Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

Dear HLPE team,

Please find attached comments from CropLife International on the HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Agroecology Report. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this document and please don't hesitate to contact us should you require any further information.

Kind regards,

Gloria Jaconelli on behalf of CropLife International

Dear all, 

The National Council on Food and Nutrition Security  (CONSEA) Suggestions to the Report on Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhace security and nutrition are  attached.

Thank you for for the opportunity to review this report

Many thanks for the opportunity to comment on this V0 draft.  I have attached my personal comments regarding section 3.2.3 on local knowledge, and have pasted them below as well.  I associate myself more generally with the submission "Comment by transdisciplinary team of scientists working in food and agriculture systems." In addition, I note with concern Marcia Ishii-Eiteman's comment among others that the comment process is weakened by the time and language constraints which prevent farmer and other agricultural movements in marginalized spaces of the globe.  This unfortunately leads to the reality that, while the process claims to be participatory, it is still centrally administered (where the FAO is considered to be a "movement"). 

The report rightly includes discussion of “global” and “local” knowledge, also termed “indigenous” and “scientific” knowledge or in Scott’s important book Seeing Like a State, metis (practical knowledge) and techne (technical knowledge), in examining agroecology. Though the report introduces the section with straw-man caricatures of “science” and “tradition,” the authors then usefully supplement Robert Chambers’ classic work on rural development with more critical interdisciplinary work by Agrawal, Vandermeer and Perfecto, in arguing that “the notion that science and scientific knowledge are neutral and uninfluenced by human behaviour is not viable.” If the authors took these ideas as the epistemological bases for the approach to “local/global” knowledge and agroecology, this would create a strong statement on the complex and overlapping relations between “global” and “local” knowledge, the central role of power relations, the necessity of solidarity among people at multiple scales, and especially the need for equitable distribution of wealth and governance institutions accountable to social movements and civil society.  

Agrawal (1995) argues that “The confusing rhetoric of indigenous vs. western knowledge, and the reliance on the politically and technically convenient method of ex situ conservation fail to address  the underlying asymmetries of power and control that cement in place the oppression of indigenous or other marginalized social groups.” While Vandermeer and Perfecto seem to accept the dualism between “traditional knowledge” which is “profound but local” and “scientific knowledge” which is “general but superficial,” their vision is that these approaches are united by work between these two equally valuable pursuits and populations in order to come somehow to knowledge that is both “deep and general” (Vandermeer and Perfecto 2013, 86).

After the opening, however, the authors reference the latter two works only glancingly, disregarding in particular the power relations through which leaders of globalized corporate agri-business monopolize resources for agricultural production and associated production of “legitimate knowledge” that justify monopolization of authority by national governments whose leaders often are intimately invested (through debt and other instruments) in protecting interests of these multinational corporations.  The authors explicitly categorize “local” knowledge as informal (the realm of farmers and activists), and “global” knowledge as formal (the realm of science, the state and the FAO). FAO administrators then implicitly become those responsible for combining “local” sites of “spontaneous” knowledge into planned systems of “organized” knowledge. This removal of contested politics (meaning that the FAO can be designated as a “movement” alongside Via Campesina for example) crystalizes divisions which in reality are often “more about politics than geography” (Forbes 1996, 31; see also Edelman 1996; Fisher 1997) and thus does not address what Chappell considers to be a key problem of food provision and hunger prevention: “Any analysis of hunger that refuses the issue of power is incapable of truly addressing the problem” (Chappell 2018).

Chappell, M. J. (2018) Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond. University of California Press.

Edelman, Marc (1996) Reconceptualizing and Reconstituting Peasant Struggles: A New Social Movement in Central America. Radical History Review 65, 26-47.

Fisher, William F (1997) Doing Good? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices. Annual Review of Anthropology 26, 439-464.

Forbes, Ann Armbrecht (1996): Defining the "Local" in the Arun Controversy. Cultural Survival Quarterly, 20:3, 31-34.

