Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock

Comments on the proposed draft scope of the HLPE Report on sustainable agricultural development from the inland fisheries group of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.

We would like to thank the HLPE for providing the opportunity to participate in the E‑consultation to set the track of the study “Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock”. Our contribution will follow the structure of the scoping paper, comments will be linked to paragraphs of that document:

A) Context: drivers and challenges

1. Assessment of projections with respect to future food demand

With respect to the assessment of existing projections of future food demand, we would like to draw attention of the panel to the publication: Fish to 2030: Prospects for Fisheries and Aquaculture, WorldBank report number 83177-GLB (http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2014/01/31/000461832_20140131135525/Rendered/PDF/831770WP0P11260ES003000Fish0to02030.pdf). In this report projections are made, following different scenarios, with respect to consumption of fish in the world. Currently 16% of all animal protein consumed globally comes from fish and this proportion is likely to increase.

Important to note is that the global population will grow, as will be the buying power of part of the global population. This will mean increased demand for animal protein which livestock will, at least partly, need to fulfill. However, the attention of the panel is drawn to the fact that capture fisheries has a much lower ecological footprint than livestock, and therefor it would be important to not ignore the role capture fisheries need to play to address animal protein demands. Fisheries production needs to be taken into account when management decisions need to be taken in catchment areas. There might be a need for irrigation or hydropower for the production of feeds for livestock, however, these interventions will have a significant effect on fishery production in the catchment area concerned, let alone on the livelihoods of the people dependent/linked to capture fisheries production.

2. Implications (challenges and opportunities) for:

1. Food security and nutrition

In our opinion fisheries and aquaculture have a significant role to play with respect to food security and nutrition. Fish is an important source of animal protein in human consumption (Delgado et al 2003), and features prominently in the diet of many people; fish are often easily accessed and affordable. Fish is especially rich in essential omega-3, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, amino acids and micronutrients, including vitamins, bioavailable calcium, iron and zinc (HLPE 2014, Longley et al 2014), which all play a critical role in cerebral development, immune defense systems and general health. Small quantities of fish can have a significant positive nutritional impact by providing essential amino acids, fats, and micronutrients that are scarce in vegetable based diets (FAO 2012).

1. access to land and natural resources;

With respect to access to land and natural resources, we would like to draw the attention of the panel to the weak political position of many fishers and fishing communities. Even though they represent a significant amount of production, because of their marginalized position, the fishery sector is often not well considered when water development and management decisions are taken. This results in the loss of animal protein production, and income for the marginalized groups described.

If fish production from capture fisheries would have to be replaced by grazing livestock, this would result in a substantially increased grazing area and increased water extraction at levels which would be difficult and environmentally costly to sustain.

When decisions are made with respect to managing water, for instance to irrigate cereals needed for animal feeds, one of the effects could be the reduction of fish production. The net effect might therefore be that less animal protein production.

Aquaculture fish convert more of their feed into body mass than terrestrial animals; the production of 1 kg of beef (resp. pork and fish) protein requires 61 kg (resp 38 and 13 kg) of grain (HLPE, 2014)

1. agricultural production and productivity increases;

Reference is made to earlier comments with respect to the efficiency of animal protein production, and the effect of replacing fish production by cereals for animal feeds production;

1. economic development

No Comments

1. the health of the environment and ecosystems, including climate change and biodiversity.

We would like to draw the attention of the panel to the fact that there is wide recognition that the value of aquatic ecosystems lies in the sustained net benefits derived from the many goods and services (including fisheries) provided by those ecosystems, and not just from one or a few (such as hydropower, navigation and irrigation) that seem to be of higher importance because of their higher contributions to GDP. Only healthy aquatic environments and ecosystems can produce the full scale of divers and healthy populations of living aquatic organisms (including fish) that are important for the stability of inland water ecosystems and ultimately for the aquatic productivity (also in terms of fish production). In rivers, the ecological continuity, that is the connection of rivers to lakes, floodplains, tributaries and eventually to the sea is of high importance in this respect. Dam and levee construction, as well as draining of wetlands prevent fish and nutrients from completing their natural cycles. These cycles support not only inland biodiversity and fishing communities, but marine and coastal biodiversity, fisheries and communities. Protection and conservation of the aquatic environment and its biodiversity is required by several international instruments, e.g. the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Ramsar Convention, the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and the EU Habitat and Water Framework Directives. Furthermore, the use of antibiotics and chemicals in intensive farming systems could become a concern with respect to the effect on habitats and resistance of strains of pathogenic bacteria affecting natural fish stocks, or people.

