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

Input to the consolidated feedback by the SFS Programme

1.    The purpose of this report is to analyse the ways in which food systems influence dietary patterns and hence nutritional outcomes. The objective is to focus on consumers and consider sustainability issues. The report aims to be solution oriented and to highlight efficient policies and programs. Are those major objective(s) clearly reflected in the V0 draft?

We believe that the report highlights efficient policies and programmes quite well, overall. However, at least one important reference is missing: the Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) Programme of the United Nations 10-Year Framework on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP). The 10YFP is global framework of action to enhance international cooperation to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in both developed and developing countries. It reports to ECOSOC and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

The SFS Programme of the 10YFP is a multi-stakeholder partnership to promote sustainable food systems through activities at global, regional and national level, in both developing and developed countries. It contributes to the achievements of several SDGs, in particular SDG 2 and SDG 12, as well as a series issues covered by other SDGs including in the areas of health, biodiversity and ecosystems, partnerships, etc. One of the five focus themes of the Programme is “sustainable diets”. Under this focus theme the SFS Programme aims to promote diets that take into account the three sustainability dimensions in addition to food security, nutrition and health aspects, thereby linking consumption and production. It does so by raising awareness, promoting enabling environments, and facilitating access to knowledge, information and tools. For example, FAO, UNEP and the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition are joining forces under the SFS Programme, to lead on the development of broadly recognized methodologies and indicators to assess the sustainability of diets, with a view to produce guidance materials for governments and other relevant stakeholders on how to account for the different dimensions of sustainable development (social, economic and environmental) in their respective dietary recommendations.

In its resolution on Agriculture development, food security and nutrition of 2015 (A/RES/70/223), the United Nations General Assembly welcomed the launch of the SFS Programme. In October 2016, the FAO Committee on Agriculture requested FAO to strengthen its work on sustainable food systems in relation to the 10YFP.

The SFS Programme could be included, for example, under 4.1.3 and/or 4.2.3.

For more information see: http://www.scpclearinghouse.org/sustainable-food-system

2.    Do you think that the overall structure of the draft is comprehensive enough, and adequately considered and articulated? Does the draft strike the right balance of coverage across the various chapters? Are there important aspects that are missing? Does the report correctly focus on the links between nutrition and food systems without straying beyond that?

We feel that chapter 4.2 could be strengthened, as a variety of further solutions are available, including solutions that are less “high technology” and more accessible to smallholders and low income farmers (see also our comment under 12 below).

As it is correctly presented in the report, one of the big challenges in agriculture today is to ensure that youth have the proper incentives to stay in agriculture. In addition, today’s youth has an important role to play in shaping tomorrow’s food systems. Therefore, we believe that it would be useful to address youth in a more integral way throughout the report, and not only under the sub-section “vulnerable populations” under 4.2.2. Similarly, the role of smallholders and women could be further streamlined in the report.

3.    Does the conceptual framework need to be edited? Simplified? Should “the food environment” as defined in the draft be central to the framework?  

When comparing the suggested definition for “food system” on page 11 with the one contained in the 2014 HLPE report that is cited as its source, we realized that the definition in the current draft differs from the one of the 2014 HLPE report in that it includes some new wording. Considerable consensus has emerged around the 2014 HLPE definition of the term “food system” (for example, it has been endorsed and /or used by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Task Force on Global Food and Nutrition Security, FAO, UNEP, UNSCN, the SFS Programme and many other stakeholders, and thus provides a strong basis. For this, and for reasons of consistency, we would suggest not to modify the 2014 definition. In case the experts should nevertheless decide to modify the 2014 definition, we would suggest that such wording changes should be as minimal as possible, for example: “[..] outcomes of these activities, including socio-economic (comprising also nutrition and health) and environmental outcomes.” In any case, we would suggest that possible changes to the definition be justified by some explanatory text.

