HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Report: Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition
During its 44th Plenary Session (9-13 October 2017), the CFS requested the HLPE to produce a report on “Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition”, to be presented at CFS 46th Plenary session in October 2019.
As part of the process of elaboration of its reports, the HLPE is organizing a consultation to seek inputs, suggestions, and comments on the present V0 draft (for more details on the different steps of the process, see the Appendix in the V0 draft). The results of this consultation will be used by the HLPE to further elaborate the report, which will then be submitted to external expert peer-reviewers, before finalization and approval by the HLPE Steering Committee.
HLPE V0 drafts prepared by the Project Team are deliberately presented early enough in the process – as a work-in-progress, with their range of imperfections – to allow sufficient time to give proper consideration to the feedback received so that it can play a really useful role in the elaboration of the report. It is a key part of the scientific dialogue between the HLPE Project Team and Steering Committee, and the whole knowledge community.
Please note that comments should not be submitted as notes to the pdf file, rather contributors are expected to share their main and structuring comments through the website dialog box and/or attaching further elements/references that can help the HLPE to enrich the report and strengthen its overall narrative.
Detailed line-by-line comments are also welcome, but only if presented in a word or Excel file, with precise reference to the related chapter, section, page and/or line number in the draft.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Contributing to the V0 Draft
The present V0 draft identifies areas for recommendations at a very early stage, and the HLPE would welcome suggestions or proposals. In order to strengthen the report, the HLPE would welcome submission of material, evidence-based suggestions, references, and concrete examples, in particular addressing the following important questions:
- The V0 draft is wide-ranging in analyzing the contribution of agroecological and other innovative approaches to ensuring food security and nutrition (FSN). Is the draft useful in clarifying the main concepts? Do you think that the draft appropriately covers agroecology as one of the possible innovative approaches? Does the draft strike the right balance between agroecology and other innovative approaches?
- Have an appropriate range of innovative approaches been identified and documented in the draft? If there are key gaps in coverage of approaches, what are these and how would they be appropriately incorporated in the draft? Does the draft illustrates correctly the contributions of these approaches to FSN and sustainable development? The HLPE acknowledges that these approaches could be better articulated in the draft, and their main points of convergence or divergence among these approaches could be better illustrated. Could the following set of “salient dimensions” help to characterize and compare these different approaches: human-rights base, farm size, local or global markets and food systems (short or long supply chain), labor or capital intensity (including mechanization), specialization or diversification, dependence to external (chemical) inputs or circular economy, ownership and use of modern knowledge and technology or use of local and traditional knowledge and practices?
- The V0 draft outlines 17 key agroecological principles and organizes them in four overarching and interlinked operational principles for more sustainable food systems (SFS): resource efficiency, resilience, social equity / responsibility and ecological footprint. Are there any key aspects of agroecology that are not reflected in this set of 17 principles? Could the set of principles be more concise, and if so, which principles could be combined or reformulated to achieve this?
- The V0 draft is structured around a conceptual framework that links innovative approaches to FSN outcomes via their contribution to the four abovementioned overarching operational principles of SFS and, thus, to the different dimensions of FSN. Along with the four agreed dimensions of FSN (availability, access, stability, utilization), the V0 draft also discusses a fifth dimension: agency. Do you think that this framework addresses the key issues? Is it applied appropriately and consistently across the different chapters of the draft to structure its overall narrative and main findings?
- The V0 draft provides an opportunity to identify knowledge gaps, where more evidence is required to assess the contribution that agroecology and other innovative approaches can make progressing towards more sustainable food systems for enhanced FSN. Do you think that the key knowledge gaps are appropriately identified, that their underlying causes are sufficiently articulated in the draft? Is the draft missing any important knowledge gap? Is this assessment of the state of knowledge in the draft based on the best up-to-date available scientific evidence or does the draft miss critical references? How could the draft better integrate and consider local, traditional and empirical knowledge?
- Chapter 2 suggests a typology of innovations. Do you think this typology is useful in structuring the exploration of what innovations are required to support FSN, identifying key drivers of, and barriers to, innovation (in Chapter 3) and the enabling conditions required to foster innovation (in Chapter 4)? Are there significant drivers, barriers or enabling conditions that are not adequately considered in the draft?
- A series of divergent narratives are documented in Chapter 3 to help tease out key barriers and constraints to innovation for FSN. Is this presentation of these divergent narratives comprehensive, appropriate and correctly articulated? How could the presentation of the main controversies at stake and the related available evidence be improved?
- This preliminary version of the report presents tentative priorities for action in Chapter 4, as well as recommendations to enable innovative approaches to contribute to the radical transformations of current food systems needed to enhance FSN and sustainability. Do you think these preliminary findings can form an appropriate basis for further elaboration, in particular to design innovation policies? Do you think that key recommendations or priorities for action are missing or inadequately covered in the draft?
- Throughout the V0 draft there has been an attempt to indicate, sometimes with placeholders, specific case studies that would illustrate the main narrative with concrete examples and experience. Are the set of case studies appropriate in terms of subject and regional balance? Can you suggest further case studies that could help to enrich and strengthen the report?
