Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Dear Office of the Chief Scientist of FAO,

The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) appreciates the opportunity to provide input to the consultation, “Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems – Draft report.” As a global organization of approximately 11,000 science of food professionals, we believe science is critical for establishing evidence-based policies to ensure a global food system that is sustainable, safe, nutritious, and accessible to all. Please find attached our comments and feedback,

Sincerely,

Institute of Food Technologists

CONTRIBUTION

Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)). For example, Annex 2 and our previous comments point out that there is often misalignment of priorities between the policy environment and other sectors, such as academia, resulting in little professional recognition and limited remuneration or reward for academic scientists to engage in policymaking or evaluate the usefulness of their scientific activities for policymaking. We agree with Annex 2, that to address this barrier and increase motivation and awareness of science for policy, mechanisms need to be incorporated at the organizational/institutional level that incentivize policy engagement for scientists. However, the draft guidance itself does not address this or several of the other barriers mentioned and does not provide insight on how the learnings of the JRC may inform the future guidance for SPIs. We would encourage the draft report to elaborate on how the work of the JRC and OECD may help inform further iterations of this draft guidance as it seems a robust evaluation of many operational and process barriers.

IFT applauds the work of the FAO Chief Scientist Office in the development of this important draft guidance to guide the development and operationalization of SPIs. We believe quality science and the inclusion of all forms of knowledge is critical to establishing evidence-based policies to transform the food system to ensure food and nutrition security for all. Science of food professionals play a critical role in generating scientific knowledge for policy development and welcome further dialogue on overcoming barriers to better integrate science and policy.

Please contact Anna Rosales, Senior Director Government Affairs and Nutrition ([email protected]) if IFT may be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Anna Rosales, RD

Senior Director Nutrition and Government Affairs Institute of Food Technologists

What suggestions do you have to make the guidance more practical and useable at the country level?  The FAO may want to  address the criticism described below if they expect to make their guidance more usable at the country level 

"The New Colonialist Food Economy -How Bill Gates and agribusiness giants are throttling small farmers in Africa and the Global South," https://www.thenation.com/article/world/new-colonialist-food-economy/

GUIDANCE ON STRENGTHENING NATIONAL SCIENCE POLICY INTERFACES FOR AGRIFOOD SYSTEMS. DRAFT REPORT

In view of the subject above; the policy should revolve round science and technology in mitigating food insecurity and climate change. This is an essential tool in meeting the current demography witnessing in the world today. If this tech is made available for all, to access across the nations, Zero hunger and Climate change would be realized in no distance time. Agricultural science and technology is not just to promote and meeting food security globally but also to mitigate climate change globally.

Adopting a realizable policy, a concise research development should be made available, especially in the global south that will help mitigate food crisis, waste, shortage and climate change. It is a narrative that could change the mode and concept of operation and give new meaning to agricultural sector globally. The world should leverage on ‘blended mechanize farming’ for agricultural sustainability.

Meanwhile, there is need for the best policy to resonate and thrive locally, national and globally that will evolve best practices for national support productivity mechanism for science and technology. Subject to this effect, building resilience that fosters the demand and supply for world demography from agricultural sector, this should be look into, ‘Agri-Students in the universities and researchers’. However, the need also varies by countries, due to national interest that determines policy formulation and implementation globally and nationally. They are factored in this form;

1.      Technical support

2.      Funding

3.      Research

4.      Programme collaboration and partnership

5.      Science and technology innovation hub etc

Every nation knows it needs to scale-up in agricultural sector, food security in their country. Demography explosion has taken land use in the world especially in the global south causing climate change because of deforestation in these countries. It has really affected nations with little care or not for the available forest in the land. It can also be as a result of lack of implementation and technical know-how and technological defect in these nations.

Some nations have refused to move or shift from local or traditional practice of farming (subsistence) to a more modern practice of farming which advocate for modern tools, mechanize farming that help manage the soil strength, nutrient and fertility in the area because of scientific knowledge. However, no disputing the fact of traditional farming technology which our parents practice and ensure natural food, vegetarian and produce kept human longer and healthier those days in the global world.

But science has made known that the explosion of demography has subsumed the natural habitant for cultivation which necessitated the use of technology and mechanize farming globally that help sustain the ever glowing population in the world. This is where the issue of over emphasizing of technology and mechanize farming has harper the traditional practice (small farming) which has also driven a lot from the rural to urban settlement. The migration has become enormous that the cities are now congested, over populated because of this avert effect of science and technology that have not be well manage or practice in the global south.

There is need to reiterate, this avert effect and call for a mixture of technology/mechanize and traditional farming that will provide for natural food, nutrient for healthy living and growth. This might sound awkward but is the fact and reality of agricultural practice in the world that affects the world today.

In my own opinion, nations should give priority to science and technology, and traditional farming which will prioritize blended cultivation, blended farming. This will keep and secure our environment and make it healthy. It should be projected in the universities by agricultural science students, researchers and farmers for continuous innovation. Therefore, emphasis should be lay on the natural plantation that mitigates climate change, thereby reducing migrants from migrating from rural to urban settlement and (ie with support of government infrastructures), that boost economic resilient and prioritize national farming science and technology scale and protect the environment with little damage.

