Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Dear HLPE Steering Committee,

Re: Contribution to the HLPE Consultation on the V0 draft of the Report "Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030" from the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems programme of research (SHEFS).

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this interesting and timely draft report. Please see attached and below a response from the SHEFS team to each of the consultation questions. We have provided relevant material, evidence-based suggestions, references, and concrete examples wherever possible to supplement or complement the current statements in the draft report. We have a number of papers currently under review or in preparation and would be more than happy to send on as soon as they are published or provide advanced copies as and when required. Please do not hesitate to contact myself or any other member of the team If you require any further information or contributions to writing.

• We support the inclusion of sustainability as an additional dimension to define food security and nutrition, as well as the benefits of using a food systems approach for research, policy and practice. The below references emphasise these statements and provide evidence on the impact of climate change on food security.

• Scheelbeek et al (2018). Effect of environmental changes on vegetable and legume yields and nutritional quality. PNAS, 115 (26) 6804-6809 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800442115

• Alae-Carew et al. (2020). The impact of environmental changes on the yield and nutritional quality of fruits, nuts and seeds: a systematic review. Environmental Research Letters, 15(2) https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5cc0

• Scheelbeek et al (2020, under review BMJ). Resilience of UK fruit and vegetable supply: environmental threats to the supply of “5-a-day” Conclusion: “Given projected climate change, increased reliance on fruit and vegetable imports from climate vulnerable countries could negatively affect the availability, price and consumption of fruit and vegetables in the UK. This may have a particular impact on the dietary intake and health of vulnerable groups in the UK including older people and low-income households. Inter-sectoral actions across agriculture, health, environment, and trade are critical in both the UK and countries that export to the UK to increase the resilience of the food system and ensure population health.”

• We fully support a move from focusing on quantity of food to quality of food; considering all forms of malnutrition (over-/under-nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies); the importance of situational context; and need for a less siloed, broader (food) systems approach. The section on evolution of policy approaches is currently less clear and below may be useful in terms of case studies and research gaps:

• Greater research required on the integration of sustainability and health evidence i.e., metrics and analytics to incorporate environmental and health risk analyses. In addition, to bring together evidence from different sources and consider multiple perspectives via the use of agency developing participatory methods, multi-criteria decision analyses, and equilibrium models

e.g., De Luca (2017). Life cycle tools combined with multi-criteria and participatory methods for agricultural sustainability: Insights from a systematic and critical review. Science of the Total Environment, 595: 352-370 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.03.2840048-9697

e.g., Jensen et al. (2019). Palm oil and dietary change: Application of an integrated macroeconomic, environmental, demographic, and health modelling framework for Thailand. Food Policy, 83:92-103 doi: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.12.003

e.g., Nesheim et al. (2015). A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System. https://doi.org/10.17226/18846

• Additional text recognising the challenges of policy implementation and evaluation e.g., barriers and facilitators to policy coherence or achieving the SDGs/agenda 2030. In particular why a systems approach is preferred: to take into account the dynamic nature of food systems, the available governance infrastructure, as well as the interrelated actors, interventions, outcomes and unintended consequences

e.g., Hawkes et al. Brief 1. Tackling Food Systems Challenges: The Role of Food Policy. In: Rethinking Food Policy: A Fresh Approach to Policy and Practice. London: Centre for Food Policy, 2019.

e.g., Parsons et al. Brief 2. What is the food system? A Food policy perspective. In: Rethinking Food Policy: A Fresh Approach to Policy and Practice. London: Centre for Food Policy, 2019

e.g., Egan et al. Guidance on Systems Approaches to Local Public Health Evaluation Part 1: Introducing systems thinking. NIHR School of Public Health, 2019

e.g., Brown et al. (in preparation 2020). Integrating food system policies to achieve Sustainable Development Goals: A scoping review of opportunities in India