- Are there any major omissions or gaps in the V0 draft? Are topics under-or over-represented in relation to their importance? Are any facts or conclusions refuted, questionable or assertions with no evidence-base? If any of these are an issue, please share supporting evidence.
We thank in advance all the contributors for being kind enough to read, comment and suggest inputs on this V0 draft of the report.
We look forward to a rich and fruitful consultation.
The HLPE Project Team and Steering Committee
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Section 3.2.5. The section about who/what benefits from technologies focuses on the technologies themselves and the need for technology assessment. It could also consider the different ways to access to technology. There are important differences between different institutional and business models, even when the technologies are similar. Ownership, IP rights, pricing models, etc. determine access to technologies and benefits.
Section 3.3 on the question "Can agroecology feed the world?" should also restate the fact that this framing on availability is incomplete and that access and other dimenstions are important, reflecting statements in earlier parts of the document.
Д-р. Erin Milner
I would like to underline the importance to consider ultra-processing of foods in this consultation. Indeed, ultra-processed foods can be considered as a holistic indicator of the food system degradation. Behind these foods massively consumed worldwide we can find chronic disease development, animal suffering, environment destruction (pollution, climatic changes and loss of biodiversity), impoverishment of small farmers, destruction of social life and culinary traditions and heritage. In other words the more worlwide population will consume these products the most all these dimensions of food system sustainability will be degrade. These foods are industrial formulation containing ultra-processed ingredients and/or cosmetic additives (coloring, texturing agents and flavor/taste exhausters) to restaure, imitate or exacerbate color, taste and texture. These are either artifical matrices (fake foods) or industrial dishes with cosmetic agents. In addition they are often enriched with salt, sugar and fat rendering them addictive. Through their standardized formulations - using widespread standardized ingredients originating from cracking of very few monocultures (intensive) - they tends to degrade environment, to substitute to real foods and traditional dishes exploding social life (because they often adress people living alone, in travel or in front of screens). Therefore, for all these reasons I think such a category of food should be taken in consideration very seriously from a scientific point of view; all the more that the first studies published have reported increased risks of obesity, diabetes, adiposity, weight gain, hypertension, dyslipidemia, metabolic syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, total and breast cancers in population regularly consuming ultra-processed foods. Through these products we, in the same time, adress food system sustainability, and food and nutriton security.
I believe that there is a gap in coverage in your V0 draft of innovative approaches to developing sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition. In particular you ignored the approach that the Chinese used as part of the Chinese economic growth formula concept. The policies used by the Chinese depended heavily on land reform and highly labor intensive household farming as described Studwell and summarized at the following website http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub7/item347.html
I have trouble believing that other countries will not use this approach given the fantastic growth in economic and food security in China.
Bill Gates in a review of the book “How Asia Works” by Joe Studwell (see https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/How-Asia-Works ) suggested that African countries may want to examine and implement the Chinese economic growth formula in order to improve their economies. Mr. Gates summarized the Chinese economic growth formula in the following manner:
- Create conditions for small farmers to thrive.
- Use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports.
- Nurture both these sectors (small farming and export-oriented manufacturing) with financial institutions closely controlled by the government.
Studwell (p. 329) noted that China’s average GDP growth rate was 9.9 per cent in the twenty-eight years from 1980 to 2008. In addition, Kroeber in “China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know” (p 248) noted that two African countries, Rwanda and Ethiopia, have adopted a more or less explicit policy of imitating the Chinese growth model. Over the past decade, Ethiopia has been the fastest growing economy in Africa, with an average GDP growth rate of 11 percent since 2004. Rwanda is not far behind, at 8 per cent. Kroeber (p 34) also noted that between 1981 and 2011, the number of people in China living in what the World Bank describes as absolute poverty sank from 840 million to 84 million.
One reason the Chinese economic growth formula has not been implemented in other countries is the difficulty of implementing the first objective that creates conditions in which small farmers will thrive. The policies used by the Chinese to implement the first objective depended heavily on land reform and highly labor intensive household farming. These policies are described briefly in the following reference http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub7/item347.html . More detail about the policies used by the Chinese to implement highly labor intensive household farming can be found in the following references (Studwell, “How Asia Works”, Kroeber “China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know ”, and Naughton “The Chinese Economy - Transitions and Growth”). These references also describe why it is difficult to implement the Chinese economic growth formula in other countries.
I believe that NGOs and university personnel need to work with host country economists to determine new agriculture and financial policies that are needed to implement the Chinese economic growth formula. NGOs and university personnel should focus on economic policies that will dramatically increase small farm crop yields initially. Based on the Chinese economic growth formula, once crop yields increase the host countries will be able to provide the necessary capital and manpower needed so that they in turn can focus on their manufacturing objectives (Objective 2 of the Chinese economic growth formula).
In particular, NGOs should focus on the availability of technology, equipment and supplies that will facilitate the land use productivity of small farmers. Small farmers will want to know how much money they can expect to earn per acre of land if they follow the procedures recommended. The question of how much money a farmer can earn per acre of land is the most basic question in farming. The current agriculture and financial procedures recommended by NGOs and university personnel have not achieved the desired results and need to be changed.
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