These are policy that could strengthen national agricultural science scaling with conjunction or collaboration with FAO in nation(s). If the policy revolve round this factors that have been fertilized, it will experience a better partnership and collaboration for better management for world demography and climate change.

Thank you.

Esosa

Dear Preetmoninder Lidder,

I am glad to have a chance for reviewing this draft. I am a member of the Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning, National Forestry and Grassland Administration of China. Thus, I am not familiar with the agrifood systems. I only present one suggestion for revision: in the last paragraph on page 21, the three models are better ranked as: the policy-oriented model, the production-focused model and the integrated model. Moreover, it is better in the same order in the whole text and the annexes. For example, at the end of this drafted document, statement categories A, B, and C are better to represent the policy-oriented model, the production-focused model and the integrated model, respectively. Additionally, the policy-oriented model is commonly used in China.

With a little regret, I have not found any descriptions about China in this document. Maybe, it is not the authors’ fault. In the normal sense, at least one of the principal authors should come from China, because China has the largest population and is a large agricultural country. But, no one is from China. I can’t find one Chinese expert even in the list of additional contributors and peer reviewers. It seems like China has nothing to do with the agrifood systems. In fact, China has resolved the problem of absolute poverty in the past decades, making significant contributions to the cause of global poverty reduction. According to the Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2022, a total of 832 impoverished counties and close to 100 million poor rural residents have been lifted out of poverty, and, among them, more than 9.6 million poverty-stricken people have been relocated from inhospitable areas.

Many thanks to you and all authors.

Regards.

The multidimensional crisis at the global level, caused by the irrational action of human beings when using natural resources above the planet's capacity, in this new era called the Anthropocene, leads to the urgent need to seek options for sustainable development and greater resilience of actors in the face of climate change. For this reason, I propose Social Neocapital (unpublished topic, topic of published doctoral thesis) as a mechanism of polycentric governance and an important alternative to sustainable development, also very pertinent to this Forum related to the contribution to scientific-normative interfaces. The proposal (doctoral thesis and several articles already published in indexed journals) is based on hermeneutic phenomenology, from the experience of the actors of the Rangel municipality, as well as specialized economic literature, from authors such as Elinor Ostrom, Jean Tirole, Edgar Morin, Oliver Williamson, Robert Putnam, James Coleman, among others. However, when a phenomenon is difficult to summarize in a key word or a master word, which cannot be traced back to a simple law or idea, as is the case with social capital, the idea of ​​Edgar Morin's complexity paradigm is reinforced. . Even in the municipality, producers have been moving, over several decades, from the self-organization of irrigation committees - where they have managed to generate their own institutions and maintain their cultural heritage - to evolve towards a higher stage of self-eco -organization as proposed by the same author. In this sense, by making use of Biotechnology and Biomimicry, producers have strengthened an agricultural production system, with criteria of equity, social inclusion, agroecological practices and responsible consumption, which invites us to rethink the role of the State and consider the articulation inter-institutional coordination of actors as a starting point for public policy reforms in the face of climate change or other adverse events, which allows the preservation of the environment, sustainable food systems and therefore of life itself.

1/ Question 1 : ce rapport me semble assez complet et bien construit, je pense que l'apport de la FAO aux SPI nationaux pourrait justement consister à aider les pays à évaluer ex ante de leur décision dans le domaine AFS les effets et conséquences de leurs politiques publiques sur le reste du monde, en particulier les PMA et les pays très dépendants du marché mondial des biens alimentaires. La FAO me semble à même de porter ces informations à la connaissance des décideurs et à mobiliser les autres parties prenantes de ces SPI pour évaluer ces impacts et, s'il le faut, réunir les connaissances nécessaires pour le faire (disponibles dans la littérature ou à créer par des études spécifiques). Je distinguerai les "effets" qui sont les impacts directs, plus ou moins voulus dans le cadre de la décision concernée, des "conséquences" qui sont les impacts imprévus de ces décision sur les systèmes agricoles et alimentaires d'autres pays, éventuellement non ciblés par les mesures en question. On pourrait citer ainsi de nombreux exemples des politiques de l'UE et des Etats membres de l'UE à propos de l'agriculture, de l'alimentation, de la lutte contre la déforestation, etc. dont les effets et conséquences sur les PMA et certains pays du Sud n'ont pas été suffisamment évaluées en amont de la décision et qui peuvent se révéler catastrophiques pour les agriculteurs et autres acteurs des filières agroalimentaires de ces pays ... sans que cela ait été souhaité initialement, seulement mal ou non anticipé/évalué. 

2/ Question 2 : je confirme que je trouve ce rapport bien construit et structurant, et je n'ai pas de contribution complémentaire significative à énoncer. Il va bien tel qu'il est et il ne faudrait pas le développer davantage ni risquer de le complexifier. C'est un bon rapport, tout à fait utile de nos jours et le point critique portera désormais sur sa diffusion et ses capacités de pénétration et de conviction dans les mondes des SPI existantes ou à créer ...