Regarding the definition of “food environments” on pages 11/12: we would suggest to go beyond “healthy food environments”, focusing rather on “sustainable food environments”. Therefore, we would suggest to change the last sentence in the box into: “Sustainable food environments enable consumers to make nutritious food choices with the potential to improve diets, reduce the burden of malnutrition in all its forms, and improve the socio-economic as well as environmental impacts of their consumption patterns.”

Regarding the definition of “sustainable diets” on page 12: in line with the FAO 2012 definition, please add the following phrase at the very beginning: “Sustainable diets are those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations.”

4.    Are production systems and their role in shaping diets and nutritional outcomes adequately addressed?

Production systems (agriculture, aquaculture and fishery, and pastoralism) receive rather limited attention in the draft report. Changes in these - often traditional - systems impact food and nutrition security of many people, in particular smallholders. This can be exemplified by the fact that currently many smallholder farmers are net food buyers. Maybe this could even be addressed in a specific sub chapter under 3.2.

5.    Does this draft cover adequately the main controversies in the field of Nutrition and food systems? Are there any remaining gaps?

Looking at nutrition from a food systems angle implies that we have to link diets not only to consumption but also production. However, the current draft report focuses mainly on the health aspects of human nutrition, while the socio-economic and environmental aspects linked to nutrition are less covered. In our view, these aspects should be strengthened in the report. For example, there could be a separate sub-chapter on “sustainable diets” under 1.1. Similarly, chapter 4 focuses on the impacts of food production systems and food value chains on nutrition, but it does not address the impacts of human nutrition on other socio-economic and environmental impacts in food production systems. We would like to see a stronger reference to socio-economic and environmental externalities of current food systems, in which, often, external costs are not taken into account in the value chain and final consumer prices. It would be very valuable to include this; it could possibly be addressed under 4.1.4.

6.    The project team is working on a categorization of food systems. Are you aware of specific approaches of use in that perspective, and particularly of quantitative indicators that could be used?

[no comments]

7.    Does this draft adequately show the multiplicity and complexity of diets and nutrition issues across different food systems and specific contexts with a good regional balance?

The nutrition part is balanced. However, proportionally more data from developed country data sources seems to be presented (e.g. Euromonitor on page 22) – this may be due to a lack of available data, but it could be useful to aim for a more balanced representation. In case of lack of data, this could be presented as an area for further work.

In addition, there could be more attention to the footprint of countries. How much water and land (nutrients) they indirectly import via international value chains for their nutrition.

8.    What areas of the document are in need of strengthening or shortening?

As mentioned earlier, we would welcome to see some additional focus on the linkages between nutrition and socio-economic and environmental aspects of food systems, including the socio-economic and environmental externalities of our nutrition choices impact.

9.    Chapter 4, Section 4.1 contains case studies/examples of effective policies and actions in different contexts/countries across the food system for diets and nutrition. Could you offer other practical, well-documented and significant examples to enrich and provide better balance to the variety of cases and the lessons learned, including the trade-offs or win-win outcomes in terms of addressing the different dimensions of diets for FSN?

[no comments]

10.  Section 4.2.2 on “Institutional Changes and Governance Across the Food System Movements for Nutrition” requires more work, and more inclusion of evidence and of the various players. Any inputs on this section are most welcome.

Include the above-mentioned 10YFP Sustainable Food Systems Programme under section 4.2.3 on “Nutrition governance, institutions and partnerships”.

11.  Is the report too technical or too simplistic? Are all the concepts clearly defined?

The report maintains a good balance between technical information and examples in boxes to show how certain policy measures or programmes work in practice.

12.  Are there any major omissions or gaps in the report? Are topics under-or over-represented in relation to their importance?

The report currently focuses mainly on the formal sector (e.g. focus on formal value chain actors on pp. 16-17; figures on formal value chain on pp. 68-69). However, many low income farmers and consumers depend on the informal market for their food sales and purchases. It may add value to the report if the informal sector would also addressed.

The report highlights several rather “high technology” solutions (e.g. on page 15 and page 92) such as food fortification, while there is relatively less focus on technology that is more accessible to smallholders and low income farmers, such as improved varieties of local crops that are more nutritious, developed for example through participatory plant breeding approaches.