B) Achieving sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition

3. Sustainability challenges for crop and livestock-based agricultural and food systems.

The attention of the panel is drawn to the crucial role fisheries and aquaculture play with respect to the production of animal protein, including essential micronutrients and important amino acids, for which there are limited alternative sources. The fisheries and aquaculture sector should therefore be considered/included when reviewing sustainability challenges for agricultural and food systems. The current description of the review seems to be ignoring the fishery sector.

4. Objectives and elements of sustainable approaches to agriculture.

No comments

5. Pathways towards sustainable crop and livestock-based systems:

1. Livestock as an engine for the development of the agriculture and food sector.

The attention of the panel is drawn again to the danger which exists when livestock production will be increased; more livestock feed will need to be produced, which might result in water management decisions reducing the amount of water available for fisheries. Land and water are often degraded by many types of livestock production (FAO 2006). The net effect of these decisions might be that less animal protein will be produced.

1. Practices from different perspectives.

No Comments

1. Barriers to change.

Looking only at GDP values (with mainly low GDP values associated to fisheries) when making decisions concerning management and development of river or lake basins seems to be a barrier.

1. Needed enabling environment

No Comments

6. Conclusions and recommendations for policies and actions.

No Comments

References:

IPCC 2014. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. IPCC Working Group II Contribution to AR5.

Benson, T. 2008. Improving nutrition as a development priority; addressing undernutrition in national policy processes in Sub-Saharan Africa. International Food Policy Research Institute, Research Report 156. USA.

HLPE, 2014. Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for food security and nutrition. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome 2014.

Longley et al. 2014. The Role of Fish in the First 1,000 Days in Zambia. IDS Special Collection. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton BN1 9RE, UK www.ids.ac.uk

Delgado, C.L., Wada, N., Rosegrant, M.W., Meijer, S. and Ahmed, M. 2003. Outlook for fish to 2020; Meeting global demand. World Fish Center, Malaysia.

FAO 2006. Livestock’s Long Shadow. FAO, Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

FAO 2012. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. Rome, FAO.

FI Comments on HLPE activity - Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock - E-consultation to set the track of the study

1. It is not clear if “fish” or “aquatic animal production” is fully recognized under “livestock” in the document and the process.
2. Considering the role of fish in nutrition and health as well as a source of animal-based-proteins for consumption, fish or aquatic animals should be clearly mentioned and considered in the HLPE process.

• Fish and other aquatic products (e.g. seaweed) have significant contributions to food security and nutrition. This has been well recognized in many fora, including the HLPE consultation on “The Role of Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture for Food Security and Nutrition”.
• Fish or aquatic animals are considered having much lower environmental footprints in production compared to the terrestrial animals.
• Aquaculture, a.k.a. fish farming, involves food producing activities similar to livestock production. Indeed, while aquaculture used to be deemed a sub-sector of fisheries, it has been more properly treated by some industry classification systems (e.g. North American Industry Classification System or NAICS) as a component of “Animal production” to which livestock belongs.
• Aquaculture, which is a much younger food producing industry compared to livestock, can learn a great deal from the successes and failures of sustainable development in livestock.

1. As suitable sustainable approaches to agriculture (including livestock) tend to differ across regions or countries because of differences in resource endowments, economic development, governance structure, cultural tradition, etc., the study should adopt a regional approach if possible or at least highlight regional or national differences.
2. Constrained by information and time available to prepare a report on such a broad subject, the study may not be able to cover all relevant themes or answer all relevant questions. Therefore, it would be useful for the study to identify and document information and knowledge gaps and propose future studies to fill in these gaps.
3. FI should be represented in the Expert Group.

Most of the developing countries are under  small farming which needs an immediate way of introducing the multi activities and commodity approach enable the farmers can have a value added income.

The other alternative idea is introduce the small scale agro-industries which will be not only market value but also climate smart and pollution less practices which generates total employment and migration stops .

This will not only increase the life and standard of living of farmer but also he secure with good life.

A) On the drivers, one on the issues that may need exploring is the critical role of innovation and behavioural change on food and nutritional security via such factors as diet diversification, crop and livestock productivity, and food losses.

B) On the pathways towards sustainable crop and livestock-based systems, some of the issues that may need investigating are:

i) Trade-offs and synergies between livestock and crop production in the role of livestock to food and nutritional security in crop-livestock mixed systems.

ii) Explore the role of feed-food complimentarity systems.

iii) Explore the impact and contribution of livestock system intensification to food and nutritional security in different land tenure systems. 

The key message: The guidelines should focused on stopping antagonistic policies of influential international agencies in promoting livestock management in institutionally weak countries and working on other primary problems.