Scott, James C (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve The Human Condition Have Failed. Yale Agrarian Studies. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Vandermeer, John & Ivette Perfecto (2013): Complex Traditions: IntersectingTheoretical Frameworks in Agroecological Research, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 37:1,76-89.

Dear HLPE team,

thank you for the opportunity to comment the V0 Draft on the agroecological approaches to FSN for FSN.

Please find attached the comments of Mister Felix zu Löwenstein, organic farmer from Germany.

Please do let us know if you request any more information.

Best wishes

Claude Blaschette

Marienstr. 19-20, 10117 Berlin, Germany

Tel. + 49 30.28482 310

I thank the Committee for opening this draft up for public review. My contribution is independent, but in agreement with several points listed in the key summary points of a review document put forward by a transdisciplinary team of scientists (referred to from here on as “Comments”), submitted late Sunday evening (4 Nov 2018).

I include an attachment of my contribution, for the Committee's consideration. 

In particular I address section 3 of the report, considering the dimension of i) scale, ii) knowledge, and iii) how transition relates to the first two points. I deal particularly with agency and how it can be made more central in the report.

My comments relate to several points in the Comments including:

- supporting the notion that policy recommendations should shift to an "enabling environment" concept.

- that knowledge generation deserves a deeper and broader treatment that goes byeond science and industry to the knowledgemaking roles of farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and other producers, as well as the contributions of social movements to the "scaling across" of agroecology knowledge and practice.

They particularly support and provide suggestions to address the following:

- Avoid emphasis on "Innovations" theory, which is grounded in business and manufacturing studies and therefore illfitting for an agroecology report.

- Avoid treating agroecology as an essentialized, singular concept, which sets up for rigid binaries between conventional/industrial and agroecology.

- Instead, emphasize transitions to sustainable food systems, and the process of making those transitions in science, policy, and practice.

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At the heart of my three points on scale, knowledge, and transition, is agency, which the report has identified as central to the narrative of agroecology’s relation to the world of scientific and technological development. My first general comment is about the absence of socio-political language in the report, which makes it difficult to make the case for agency front and centre of the narrative. The draft’s depoliticisation of the context from which different narratives about agroecology (chapter 3.2) arise, runs the risk of reducing their distinct impulses to a homogeneous set of interchangeable terms, that will consequently inform the report’s actual audience: policy makers and business leaders with no understanding of the historical context of these approaches and terms. Rather than pushing forward a set of agroecological directions with new evaluative potential, the draft will allow status quo business and governance mechanisms to swap out old appearances for a new set of (“unevaluative”; see page 32 of the comments) terminology and appearances.

The better option would be to clearly define the contextual background of the 9 different agroecological narratives the report identifies: the question of “who” and “where”, and bring that more fully into the report. This relates to the point made that “[a]n innovation system cannot be prized apart from what gave birth to it” (Comments, 28). Whopractises and espouses and puts forward each narrative, in which part of the world does it emerge, and which groups respond to these? This first grounding (if possible, in a chart or diagram) will allow the “Barriers and drivers of innovation” (Section 3.1) section to identify more clearly the challenges facing each of these, including policy and technological lock-ins. It also allows (and requires) the question of Scale (Section 3.2.1) to be better interrogated and refined, and sets out potential connections between the different stakeholders (private, public, people etc) that can be taken up in Section 4, making the report a key enabling site/“enabling environment” (Comments) for future connections to address the unevenness of the social landscape that produces each approach. Bringing in this context will also allow the report to more assiduously deal with agroecology as a continuum of levels that speaks to differentially embedded socio-technical practices, and which can be systematically considered without losing the particularity of each transition necessary in each context. This builds on the combined comments from the scientists also articulates in a detailed reply on page 30, to Section 2.2 (on Innovations theory and the use of agroecology as a black or white concept). This is ultimately I believe the report’s ambition and strength also: the ability to set out something that passes for an impartial, holistic overview of agroecology’s potential contribution to business leaders and policymakers today.

