature, other key rights holders)? 

Definitions adopted in the HLPE report will be key since resilience is a pretty generic concept that means different things to different people.

In FAO’s SOFA 2021 report, the resilience of agrifood systems was defined in a compact manner as:

“The capacity over time of  agri-food systems, in the face of any disruption, to sustainably ensure availability and access to sufficient safe and nutritious food for all, and sustain the livelihoods of agri-food system actors.”

It was then broken down in practical terms into capacities to guarantee diversity in production, availability of food through multiple channels (including imports and stocks), physical access to food, and economic access to food. Indicators were then constructed to capture aspects of these capacities. 

However different groups will define resilience in different ways, highlighting the multifaceted nature of resilience, encompassing anticipatory actions, economic stability, social protection, cultural preservation, and adaptive governance. Each group brings a unique perspective to the concept. Reconciling different definitions of resilience will involve integrating diverse perspectives into a cohesive framework., which can be challenging and will require choices about the scale of analysis (e.g. individuals, communities, value chains, national agrifood systems)

• What are the main types of vulnerabilities facing food supply chains and what are the potential consequences for food system actors (including input suppliers, food producers, traders, food system workers and consumers), considering different kinds of potential shocks?

Food supply chains face various vulnerabilities that can significantly impact actors from input suppliers to consumers. Environmental vulnerabilities, such as climate change, natural disasters, and pest outbreaks, can disrupt production, cascading through the supply chain, causing job insecurity, and higher food prices, ultimately leading to increased food insecurity for consumers. Economic vulnerabilities, including market fluctuations, recessions, and trade restrictions, result in revenue instability for input suppliers, income reductions for producers, and market uncertainties for traders, while consumers face reduced purchasing power and access to nutritious food.

Social vulnerabilities, such as political instability, conflicts, and pandemics, further complicate the situation by causing operational disruptions, forced displacements, labor shortages, and exploitation risks for food system workers. Infrastructural vulnerabilities, including failures in transportation networks, storage facilities, and energy supplies, exacerbate these challenges by increasing logistical costs and causing delays in food delivery. 

The final chapter of FAO’s SOFA 2021 report on resilient agrifood systems outlines potential ways to mitigate these impacts by diversifying supply sources, investing in resilient infrastructure, implementing adaptation practices, and strengthening social protection measures.

• What kind of inequities and power imbalances are present in food systems and how do they affect resilient FSN and especially for those groups facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability?

SOFA 2021, followed by an article published in Food Policy, highlighted how the greatest vulnerability for most countries is in economic access to food following a shock, even though availability and physical access to food could be important depending on the shock. 

The paper in Food Policy highlighted how inequality in income is a driver of vulnerability in economic access to an energy-sufficient diet. We find that: 

“… that for individuals struggling to afford an energy-sufficient diet, a one percent reduction in income inequality could provide a benefit 3 to 7 times that of a similar increase in mean income per capita.”

The above applies to income inequality across all sectors; however, the most recent SOFA report (2023) on the hidden costs of agrifood systems highlights how the largest hidden cost in agrifood systems in low-income countries is associated with poverty due to power imbalances for actors within agrifood systems.

• What resilience frameworks are there that should be explored? 

The obvious that stands out is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. However, while the Sendai Framework provides a comprehensive approach to DRR, it does not explicitly focus on food systems. There is a need for more detailed guidelines and strategies tailored specifically to the unique vulnerabilities and needs of agrifood systems. Also, based on SOFA 2021 on resilience, a stronger emphasis on the socio-economic dimensions of resilience in agrifood systems, such as addressing poverty, inequality, and the role of social protection (relative to the Sendai framework).

FAO has several strands of work that are more agrifood systems focused, which taken together can be viewed as a comprehensive framework, focusing on risk management, early warning systems, anticipatory action, sustainable practices, livelihood support, governance, and investment. These are summarized in FAO’s SOFA 2021report, produced in collaboration across all FAO divisions working on resilience aspects.

• What are the determinants, assets and skills that lead to resilience at different scales (household, community, national, regional)? 

At the household and community level the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) is probably the FAO work of reference. It includes dimensions such as access to basic services, livelihood strategies, social safety nets, and adaptive capacity.

At the more aggregate level FAO’s SOFA 2021 is a good source.

• How can resilience be evaluated and/or measured at different scales (household, community, national, regional)? 

This is a challenging task. I advise to think through the definition of the components of resilience at each scale being analyzed so as to make sure that indicators are reflective of the definition being adopted. 

