Dear Panel,
In order to avoid repeating comments that were already made I went through the comments submitted previously and limit myself to issues that I feel were missing from these submissions.
General comments:
Definitions and concepts: FAO has developed a common vision and an integrated approach to sustainability across agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The 5 principles of the Sustainable Food and Agriculture (SFA) approach has been endorsed by COAG (FAO’s Committee on Agriculture). This approach should be included in section 1.1. and section 4.2.2. (find further information at http://www.fao.org/sustainability/background/principle-1/en/).
Coverage of different sectors of agriculture production: While the report tries to cover the different sectors of agriculture that contribute to food production (crop and livestock production, aquaculture and fisheries and foresty), there are quite some biases towards crop production. This should be reviewed (e.g. p16 line 42-49 is also true for livestock production).
Micronutrients: I think it would be important and helpful if the panel provided some summary statistics on micronutrient deficiencies and a list of the most important micronutrients and which foods/food groups contains them. Animal-source foods (meat, eggs, milk, dairy products, honey, fish, seafood etc) provide not only a source of protein but particularly a range of micronutrients that are absent or only in small quantities in plant based foods. (E.g. Please review section 2.3.3 on Iodine deficiency – no mention of animal-source foods and fish and seafood but related to lack of Iodine in soils.) This is also important when we talk about obesity and overconsumption of animal-source foods. In adequate quantities, animal-source foods should be an essential part of the diet of particularly children and pregnant women. Culturally however, women and children tend to receive less animal-source foods than men.
Smallholders vs multinational companies: The role of smallholders in production is not sufficiently emphasized (see e.g. http://agro.biodiver.se/2016/11/smallholders-are-bigger-than-you-imagine/?utm_source=Agro.biodiver.se+subscribers&utm_campaign=3c95f6c1e7-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_949cf01306-3c95f6c1e7-109200741). Smallholders are usually disadvantaged because of the relative small quantities that they produce and struggle to produce standardized quality that is required by processing plants. The unequal power of big companies should be more emphasized. Also at some places in the report it would be important to also specifically mention pastoralists (e.g. p16 line 39).
Nutrition education: The importance of nutrition education is hardly mentioned in the report. It should be far more emphasized particularly in relation to women and home gardening which should be an important element of farmer field schools and extension services.
Antimicrobial resistance: AMR should be far more emphasized in the report. It is only linked to “concentrated” livestock production (btw – page 49 line 30 reads strange).
Need for good data: (page 109) should be expanded and completed; e.g. lacks need for food composition data
Specific comments:
Page 48 line 30 down: How about GHG emissions from rice production.
Page 49 line 15: new breeding should be replaced with genetic improvement
Page 58 line 33: access to education and knowledge (extension service) e.g. to specific gardening knowledge of vegetables and fruits, is lacking
Figures 27 and 28: focus on crop production only
Page 74 section on innovation and research drivers focus on crop production only
Page 94: section on emerging technologies in food safety focus on crop production only
Beate Scherf