Gender considerations and the role of women could be emphasized stronger throughout the report, and in particular in relation to the economic and socio-cultural drivers described on pp. 100-101, given the important role women play in producing, selling, buying and preparing food.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this important document. I believe that the document is valuable, but also it could be strengthened in a number of areas as outlined in the attached file.  

Best wishes

Mark Lawrence

We at the Nutritional and Health Related Environmental Studies Section (NAHRES), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have reviewed the HLPE draft report and find it already very well structured. It covers the complex array of nutrition drivers in a highly competent manner. We propose a few areas where there could be improvement.

1. The conceptual framework need to be more simplified to aid easy comprehension by a wider audience

2. The concept of the double burden of malnutrition is not well articulated; our perception is that this phenomenon applies at individual (one could be stunted and obese at same time or stunting earlier could be a risk factor for obesity later), household (different members of same household could suffer different forms of malnutrition), national (cuntries in transition), regional and global level.

Our other detailed comments are attached.

We believe that the report highlights efficient policies and programmes quite well, overall. However, at least one important reference is missing: the Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) Programme of the United Nations 10-Year Framework on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP)

The report can be strenghtened in several areas: gender (women are not just vulnerable groups), informal food systems (they serve most low income citizens) and different dimensions of food environment (the factor time is important).

For full comments see, the attachment.

Kind regards, Frank Mechielsen, Hivos, the Netherlands

Good Nutrition refers to a state when the food we eat is able to provide the recommended amount of nutrients for the body to perform all physiological activities. It is dependent on one's age, physiological status, physical activity level and sex. Good nutrition is important throughout the life cycle; right from preconception, conception, pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence and/ adulthood. Good nutrition make an individual healthy, more productive the quality of life.

Good nutrition means:

• Eating the right food.
• At the right time.
• The right amounts(quality and quantity) to ensure a balance diet and should be prepared in the correct way and right place.

Good nutrition is important because it:

• Enhances physical and cognitive development.
• Enhances breast milk production for the mother to adequately breastfeed her child.
• Builds and or boosts body immunity reducing susceptibility to disease.
• Reduces cost involved in disease management and control.
• Enhances productivity.

A person with poor nutrition is at right risk of:

• Poor growth and development of the body and brain(especially in young)
• Frequency illness,infections and prolonged(delayed) recovery
• Reduced ability learn or perform in school
• Reduced ability to work and earn a living
• Death

Page 16: sub heading Socio cultural drivers: 

line 17: suggest add in after 'different food choices' : or expectations of perfect shaped fruit and vegetables Bentley,2011).

Section 4.2.2. could mention also the impact on ecological systems in relation to destructive fish farming practices.

line 25. Urbanisation expands into rural areas with assocated depletion of farming land. 

line 48: Diversification in extending land based farming to add in water based farming for income and protein sources has been proven successful in Vietnam (Pierce & O'Connor,2014)

Dear Madam/Sir,

I read the Nutrition and Food Systems report with great interest. So many congratulations to the team on a very comprehensive document. I was very pleased to see the references to biofortification.

I have a few comments and suggestions (please see the attached document) I hope you will find them useful. I would be happy to discuss further or provide you with the references cited in the attached document (in case you cannot access them).

Best regards,

Ekin Birol

Thanks for sharing this draft. It is full of interesting material, I think the topic of nutritional quality of food is not fully covered, however.

Section 3.2.1

On nutritional quality of food, there are many more influences related to the environment in addition to CO2 on Zn content of foods

Studies on links between soil and nutritional quality need to be included here such as Iodine and soil quality, Se in soil and crops. Also the nutritional quality historical decline data needs to be added as this is the foundation for the subject of agronomic influences on nutritional quality. My own paper on this using UK data would be a starting point and Davis from US data

Mayer, A. B. (1997). "Historical changes in the mineral content of fruit and vegetables." British Food Journal 96(6): 207.

Davis, D. (2009). "Declining fruit and vegetable nutrient content: what is the evidence." Horticultural Science 44(1).