Je n'ai rien d'autre à ajouter pour l'instant.

Billions of dollars is being spent on agricultural projects by national governments and their international partners such as the FAO. However, these investments beyond the beautiful well written project reports, do not translate to transformative change on the ground or in the agricultural sector. So problems being solved do not go away despite half a century of intervention. The SPI presents a unique opportunity for meaningful change on the ground, allowing policy makers to use evidenced based information to design policies. The entrepreneurial capacity building of stakeholders in the food value chain is important. Food production, distribution and consumption should be seen as a business capable of creating wealth and opportunities. However, for this to happen, farmers, distributors, marketers/traders and consumers alike should appreciate the need to be very ENTREPRENEURIAL in approaching the food value chain. Human capacity building to achieve an entrepreneurial mindset will unlock the huge potentials of the food sector in LDCS especially in Africa. Hence, policy makers and scientists should prioritize ENTREPRENEURIAL developments in the food sector.

The fragmentation of food systems and incoherent policies worsen the fundamental interlinked concerns facing the global food system, which include climate change, biodiversity loss, depletion of natural resources, malnutrition, food insecurity, inequality, and avoidable illness. In order to meet these problems, food systems must change in a way that encourages people to eat healthier diets from sustainable food systems, guaranteeing more equitable access to food and nutrition security. Numerous factors impede the advancement of more equal, fair, and sustainable food systems. These include the following: unequal treatment of women, undervaluation of sustainability concerns, a lack of participation from various value systems and Indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge, knowledge gaps about the relationships between various food system operations, and fragmented policies. For example, little is known about how trade regulation affects the environment, food habits, smallholder and Indigenous peoples' production methods, and gender equity issues. Policy makers are uncertain about how to incorporate food policies that support the transformation of food systems because of these gaps as well as the differing interests and values among constituency groups. Consequently, a significant investment in more effective science–policy interfaces (SPIs) and better, more pertinent knowledge systems is required. In order to support multi-sectoral and cross-scale policies that integrate food and nutrition security, public health, environmental sustainability, and societal wellbeing and equity, efficient SPIs must at least deliver on the following three priorities: the integration of research and data across food systems; the provision of a robust, transparent, and independent synthesis and assessment of knowledge, including scientific evidence and insights from the relevant stakeholders; and the provision of a pertinent, policy-related research agenda. By tackling these priorities collectively, we can establish an impartial, transparent, reputable, and authoritative consensus on scientific evidence and other forms of knowledge, which will help to resolve disagreements and uncertainties and close knowledge gaps.

The Scientific Group of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and this group of authors, the High Level Expert Group (EG) of the European Commission, are among the groups and organizations that are currently debating the best ways to transform food systems. In order to better assist the change of food systems in the upcoming decade or decades, we are focusing here on investigating possible possibilities for improving SPIs.

Estimados integratantes de este Foro. 

Ante todo, reciban un cordial saludo y mis respetos.

La crisis multidimensional al nivel global, ocasionada por la acción irracional del ser humano al hacer uso los recursos naturales por encima de la capacidad del planeta, en esta nueva era denominada del Antropoceno, conlleva a plantear la imperiosa necesidad de buscar opciones al desarrollo sostenible y una mayor resiliencia de los actores frente al cambio climático. Por ello, propongo el Neocapital Social (inédita, tema de tesis doctoral) como mecanismo de gobernanza policéntrica y una importante alternativa al desarrollo sostenible, además, muy pertinente a este Foro relacionado a la contribución a las interfaces científico‑normativas. La propuesta (tesis doctoral y varios artículos ya publicados) se sustenta en la fenomenología hermenéutica, desde la experiencia de los actores del municipio Rangel, así como la literatura económica especializada, de autores como Elinor Ostrom, Jean Tirole, Edgar Morin, Oliver Williamson, Robert Putnam, James Coleman, entre otros. Sin embargo, cuando un fenómeno es difícil resumirlo en una palabra clave o en una palabra maestra, que no puede retrotraerse a una ley o idea simple, tal cual sucede sobre el capital social, se refuerza la idea del paradigma de la complejidad de Edgar Morin. Incluso, en el municipio, los productores han venido pasando, a lo largo de varias décadas, de la autoorganización de los comités de riego -donde han logrado generar sus propias instituciones y mantener su acervo cultural- hasta evolucionar hacia una etapa superior de auto eco-organización como propone el mismo autor. En este sentido, al hacer uso de la Biotecnología y el Biomimetismo, los productores han fortalecido un sistema de producción agrícola, con criterios de equidad, inclusión social, prácticas agroecológicas y consumo responsable, que invita a repensar el papel del Estado y considerar la articulación interinstitucional de los actores como punto de partida de reformas de políticas públicas frente al cambio climático u otros eventos adversos, que permita la preservación del medioambiente, sistemas alimentarios sostenibles y por ende de la vida misma.

atte

Dr. Carlos Fonseca