SOFA 2021 is a good source for indicators of resilience at the national level: it has measure of resilience of agrifood systems transportation infrastructure for 90 countries (physical access to food), and for primary production, food availability and economic access to food for over 140 countries.

• What indicators would measure that food systems are resilient across their different components (e.g. consumption, supply chains, retail and production)?

Not sure that there is an indicator that is effective in measuring resilience across different components. In FAO’s SOFA 2021, we provided an indicator for producers (Primary Production Flexibility Index), one for supply chain infrastructure proxied through transport system robustness, one for supply chain diversification  (Dietary Sourcing Flexibility Index, scheduled to be included in FAOSTAT later this year), and one of economic access for consumers. Maybe these four indicators together can be used to assess the overall resilience agrifood systems. However, it should be noted that these are indicators of how vulnerable to disruption a specific part of an agrifood systems is, without providing any insight on how easily the component would recover from the disruption. This was a necessary choice to develop indicators that would be available for many countries.  

• Which and where are the weak points in global food systems in terms of ensuring the resilience of food security and nutrition? 

In a nutshell, according to FAO’s SOFA 2021 report, the most common vulnerability across countries is in economic access to food following a shock. This was seen during the Covid pandemic when there was concern about food supply, but in the end food was available but many did not have the income to purchase food, requiring social protection programs to be put in place to face the challenge.  

2.            Understanding what we must be prepared for – the nature of shocks:

• What types of shock are more relevant to food systems and which ones are more likely to affect FSN? What type of shocks have been under-researched, especially regarding their impact on FSN and food systems? 

On the primary production side weather shocks, pests, and diseases are clearly extremely important. Here early warning systems and anticipatory actions are key.

I feel the vulnerability in economic access due to shocks, and how to link it to social protection program design, are two aspects that are understudied. 

• Are there ways of enhancing resilience to unknown and unforeseen shocks? 

To me resilience is mostly about being able to face unknown and unforeseen shocks. This is the aspect of resilience that goes beyond risk management where events are known as is their likelihood.

The only way to enhance that kind of resilience is to have structural properties of agrifood systems that enable it recover from disruptions. This means a diversified supply of food, with diversified supply chains, good infrastructure, as well as stable incomes for consumers to be able to purchase nutritious food (with social protection programs where needed).

3.            Understanding and mitigating trade-offs:

• Are there trade-offs between increasing adaptation to one type of shock and creating other types of fragility? 

Building resilience into a system may involve tradeoffs. Diversity in supply chains may mean that efficiency is not being maximized. If markets are very competitive it may be difficult to sustain that diversity since the least efficient suppliers may go out of business. 

• What is the impact on resilience programming of different understandings of food security and nutrition (e.g. focus on nutrition, the four pillars, the six dimensions of food security, etc)?

When working on SOFA 2021 on resilience we found it very useful to think in terms of the different ways of framing FSN. SOFA 2021 developed indicators that try to capture element so food availability, physical access, and economic access. Also the distinction between energy-suffcient diets and healthy diets is a useful distinction to understand how shocks are affecting FSN, and what needs to be done. Our paper in Food Policy focused on the these two extremes when shocks occur. 

4.            Existing programmes and policies to promote resilience – a gap analysis of current strategies and recommendations:

• What types of policy changes are needed to enhance the resilience of local, regional and global food systems, including with respect to global trading rules and considering inclusive and equitable employment opportunities, environmental sustainability, access to healthy diets and human rights?

The 2021 SOFA report recommends a comprehensive approach involving diverse strategies and stakeholder collaboration. In that report’s final chapter, a distinction is made between entry points tailored to coping with uncertainty (shocks difficult to foresee) and those adapted to managing specific risks (more predictable shocks). [see Table 5 in that chapter].

• What is the role of states in building more resilient food systems, including with respect to providing infrastructure, regulatory measures, international policy coordination and policy coherence?

This is an item that is covered in some detail in the last chapter of FAO’s 2021 SOFA report.

• What measures are necessary to incentivize private sector strategies and investments that promote supply chain resilience?

Public policies could focus, in some countries, on improving access to credit and financial services, particularly for small and medium agri-food enterprises (SMAEs). Facilitating access to financial services allows these businesses to invest in resilience-building measures such as diversification of supply sources and production redundancies.

Also, facilitating the forming consortia or clusters can help SMAEs pool resources, overcome scale-related constraints, and improve access to markets and technologies. Ideally,  governments should promote inclusive governance and broad participation, ensuring that small-scale producers and vulnerable households are integrated into the broader agri-food systems. This approach helps in creating synergies between efficiency, inclusiveness, and resilience.