I strongly believe that livestock business is an engine and inspiration of social development, economic prosperity and environmental conservation in most rural communities in developing countries. The business is also an engine to maintain rural vitality in many developed countries but commercial scale farming practices resulted substantial environmental problems.  Sustaining the livestock business in many communities of developing countries requires resources from different ecological regions or other a common property resources due to smallholding of private land or agro-ecological problem.  The business competes with land resources with many other competitive uses. Many national and international agencies (bilateral agencies: e.g. the USAID, DFID, NORAD, and SDC, multilateral agencies: e.g. FAO, WB, UNDP, IUCN and WEP) have misunderstood the historical institutional setting of land resource management in the regions and played antagonistic policies to manage the resources for livestock in the institutionally weak countries. Their policies on the community pastureland, forest land uses and livestock management policies have been seriously impacting on farming land abandonment, food insecurity, social tragedy to women, regional economic backlashes, and agro- biodiversity losses in many developing countries and particularly socially disadvantaged region. The policies have also indirectly impacting on food and nutritional insecurities and escalated treats of extinction to some indigenous ethnic groups. The impacts are resulted from reactionary slow process. These processes and impacts can be poorly understood based on conventional and textbook based knowledge. Developing effective working guidelines require understanding the complex issues with constructive vision and in broader and dynamic social, economic and biophysical systems.

Most of guidelines in contemporary policy documents of both national and international agencies are developed to tackle secondary problems due to poor understanding of policy experts and decision makers on those complex problems. The supports of the international agencies on alleviating the secondary problems makes small differences in the communities. As a result the livestock management problems in many disadvantaged regions are increasing.  The references listed below might be helpful to understand the critical problems. If the panel of experts would like to develop policy guidelines to make tangible benefit to disadvantaged people with enhancing social, economic and environmental sustainability they should focused on addressing primary problems. The policy guidelines should be served as a pressuring tool for stakeholders and provided morally binding messages for policy and program decision makers and funding agencies. Since the international agencies play critical roles in developing and implementing policies that affect livestock management in institutionally weak countries. The policy guidelines should also pinpoint the bad governance and create moral pressure in considering the problems of institutional weak communities of the influential international agencies. Finally I would like to suggest the panel to start their job by reviewing the antagonistic policies and other institutional weaknesses of FAO (whole organizational level) related to livestock development in developing countries.    

The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of Managing Community Forests for Global Environment Conservation: A Critical Evaluation. The Open Journal of Forestry. 2014, 4(1):58-69.

Forests for food security and livelihood sustainability: Policy problems and opportunities for small farmers in Nepal. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture. 2011, 35(1):86-115.  I strongly believe that livestock business is an engine and inspiration of social development, economic prosperity and environmental conservation in most rural communities in developing countries. The business is also an engine to maintain rural vitality in many developed countries but commercial scale farming practices resulted substantial environmental problems.  Sustaining the livestock business in many communities of developing countries requires resources from different ecological regions or other a common property resources due to smallholding of private land or agro-ecological problem.  The business competes with land resources with many other competitive uses. Many national and international agencies (bilateral agencies: e.g. the USAID, DFID, NORAD, and SDC, multilateral agencies: e.g. FAO, WB, UNDP, IUCN and WEP) have misunderstood the historical institutional setting of land resource management in the regions and played antagonistic policies to manage the resources for livestock in the institutionally weak countries. Their policies on the community pastureland, forest land uses and livestock management policies have been seriously impacting on farming land abandonment, food insecurity, social tragedy to women, regional economic backlashes, and agro- biodiversity losses in many developing countries and particularly socially disadvantaged region. The policies have also indirectly impacting on food and nutritional insecurities and escalated treats of extinction to some indigenous ethnic groups. The impacts are resulted from reactionary slow process. These processes and impacts can be poorly understood based on conventional and textbook based knowledge. Developing effective working guidelines require understanding the complex issues with constructive vision and in broader and dynamic social, economic and biophysical systems.

Most of guidelines in contemporary policy documents of both national and international agencies are developed to tackle secondary problems due to poor understanding of policy experts and decision makers on those complex problems. The supports of the international agencies on alleviating the secondary problems makes small differences in the communities. As a result the livestock management problems in many disadvantaged regions are increasing.  The references listed below might be helpful to understand the critical problems. If the panel of experts would like to develop policy guidelines to make tangible benefit to disadvantaged people with enhancing social, economic and environmental sustainability they should focused on addressing primary problems. The policy guidelines should be served as a pressuring tool for stakeholders and provided morally binding messages for policy and program decision makers and funding agencies. Since the international agencies play critical roles in developing and implementing policies that affect livestock management in institutionally weak countries. The policy guidelines should also pinpoint the bad governance and create moral pressure in considering the problems of institutional weak communities of the influential international agencies. Finally I would like to suggest the panel to start their job by reviewing the antagonistic policies and other institutional weaknesses of FAO (whole organizational level) related to livestock development in developing countries.    