In each point I focus my attention around the central concept of agency, in contribution to the report’s goal.

-- 

(See attachment for more)

I attach a document that sets out Compassion in World Farming's comments on the zero-draft of the report on agroecological approaches

In addition to the comments on the V0 Draft outlined in our previous submission, Pesticide Action Network International would like to draw your attention to the following publication, which we believe provides a useful source of case studies for the report:

Watts, M. & S. Williamson, 2015. Replacing Chemicals with Biology: Phasing Out Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agroecology. PAN Asia Pacific, Penang, Malaysia. 208 pp.

https://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Phasing-Out-HHPs-with-Agroeco…

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the HLPE Version-Zero Draft of the report, “Agroecological and Other Innovations for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems.”

I note here that members of the PAN International network (which includes over 600 organizations in 90 countries) would appreciate the chance to provide feedback on this report as well, but have not yet been able to do so, due to time and, in some cases, language constraints.

As a global network of civil society organizations representing peasant and family farmers, food system workers, agricultural and health professionals, Indigenous groups and consumer requests, with regional centers in Africa, Asia & the Pacific, Latin America, North America and Europe, we note with disappointment that the draft report was not translated into Spanish or French, or any of the other UN languages. We have requested the HLPE to extend the period for public consultation by at minimum two weeks, until 20 November 2018, to expand the possibility that interested groups may be able to participate.

In the meantime, I provide the following comments on behalf of Pesticide Action Network North America. We would be happy to expand upon the points outlined in the attached document and to provide additional literature references, upon request and time permitting.

Wit kind regards,

Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, Senior Scientist, Pesticide Action Network North America

Please find attached:

• Our organisational response to HLPE Draft 0. HLPE_Permaculturte_Assoc_response.pdf
• A recent study conducted by Dr Anne-Marie Mayer - "Exploring, documenting and developing sustainable approaches to improving nutrition in the global south. A case study on Permaculture Design Systems (PDS) implemented in Nepal". HPC report AM 011118.docx

If we can be of any further assistance - especially regarding permaculture section and further case studies - please do let us know.

With best wishes,

Andy Goldring

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Andy Goldring

Chief Executive

Dear CFS/HLPE Secretariat,

Please find below a review of the V0 draft of the report: “Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and

Nutrition.”

This submission is the result of a collaboration among several academics and researchers who work in agroecology, sustainable agriculture, and food systems policy. We connected with each other after independently reviewing the V0 and realizing that several of our reflections and suggestions were complementary. It thus made sense to collaborate on a single submission, given the complexity and length of the report.

We subsequently circulated the review among a small network of colleagues who made comments and suggestions for improving the review. The names of all contributors are included below.

Our review proceeds as follows. First, we provide a brief summary of our main recommendations (also in the email below). Next, we respond to the FAO 10 Guiding Questions. We then provide feedback on Tables, Figures, and Boxes used in the report. Finally, we offer a section-by-section review with more in-depth commentary on many chapter subsections, including references and suggestions for improvement.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We hope that our comments are constructive and we look forward to remaining in touch as the HLPE process continues.

Kind regards,

Maywa Montenegro, Alastair Iles, Annie Shattuck

Writing on behalf of all undersigned

Authored by:

Alastair Iles, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California at Berkeley, US.

Maywa Montenegro, Ph.D., UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Human Ecology, University of California at Davis, US.

Annie Shattuck, Visiting Scholar, Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, US.

Hannah Wittman, Ph.D., Professor of Land and Food Systems and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Academic Director, Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

JoAnn Jaffe, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, Regina, Canada

Molly D. Anderson, Ph.D., William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Food Studies, Academic Director, Food Studies Program, Middlebury College, US.

M. Jahi Chappell, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Coventry, UK.

Mariaelena Huambachano, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies and Sustainability, California State University, Northridge, California, US.

Rebecca Tarlau, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education and Labor Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, US.

Reviewed and Endorsed by:

Raj Patel, Ph.D., Research Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, US.

Christopher M. Bacon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Santa Clara University, US.