That being said, including diversity & redundance in supply chains to increase resilience will lead in some cases to a trade-off in terms of overall efficiency. Addressing this trade-off will require creating an enabling environment that allows both shorter and longer supply chains to thrive, with a diverse mix of products sourced both locally and through international trade. 

5.           Share recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the questions listed above.

Besides SOFA 2021 on resilience and it’s dataset, a few other recent sources (in a rapidly expanding literature):

Béné, C. and Devereux, S., 2023. Resilience and food security in a food systems context (p. 413). Springer Nature.

Béné, C., Frankenberger, T.R., Nelson, S., Constas, M.A., Collins, G., Langworthy, M. and Fox, K., 2023. Food system resilience measurement: principles, framework and caveats. Food Security, 15(6), pp.1437-1458.

Cattaneo, A., Sadiddin, A., Vaz, S., Conti, V., Holleman, C., Sánchez, M.V. and Torero, M., 2023. Ensuring affordability of diets in the face of shocks. Food Policy, 117, p.102470.

Schneider, K.R., Fanzo, J., Haddad, L., Herrero, M., Moncayo, J.R., Herforth, A., Remans, R., Guarin, A., Resnick, D., Covic, N. and Béné, C., 2023. The state of food systems worldwide in the countdown to 2030. Nature Food, 4(12), pp.1090-1110.

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.

Dear colleagues from HLPE-FSN,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the scope of the HLPE FSN report on building resilient food systems. Please find attached the German comments.

Kind regards

Carolin Weber
________________________
Unit 622
Right to Food

Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, Gernamy
website: http://www.bmel.de/

GERMANY – Input to HLPE FSN e-consultation building resilient food systems (scope)

• How can resilience be evaluated and/or measured at different scales (household, community, national, regional)? 

Genetic resources: 

Food system resilience could be measured through the diversity of genetic resources for food and agriculture (GRFA). This can be monitored on different scales for example through the access of community seedbanks, or on national level through measuring the diversification of agricultural production systems (see also next question).

The diversity of domesticated and related wild species of plants, animals, forest trees, fungi, invertebrates, and microorganisms, and the genetic diversity within them are:

a.            essential for breeding to improve the quality and quantity of agricultural production systems (e.g. biofortification), the resource efficiency (e.g. water need) or features like abiotic/ biotic stress tolerance (e.g. heat tolerance).

b.            essential to preserve biological diversity in a sustainable way and increase resilience of agroecosystems.
 

Free trade: 

While negotiating free trade agreements increased attention should be focused around stand-alone chapters concerning “sustainable food systems” and “trade and sustainable development (TSD)”.

• What indicators would measure that food systems are resilient across their different components (e.g. consumption, supply chains, retail and production)? 

Genetic resources:
 

SDG Indicator 2.5.1 (Number of plant and animal genetic resources for food and agriculture secured in either medium- or long-term conservation facilities) is appropriate to monitor a part of food system resilience. 

Monitoring of in-situ conservation of crop wild relatives could be a complementary indicator as well.

Regarding production, the level of diversification of agricultural production systems can be an indicator for resilience meaning the diversity of cultivated species, varieties, breeds, lines and strains.

Monitoring species with important ecosystem functions for production systems in agriculture for example wild bees and hoverflies as pollinators or soil microorganisms for fertile soils.

Monitoring the genetic diversity of domesticated varieties and breeds also gives an indication on food system resilience. For example SDG Indicator 2.5.2 (Proportion of local breeds classified as being at risk of extinction) which uses the effective population size as basis.

• Which and where are the weak points in global food systems in terms of ensuring the resilience of food security and nutrition? 

Concerning global food systems one challenge resides in finding a coherent approach in terms of the various efforts undertaken by policy makers around the globe in order to improve the resilience of food security and nutrition. 

Genetic resources:

Genetic resources are a key form of natural capital needed for stability and adaptability in agriculture and forestry. Therefore, the bottleneck is the preservation of genetic diversity especially for breeding, combined with sustainable management practices.

• What are the determinants, assets, and skills that lead to resilience at different scales (households, community, national, regional)?

To cope with often foreseeable food and nutrition crises in globalised food systems, it is essential to build the four following resilience capacities of people, communities, and societies in the long run.