Section 4.1.2 Value chains

Thinking about nutritional quality through value chains. I have done an analysis of the potential to improve micronutrient content of rice through 'plugging the leaks' in the chain from farm to fork

Mayer, A. B. (2011). A food systems approach to increase dietary zinc intake in Bangladesh based on an analysis of diet, rice production and processing. Combating Micronutrient Deficiency : Food-based approaches. B. Thompson. Rome, FAO: 256.

Section 4.2.1

The process of agronomic fortification is described, but again, I think this topic could be approached in terms of fulfilling the genetic potential for optimum nutritional value rather than fortification. So if crops are grown in optimum conditions their nutritional quality will not be compromised. This means, healthy soils, healthy crops and healthy people. For example you can compare agro-ecologically grown foods with organically grown and there is mounting evidence of the differences, though not everyone agrees.

For example, look at the full web-based data related to this study:

Dangour, A., S. Dodhi, et al. (2009). "Nutritional quality of organic foods, a systematic review." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 28041.

You can look at the dilution effects of high yields vs quality, traditional varieties vs new varieties of different crops. Davis has done work on this.

Look at the nutritional quality of foods grown on different soils. There are some papers that explore these topics & I could seek them out for you given a bit more time. Some old ones that you only find by trawling through the stacks in libraries. I have done a literature review for rice and nutritional quality with several papers showing various ways to improve quality - including genetic varieties, use of fertilisers but also mycorrhizal differences, organic vs conventional differences etc etc

I think there is much more potential to improve nutritional quality of foods than the examples mentioned so far in this report. The research on this area however has rarely been funded whilst the genetic approaches have been much more popular, hence you have to look harder to find the material!

Dear all,

We have read your draft HLPE paper on ' Nutrition and Food systems'.

Our compliments for all your work you have done so far.

We have some remarks on a few issues:

1. The impact of trade. In our opinion trade between countries is necessary to stimulate productivity and production. We want to refer to a research for the European Commission, just finished on the impact of trade agreements for the agriculture. We have added this research. Import in Europe from developing countries will increase with trasde agreements.

In our opinion this research provides a more realistic view on trade.

2. The necessity of 'sustainable intensification'. To reduce GHG from agriculture a sustainable intensification of the agriculture is necessary to reduce deforestation. We want to refer to a recent research of the Institute on the Environment. You can find this on:

http://www.environmentreports.com/how-does-agriculture-change/#section2

3. Transfer of knowledge and technology: The western world has a role to support developing countries with knowledge and technology: Due to the necessity of increasing productivity and sustainability a transfer of knowledge and technology might increase productivity in the developing world. It’s important to stimulate this transfer.

For climate smart agriculture a lot of techniques will be available in the next years.

Kindly regards

Joost de Jong

Ministry of Economic Affairs

The Netherlands

Considero que el informe es completo y muy importante para guiar/asesorar políticas públicas.

Sería recomendable enfatizar en la formación alimentaria de los agricultores de subsistencia, en los cuales sus dietas y la de sus familias, depende en gran medida de su producción familiar. Ellos reciben orientación agrícola pero no alimentaria. Deben aprender a valorar su cultura alimentaria, a protegerla y recuperar los cultivos autóctonos que se están perdiendo por la introducción de variedades genéticas importadas.

Incluir también que en las escuelas de agricultura sea obligatoria la enseñanza de los sistemas alimentarios autóctonos y su relación con la nutrición. Que a los agricultores se les capacite en el aprovechamiento de sus recursos alimentarios locales, pues por la influencia de la publicidad de alimentos de baja calidad nutricional sus dietas han cambiado. Debe dársele mayor estatus a los cultivos locales que han sustentado la alimentación desde hace siglos en estos países.

También recomendaría ( si se puede) una tabla resumen sobre los alimentos autóctonos de gran potencial nutricional cada país y que deben recuperarse.

Si se puede hay que reducir y condensar el informe para facilitar su socialización y comprensión con los técnicos de las contrapartes gubernamentales o de la sociedad en general.