The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of Managing Community Forests for Global Environment Conservation: A Critical Evaluation. The Open Journal of Forestry. 2014, 4(1):58-69.

Forests for food security and livelihood sustainability: Policy problems and opportunities for small farmers in Nepal. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture. 2011, 35(1):86-115.   

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Thank you.

Best Wishes.

Bhubaneswor Dhakal

Please see attached document for The Brooke's submission to this e-consultation.

More feed and food for More people with Less resources and less emissions are real challenges for sustainable food security and nutrition presently and in future. Plant breeding can be considered as the starting point for the whole human food chain. Therefore, high, stable and high digestible yields of phytogenic biomass with low external inputs of non-renewable resources, such as water, fuel, arable land, fertilizers etc., low emissions of gases with greenhouse potential during cultivation, high resistance against biotic and abiotic stressors including adaptation to potential climate change, and a low concentration of undesirable substances in the plants are real challenges for plant breeders in the future. Unlimited resources such as sunlight, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the air as well as the genetic pool of microbes, plants and animals can be used to breed/develop the optimal plants/crops (see SCAR 2008; The Royal Society 2009). It is possible to realize all these objectives by traditional plant breeding, but genetic engineering may be faster and can contribute substantially to achieve these goals. Both “breeding technologies” should be considered to complement one to another and not as alternatives.

Another global aspect is the balance between Planet (global resources and emissions) – People (social aspects of population all over the world) and Profit (economic aspects, money-making) in the so-called 3P-concept (IUCN 2005; Boonen et al., 2012), This balance is an important prerequisite for a sustainable life and development on the earth. Some authors are afraid that the balance between the 3P would be more and more disturbed and an ethical dimension should be introduced as the fourth dimension (IUCN 2005; Casabona et al. 2010; Makkar and Ankers, 2014). Profit should not and can not be the single objective of production. We need to find a balance between a careful and sustainable use of limited resources (see above) on the one hand (Fedoroff et al., 2010; Giovannucci et al., 2012; Wals and Corcoran 2012) and low emissions with local and global consequences for later generations (Foley et al., 2011) on the other hand. Progresses in plant breeding to more efficient plants in using natural resources and plants with high and stable yields which contribute to stabilize human nutrition with food of plant and animal origin can be a starting to overcome imbalances in the 3P-concept.

That means plant breeders should consider this 3P-concept and should develop plants with low external inputs of non-renewable resources (e.g. water, fuel, arable land etc.) and plants should optimal use unlimited resources (e.g. sunlight, N2 and CO2 from the air etc.; see Flachowsky et al. 2013).

Public plant breeding is very important to realize such objectives. Seeds of such breeding should be available to all farmers including smallholders in developing countries (see Ruane et al. 2013).

If we are not able to consider such aspects as mentioned above in the HLPE-report, we will not be able to contribute to a sustainable solution of food security and nutrition.

Personally, I think that the authors of the HLPE-report on “Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock” should consider such fundamental aspects.

References (included in my comments above):

Boonen, R., Aerts, S. and De Tavernier, L. (2012) Which sustainability soits you? In: Climate change and sustainable development; ed. by T. Potthast and S. Meisch, Wageningen Acad. Publ. 43-48.

Casabona, C.M.R., Epifanio, L.E.S., Cirion, A.E. (2010) Global food security: Ethical and legal challenges. Wageningen Academic Publ., Wageningen, The Netherlands, 532 p.

Fedoroff, N.V., Battisti, D.S., Beachy, R.N., Cooper, P.J.M., Fischhoff, D.A., Hodges, P.C., Knauf, V.C., Lobell, D., Mazur, B.J., Molden, D., Reynolds, M.P., Ronald, P.C., Rosengrant, M.W., Sanches, P.A., Vonshak, A. and Zhu, J.K. (2010) Radically rethinking agriculture for the 21th century. Science 327, 833-834.