1. Anticipatory capacities enable people to assess risks and reduce the probability of imminent crises occurring. Improved anticipatory capacities include early warning systems that provide timely relevant information about risks and anticipated crises; appropriate laws and policy frameworks and crisis response plans to work effectively when a crisis occurs; crisis-sensitive social protection mechanisms to alleviate chronic stresses and cushion against acute crises. Good governance at all levels.

2. Absorptive capacities enable people affected by acute crises to satisfy their basic needs and ensure that important sub-national structures remain operational. They enable the use of individual and collective reserves, social protection programmes, temporary cash and food transfers, collective loan and savings schemes and insurance so that households meet food and nutrition needs and cover expenses during a crisis. Absorption includes systems to protect natural resources, physical infrastructure, and health and education facilities.

3. Adaptive capacities enable people to adjust to long-term changes and modify their livelihoods accordingly and provide positive options for action through acquired knowledge and skills to make their livelihoods more crises resilient. As regards food security and nutrition, developing capacities for diversifying food crops, establishing small-scale and community gardens, increasing the efficiency of irrigated agriculture, and for storing, processing, and preserving food is relevant. Technological and social innovations (e.g., adapted seed varieties; climate-smart, resource-saving agricultural practices) and the development of partnerships is vital in successfully adapting to living conditions that have been changed by crises and risks. These strategies enable people to switch to livelihoods that are less prone to crisis and tap into new income sources.

4. Transformative capacities enable people to analyse the underlying causes of crises and the resulting negative impacts, and to accelerate structural change to create sustainable, more resilient livelihoods. This may involve a fundamental shift in the political, economic, and socio-cultural structures that cause and sustain food and nutrition insecurity and poverty. To support change, context-specific food security and nutrition approaches must be anchored in decentralised and national structures. Appropriate multi-sectoral coordination mechanisms, cross-sectoral budgeting of activities related to food and nutrition, the development and implementation of strategies to improve nutrition and the dissemination of related skills should be supported. The successful transformation of food and nutrition systems is closely linked to a change in social values incl. power structures at different levels. Participatory and inclusive approaches are vital as they support ownership, responsibility and commitment and present realistic options for action.

Systemic approaches (i.e., multi-level, multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder, people-centred) can strengthen the different resilience capacities of people, households and government institutions to food and nutrition crises. Strengthening resilience requires integrated, multi-sectoral short, medium, and long-term measures that are combined depending on the context (community-based approaches).

• What kind of resilience frameworks are there that should be explored?

The Humanitarian-Development-Peace-Nexus (HDP-Nexus) is a crucial resilience-building approach to reduce humanitarian needs and prevent several risks which people living in vulnerable conditions face. To take precedence over reaction, early warning systems prevent extreme events from leading to hunger and all forms of malnutrition. 

Understanding the food security-nutrition-climate-security nexus requires framing risks and resilience. Resilience and risk management are cross-cutting issues in the areas of food security and nutrition, rural development, and agriculture. Risk management and analyses (incl. analysing climate risks for groups in vulnerable situation and women) are a fundamental basis for drawing up national adaptation plans (NAPs) and updating adaptation components in national climate contributions (NDCs) to strengthen resilience.

Diversification as a factor for strengthening resilience. Improving the income of smallholder farmers. E.g.: Supporting small-scale fisheries who contribute to sociocultural diversity: there is a significant positive association between their diverse fisheries practices and the resilience and well-being of coastal and inland water communities (Source: Illuminating Hidden Harvests)

Integration of indigenous knowledge systems, e.g., long-practiced oral traditions, neglected and underutilized species, experiences and knowledge offer expert insights into the state of ecosystems, changes over time, and the proper adaptive responses for sustainable harvesting (ibid).

• How to balance preparing for short-term shocks (e.g., droughts and floods) versus the need to ensure food systems fit within planetary boundaries and long-term sustainability of systems? 

Planetary and dietary challenges must be addressed simultaneously by all relevant governmental departments since they are fundamentally interlinked. Consumer-driven measures such as shifting diets in high- and middle-income countries towards less-emitting food items as well as reducing food loss and waste are important cost-effective elements of a sustainable food system transformation.

Agroecology, as a holistic approach to the transformation of agriculture and food systems, seeks to optimize the interactions between plants, animals, humans, and the environment while also addressing the need for socially equitable food systems within which people can exercise choice over what they eat and how and where food is produced. It is a sustainable development path that incorporates climate protection and climate resilience. 

In addition, an increased application of and investments in nature-based solutions and integrated production systems (e.g., agroforestry) offer huge potentials.

Moreover, repurposing harmful agricultural subsidies offers multiple benefits to the food system, climate system, and ecosystem.