Joshua Sbicca, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, US.

Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of International Service, American University, US.

Timothy Bowles, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Agroecology and Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of California Berkeley, US.

Johanna Jacobi, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Switzerland.

Liz Carlisle, Ph.D., Lecturer, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, US.

Noa Lincoln, Ph.D. Assistant Researcher of Indigenous Crops and Cropping Systems, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, US.

Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Pesticide Action Network North America, US.

Marcia DeLonge, Ph.D., Scientist, Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, US.

Rafter Ferguson, Ph.D., Scientist, Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, US.

Doug Gurian-Sherman, Ph.D., Strategic Expansion and Trainings, LLC, US.

Samir K. Doshi, Ph.D., Senior Technology and Innovation Advisor, World Wildlife Fund, International

Neeraja Havaligi, Ph.D., ED, Greater Portland Sustainability Education Network, Courtesy Faculty at Oregon State University’s Environmental Science Graduate Program, Corvallis, Oregon, US.

David Meek, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, International Studies, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, US.

Summary of Recommendations

- Clarify the understood relationship between Sustainable Food Systems and Food Security, moving away from an "impact model" towards a relational "ecosystem" model.

- Provide much stronger evidence-based assessment of agroecology and other innovations in terms of meeting holistic criteria for Sustainable Food Systems that includes, but is not limited to, Food Security & Nutrition.

- We suggest a holistic framework for SFS that includes FSN within a larger “ecosystem” of metrics would also include ecosystem/ecological health, knowledge and cultural diversity, equity, and rights-based democratic governance. (See Diagram: An ecosystem of Sustainable Food Systems framework).

- Rights is not another innovation. It is important to ground the entire analysis within the rights-based mandates of the CFS. Currently, Right-based innovations are included alongside other production systems, when they do not belong in that analysis. Rights provide a fundamental base that underpin all of SFS and FSN.

- Simplify the thicket of different principles, criteria, and metrics while strengthening the analytical coherence of a smaller few. To characterize agroecology, we suggest eliminating the 16 principles from different sources and instead using the FAO's 10 Elements.

- Improve the analytical development and treatment of scale. While particularly beneficial for smallholders and vulnerable rural populations (including Indigenous peoples, peasants, family farmers, and more) agroecology is not limited to small-sized farms, as the current report suggests.

- Avoid emphasis on "Innovations" theory, which is grounded in business and manufacturing studies and therefore ill-fitting for an agroecology report.

- Avoid treating agroecology as an essentialized, singular concept, which sets up for rigid binaries between conventional/industrial and agroecology.

- Instead, emphasize transitions to sustainable food systems, and the process of making those transitions in science, policy, and practice.

- Avoid abstract enumeration of "drivers and barriers." Focus instead on understanding the drivers and identifying barriers to the development and scaling up and out of agroecology and those innovative approaches that the weight of evidence has indicated are strong contributors to a holistic SFS (which includes FSN).

- Significantly strengthen the recognition and analysis of political economy factors in creating "barriers" to agroecology and other innovations that support and complement agroecology. Several prominent texts and references are provided.

- Reframe and strengthen the "Diverging Narratives" section which is currently disjointed, underdeveloped, and not clearly contributing to the overall objectives of the report. A possible reframing could be: "Given the varied interests in our current food systems, how can we best assess the validity of objections to agroecology and other sustainable innovations?"

- Policy recommendations should shift to an "enabling environment" concept.

- Knowledge generation deserves a deeper and broader treatment. Rather than focus principally on science and industry, the report should explicitly recognize the knowledge-making roles of farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and other producers, as well as the contributions of social movements to the "scaling across" of agroecology knowledge and practice.

- Strengthen overall recognition and analysis of political organizing in transitions to sustainable and food secure food systems. A variety of social movement, civil society, and scientific actors are essential to helping create policies and enabling environments that shift deeper structures (trade regimes, corporate consolidation, agro-industry friendly policy etc.) so that agriculture and food systems can be transformed.