Flachowsky, G., Meyer, U., Gruen, M. (2013). Plant and animal breeding as starting points for sustainable agriculture. In “Sustainable Agriculture Reviews (ed. by E. Lichtfouse), 12: 201-224

Foley, J.A., Ramankutty, N., Brauman, K.A., Cassidy, E.S., Gerber, J.S., Johnston, M., Mouller, N.D., O`Conell, C., Ray, D.K., West, P.C., Balzer, C., Bennett, E.M., Carpenter, S.R., Hill, J., Monfreda, C., Polasky, S., Rockström, J., Sheehan, J., Siebert, S., Tilman, D., Zaks, D.P.M.. (2011) Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature 478: 337-342

Giovannucci, D., Scherr, S., Nierenberg, D., Hebebrand, C., Shapiro, J., Milder, J. and Wheeler, K. (2012) Food and Agriculture: the future of sustainability. A strategic input to the sustainable development in the 21st Century (SD21) project. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development.

IUNC (World Conservation Union; 2005) The IUNC Programme 2005-2008. Many voices, one earth. Bangkok, Thailand, 17-25 Nov. 2004. Available at: https://cmsdata.iunc.org/downloads/programme-english.pdf

Makkar, H.P.S. and Ankers, P. (2014a) Towards sustainable animal diets: A survey based srudy. Animal Feed Science and Technlogy 198: 309-322

SCAR (EU Commission – Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (2008) New challenges for agricultural research. Climate change, rural development, agricultural knowledge systems. The 2nd SCAR Foresight Exercise, Brussels, Dec. 2008, 112 p.

The Royal Society (2009) Reaping the benefits: Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. RS policy document 11/09, issued Oct. 2009 RS 1608, ISBN: 978-0-85403-784-1

Ruane, J., Dargie, J.D., Mba, C., Boettcher, P., Makkar, H.P.S., Bartley, D.M., Sonnino, A. (2013) Biotechnologies at work for smallholders: Case studies from developing countries in crops, livestock and fish. Occasional papers on “Innovation in family farming”, FAO Rome, 198 p.

Wals, A.E.J., Corcoran, P.B. (2012) Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change. Wageningen Academic Publ., Wageningen, The Netherlands, 550 p.

It could be a good spring board to start with analysis of past cases of success and failiure particlarly regarding livestock development. Past trends of growing demand for animal products incentivized livestock devlopment in latin American and south east Asian countries. Meanwhile, such success was far from realized in sub Sharan Africa.

My suggestion in this is for stronger focus to distinct local policy and capacity challenges. These factors represent major impediments particularly to livestock development in sub Saharan Africa. Such lmitations hinder optimum exploitation of rising opportunities and limmit capacity to effectively deal with prevailing challenges.

In below, you can find some ideas we already proposed for GCHERA 2015 “Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agriculture and Life Sciences” next conference.

This info fits with the Proposed Scope of the HLPE Report and can give some ideas in order to elaborate the draft.

“Feeding 9 billion people by 2050 will need an increase of food production by 50%. So satisfying the food security needs of the future population while having a smaller environmental footprint are key goals of our societies.

These goals seem somehow to be inconsistent in practice due to agriculture’s footprint such like carbon, energy, water and chemicals use...These footprints have already caused the loss of whole ecosystems around the globe.

Therefore, these goals are turning into challenges especially with climate change and shortage that are likely to fundamentally alter the structure of food systems around the world leading to more negative environmental impacts. So in order to increase productivity and yield, advanced research and technologies are needed.

  Many questions need to be answered in the future HLPE Report:

1- What are the keys to improving livestock productivity with no net increase in water and energy use, waste disposal and chemical inputs? How can we overcome the odds between production and environmental protection?

2- What are the possible ways to develop environmental management throughout the life cycle of main food products? Can the “100-mile diet” movement in Europe be applied on a global level? 

3- What mix of agricultural systems is needed to meet expected future demand for food? How can we design systems that can handle climate change, and pathogens and/or pest pressures?

4- Can a shift in diets, decreasing the demand for livestock-based products, free up substantial amounts of food across the world? 

5- What policies can make our food system more sustainable? What kind of measures can governments promote and support to private-sector agricultural development, entrepreneurship, and the formation of public-private partnerships?”

We need to go the base (the point where we started) and carefully evaluate the whole chain of development events to see where we went wrong.

An obvious difference between true "need" and "desire" may be kept in mind. A need in our perspective is say "provision of safe and healthy food to everyone living on the face of earth". Once this true need is fully addressed in its entirety, the next phase of development could to fulfill desires of few satiated people. Both directions need consideration but I would suggest work for the need (90% of the times) and  leave the rest for fulfilling desires. In reality, need of many is compromised at the cost of desires of few people.  Few people own most land with agriculture and livetsock and they are the ones who have almost all needs and many desires fulfilled...........