Risk mainstreaming in agricultural and food systems. Risk awareness and climate resilience as the basis for transformed agriculture and food systems. Strengthening resilience can generate costs in the short term (efficiency reduction). In the long term, however, these investments pay off and high (damage) costs are reduced.

Compensation mechanisms that combine income from agricultural and aquatic food production with a payment for positive external effects; such a smart income mix can provide smallholder farmers and fishers with a living income and contribute to both food and nutrition security and climate protection.

Regarding fisheries, there is a need to understand how flexibility can be introduced into the fisheries management cycle to foster adaptation, strengthen fisheries resilience, and enable managers to respond in a timely manner to changes in the dynamics of marine resources and ecosystems.

• What kind of inequities and power imbalances are present in food systems and how do they affect resilient FSN and especially for those groups facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability?

Gender equality, women’s empowerment and integrating indigenous people and youths strengthens adaptive capacity for resilience to climate change and other external shocks such as the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the transformation of food systems needs to be a ‘just’ rural and urban process so that it reduces inequality and inequities of all kinds, rather than increasing them. No one must be left behind.

• Are there current or recent partnerships / initiatives proven to contribute to building resilience? What are the lessons learned? 

Examples established with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development:

1. Global Food and Nutrition Security (GAFS) dashboard has been providing crucial data on food crisis and has been supportive on making informed decisions in terms of how to respond fast. In addition, GAFS helped managing food security and nutrition crises through (food security) crisis preparedness plans for establishing more integrated and proactive systems.

• Shared understanding of food and nutrition crises information and country needs.

• Strengthened linkages across country- and global-level decision-making.

• Enhanced coordination of humanitarian and development policy and financial responses.

1. CRISP: The Climate Risk Planning & Managing Tool for Development Programmes in Agri-food Systems offers support to mainstream climate risk considerations into project design and implementation. It specifically addresses project managers and practitioners in agriculture, rural development and food security and nutrition projects.

2. Indo-German flagship initiative on agroecology and sustainable management of natural resources: Since 2022, Indo-German cooperation in the field of agroecology to promote climate resilience and sustainable use and management of natural resources for food security and nutrition within planetary boundaries.

3. The initiative CompensACTION for food security and a healthy planet aims to promote large-scale innovative payment mechanisms (compensation mechanisms) for ecosystem services. Experience shows that scalable payment mechanisms must bring clear benefits for smallholder farmers and require public and private funding.

4. The initiative FISH4ACP is contributing to food security and nutrition, economic prosperity and job creation by ensuring the economic, social and environmental sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture value chains in Africa, the Pacific.

Attention Moderator.

Please find attached Rural Women’s Assembly’s submission.

Regards,

Lungisa Huna

RWA Coordination.
 

Je voudrais me pencher un peu sur l'aspect pratique de la politique qui touche à l'insécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle au Bénin actuellement. Les conflits entre deux pays aboutissant à la fermeture des frontières sont également des sources d'insécurité. Par exemple le cas entre le Niger et le Bénin, ou nous savons que  le marché nigériens fournit en  grande quantité le Bénin en produits maraichers lors de la période de soudure ou de la contre saison, et ceci agit directement sur le prix de vente qui par la relation d'offre et de demande arrive à baisser. Donc les produits sont un peu disponibles et relativement pas tres chers. Néanmoins dans ce contexte, ou des dispositions n'ont pas été prises en amont pour garantir la sécurité alimentaire avant le début de ce conflit, nous nous retrouvons alors face à une dure réalité, des produits non disponible et cher sur le marché. Les conséquences sur la qualité nutritionnelle des aliments servis dans les rues et les ménages vont s'en dire. Pour moi, nous pouvons pas négliger les flux alimentaires interpays et inter continents, néanmoins il est important que des accords soient bien précis sur la viabilité de ces derniers même en cas de conflits. Ceci fait partir des lacunes dans les stratégies actuelles dans les politiques qui visent pas forcement l'intérêt de la sécurité alimentaire mais leur propre intérêt. Il est important que des pôles agricole de développement se mettent en place dans nos pays, pas forcement en fonction s des produits phares à l'exportation pour les devises mais également des produits de première nécessite dont auront besoin toutes les familles quelques soient leur niveau de revenu. 

Attached : the memorandum of our local Food Policy Council (Liège Metropolitan area - Belgium) related to question 5) (in French) as well as an article indicating numerous proposals and food and agricultural strategies for our future elected officials in 2024 at all levels of power.