• The section on policy approaches could provide more detail on the role of the food environment and policy pathways at different levels: the role of both systemic and individual behaviour change policies/interventions. Case studies can include country initiatives to incorporate sustainability into food-based dietary guidelines or sustainability food labelling as examples of sustainability focused initiatives as well as any challenges in implementation

e.g., The socio-ecological model as an example of a theoretical model, most recently used by the Nordic Nutrition Recommendation setting body to discuss their approach to setting Dietary Reference Values and Food Based Dietary Guidelines: Meltzer (2019). Environmental Sustainability Perspectives of the Nordic Diet. Nutrients, 11, 2248; doi:10.3390/nu11092248

e.g., The current development of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2022 or past Netherlands, Canada, Brasil, Australia and New Zealand FBDG, which exemplifies the challenges and benefits of considering health and the environment concurrently e.g., the reactions to the EAT-Lancet Planetary Plate (impact on global livelihoods) or industry/political manipulation of guideline development. Carey (2015). Opportunities and challenges in developing a whole-of- government national food and nutrition policy: lessons from Australia’s National Food Plan, Public Health Nutrition: 19(1), 3–14, doi:10.1017/S1368980015001834

e.g., Tobi et al. (2019). Sustainable Diet Dimensions. Comparing Consumer Preference for Nutrition, Environmental and Social Responsibility Food Labelling: A Systematic Review. Sustainability, 11(23), 6575; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236575

e.g., Brown et al. (in preparation 2020) What is the future for sustainability food labelling?

• Additional comments,

• Please recognise the role of underutilised crops in sections referring to diversity of cropping systems and trend to industrialised farms or monoculture.
• Figure on P11 referring to sustainability may benefit from a definition that explicitly references ecology or the environment. The difference between stability and sustainability is currently not intuitive.
• P14 reference to links between SDGs can be emphasised throughout the report. SDG2 cannot be achieved in isolation from a number of other SDGs, and has particular relevance to SDG3 good health and wellbeing; SDG 6 clean water and sanitation; SDG 10 reduced inequality; SDG 11 sustainable cities and communities and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production).
• P15 figure 3. ‘quality of diets’ could either specify nutritional quality or represent both nutritional quality and food safety quality (aka to include quality assurance etc.).
• The identified trends are all of importance and could be condensed to provide greater impact. For example, section 3.4 The role of smallholder farms (P21) could be integrated into Section 3.6 Expansion and disruption in food and agriculture markets (P23) with also Section 3.10 growing concentration in agri-food supply chains (P26)? Or Section 3.2 (P19) could be combined with 3.3 (P3.3) to represent variability and uncertainty of climates as well as climate change.
• Consider referencing the sustainable city initiatives as a way to combat the demography changes referenced in section 3.1 (P18).
• Additional reference to support changing dietary patterns in LMIC: Law et al. (2019). Purchase trends of processed foods and beverages in urban India. Global Food Security, 23:191-204 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2019.05.007
• Additional reference for examples of digital revolution: Kayatz (2019). Cool Farm Tool Water: A global on-line tool to assess water use in crop production. Journal of Cleaner Production, 207:1163-1179, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.03.304 0048-9
• There is some repetition in the use of the case studies. For example, the Indian Right to Food can be combined with the NFSA, as they are explicitly linked: The NFSA was introduced following a landmark ‘right to food campaign’, which began in Nov 2001. The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed a writ petition to the Court, citing that the right to food is an essential part of the right to life provided in Article 21 of the Constitution (PUCL vs Union of India and Others, Writ Petition [Civil] 196 of 2001, Rajasthan). Over a number of hearings, the ‘right to food campaign’ resulted in the Court making an order for eight food subsidy programmes to become legal entitlements under the Public Distribution System, whereby programme beneficiaries would be able to seek judicial redress if and when rights are violated. The voluntary Mid-Day Meal Scheme became an obligation for all states to provide cooked meals at schools; and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS, assistance to pregnant/nursing women and children) were ordered to improve by integrating nutrition initiatives. The National Food Security Act, 2013 has become an umbrella legislation that leads all food-based initiatives to protect the Indian population’s food security and right to food.

Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to this consultation and very warm wishes for the revisions.

All the best,

Kerry, on behalf of the SHEFS consortium (including, Rosemary Green, Cécile Knai, Pauline Scheelbeek, Andy Haines and Alan Dangour)

PhD, ANutr, FHEA

Assistant Professor

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine