Глобальный форум по продовольственной безопасности и питанию (Форум FSN)

Dear HLPE Project Team and Steering Committee,

Many congratulations for the very comprehensive report on sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, and many thanks for the disclosing the draft for public consultation.

Please find attached the comments on behalf of Vétérinaires Sans Frontières International (vsf-international.org). I hope these will serve for improving the report and ultimately for steering the policies on agricutlure and livestock farming towards a really sustainable future for the people, the animals and the environment.

Best regards,

Alessandro Broglia

on behalf of Vétérinaires Sans Frontières International

Dear Sir, Madam,

Please find enclosed the comments from the livestock sector group composed by the International Dairy Federation, International Feed Industry Federation, International Meat Secretariat and the International Poultry Council, on the Draft V0 of the Report on Sustainable Agricultural Development for Food Security and Nutrition. 

The attached document reflects the positions that are commoon from those sector, however, they are not exhaustive and some of the associations mentioned above have also submitted separate comments related to their sectors. 

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions. 

Best regards, 

Marilia Rangel Campos 

Secretary General

International Poultry Council

World Animal Protection welcomes the attention given by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to the importance of addressing the role of livestock in the development of sustainable agriculture. With this submission, we would like to:

-Focus on importance of Animal Health and Welfare to Sustainable Agriculture

-Make some general remarks as to the approach to achieving Sustainable Agriculture

-Raise some specific points

Animal Health and Welfare – Core to Sustainable Agriculture

The report highlights the importance of animal health and welfare as a component across all livestock farming types. This is welcomed, as is the report’s attention to the potential for good practice in animal handling, transport and slaughter to improve welfare, prevent disease and reduce carcass losses.

However, there’s still significant scope for improvement here. Animal welfare is not an ‘other’ consideration, but core to the social, economic, environmental and ethical dimensions of sustainability and should be reflected as such within the conceptual model noted on page 22.

In places, the report appears to imply that the issue of animal welfare is still controversial (p.58, line 47-51). Yet globally there is broad international consensus on animal welfare principles. The CFS Principles for Responsible Investments in Agriculture and Food Systems, as adopted in 2014, acknowledge that there is a positive correlation between supporting animal health and welfare on the one side and sustainably increasing productivity, food quality and food safety on the other. Moreover, all members of the World Organisation for Animal Health, currently 180 countries, have agreed to animal welfare principles and begun to develop global standards. Furthermore, respect and care for animals is a common thread throughout the world’s religions, including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and indigenous religions.

As yet the report does not give sufficient attention to the substantial benefits that good animal health and welfare provides for small scale producers, for example through feed quality, health management and husbandry skills. Existing naturalised systems of production often use local breeds well suited to their climate and thus are more robust in the face of environmental challenges. Provision for natural animal behaviour can reduce stress and boost productivity. Making use of the natural animal behaviours (like grazing and foraging) reduces the needs for inputs (feed, tractors, fuel).

In more intensive industrial agriculture systems, animal welfare is often compromised when farm design emphasises only productivity, and as such cannot be considered sustainable. It is possible to redesign these types of livestock production to account for animal welfare (such as indoor group housing rather than close confinement of animals in cages and crates) without negatively impacting productivity significantly. Efforts to improve productivity should always take into account animal welfare (for example breeding broiler meat chickens for better leg health to prevent culling due to lameness). Useful models such as McInerney (2004) conceptually describe the different pathways for improving livestock productivity while maintaining good animal welfare. It is important to note the evidence described in the report (Erb et al., 2009) that shows that farming systems which deliver good welfare can also provide sufficient food for the world’s future needs. Consequently, we propose that the section on animal welfare is extended to include this wider view.

It is noted throughout the report that both the terms animal welfare and animal care are used. It is not clear if these are used interchangeably and no definition of animal care is given. Please clarify if the definition of animal welfare on p58 applies to both.

Recommendation: The report should prioritise attention to animal welfare in all farming systems to increase their sustainability, recognising the positive correlation that exists between animal welfare and food quality, food safety and sustainably increasing productivity, and therefore, by extension, with achieving FSN.

General remarks

Sustainability and Policy Coherence

In ‘Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ the global community committed to achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions — economic, social and environmental — in a balanced and integrated manner. A new approach is needed that recognizes cross-cutting elements that exist across the new Goals and targets and focuses on addressing these together. The current zero draft acknowledges the so-called ‘externalities’ of agriculture, particularly industrial livestock production, but does not yet sufficiently show how implementation of other Sustainable Development Goal areas will impact on agriculture.

Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development is now recognized globally as the means through which sustainable development can be achieved. This means that the externalities generated by agriculture must be reflected in all policy-processes (as noted in section 4.5) but also that policies and actions in other sectors are likely to limit the policy space available in the agricultural sphere. At present, the zero draft does not include an analysis of how global action to stop biodiversity loss, realizing affordable healthcare for all, limit global temperature increase to below 2 degrees, and ensure food and water security for all, to name a few, are going to be achieved concomitantly.

Recommendation: Recognizing the reciprocal consequences of policies and actions in agricultural and other related sectors, the report should recommend that Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development be a guiding principle for pathways towards sustainable agricultural development

Reversing the Challenge

While the zero draft accepts that globalization of the ‘Western diet’ is not sustainable, it does not challenge the central premise that rising demand, in part caused by higher incomes leading to a ‘Westernization’ of diets, must be met by equally rising supply.   

An alternative approach (as hinted at on page 9, line 26-29) would be to use the boundaries of integrated economic, social and environmental sustainability, including achieving Food Security and Nutrition, as a basis for developing pathways to sustainable production and subsequently use sustainable supply levels to determine what action needs to be taken to influence demand. Even though this alternative approach may need more political leadership, the zero draft would be much improved if such an alternative approach were presented .

Recommendation: To achieve a sustainable global food system, the sustainability of supply levels must be considered in determining sustainable agricultural policy at the national, regional and global levels.

The Limits of Generalization

The zero draft reads as a discursive report, and reveals some of the major issues surrounding the role of livestock. More in depth analysis of the drivers of current trends (beyond population growth, GDP, urbanisation and changing diets) and greater clarity of narrative and structure could provide a clearer route to draw conclusions and highlight policies and practice change which can be enacted at international, regional and national level to achieve sustainable food systems.

Specifically, the report presents ‘projections’ as something conceptually different from a ‘scenario’ or even a ‘normative scenario’ (p.24-25). Yet a projection is based on historical trends which are the result of decisions and interactions of societal/political actors in the past. As such a projection is not neutral, but represents also a normative scenario. An analysis of the presence or absence of policy decisions which have worked for and against achieving sustainable food systems would be valuable to aid innovative thinking and find new direction beyond ‘business as usual’. Whilst the report leans heavily on the FAO baseline projection regarding demand of animal sourced foods (ASF) in 2050, it is also acknowledged that to achieve sustainability ‘business as usual’ is not an option. Greater clarity as to the criteria used for determining the relative value of different ‘scenario’s for developing pathways to sustainable agriculture is needed.

The report also generalizes about benefits and harms of ‘the livestock sector’. Yet these are very differently distributed over the various forms of livestock keeping, which makes any generalized statement about ‘the livestock sector’ as a homogeneous entity misleading. In reality, forms of livestock keeping range from greatly contributing to FSN to being very detrimental to FSN. Clarity and focus on those systems which contribute to FSN is necessary for building good policies, generalized statements that mask these differences are better to be avoided.

Throughout the report, there is an abundance of references to scenarios that note that the ‘potential’ exists to overcome certain challenges. In some cases such potential relies on technology that is not yet available today but there is an expectation that the required technological advancement will appear in time. Balancing the expectation of technological advancement with making different choices in terms of how we consume and produce is currently insufficiently highlighted in the report and would likely lead to more sustainable solutions.

Recommendation: Next iterations of the report should provide greater clarity as to the narrative and structure of the report and where possible include a judgement as to the relative value of projections used where necessary.

Synergies Rather than Trade-offs

Dealing with the different types of livestock systems, the report would benefit from increased emphasis on the potential of non-industrial and agro-ecological production, most relevant to small scale producers – without losing emphasis on the need for highly industrialised systems to (further) transform and become more sustainable. In this regard, the report’s underlining of the wider dimensions of economic, social, environment and ethics as core components of sustainability is welcomed. However, these core aspects of sustainability are often loosely described and too readily framed as subject to trade-offs.

The report has the potential to drive forward positive concrete impact on sustainable development of FSN by prioritising synergies rather than trade-offs. The priority for improving efficiency sustainably lies in enabling smallholder farmers as they have been evidenced as likely to provide the most effective route to achieving productivity through existing technologies (Gerber et al., 2013). Further intensifying production of already highly intensive systems such as yield-maximised dairy production offer relatively small increments in efficiency (outlined in de Jong, 2013), yet are likely to be less sustainable in a range of other aspects, for example through increased reliance on grain-based feed rather than in situ pasture, plus the potential for loss of livelihoods and biodiversity and higher animal health and welfare risks such as reduced fertility and increased susceptibility to disease. Such systems can be brought into better balance with inclusion of the social and environmental dimensions, including by substantially improving animal welfare.

One example of achieving synergies is the growth of silvo-pastoral systems in Latin America, which has demonstrated scientifically evidenced benefits for productivity, soil quality, greenhouse gas mitigation and animal welfare, while boosting rural economies and livelihoods (see http://www.agribenchmark.org/fileadmin/Dateiablage/B-Beef-and-Sheep/Misc/Other-Articles-Papers/CO-milk-beef-production-150203.pdf).

The report would benefit from a more in depth discussion of the use of human edible food to feed livestock in industrial systems. A major factor in the failure to achieve food and nutrition security to date has been the lack of coordination and balance between animal and plant food production on a local, national and international scale. Moreover, given the significant caloric and nutritional loss associated with the use of human-edible food as livestock feed, this practice and the amounts of food involved should really be included in the wider debate on food loss and waste.

Recommendation: Where possible, focus should be given to prioritizing systems with greater potential for synergies over systems that are more prone to trade-offs. Where trade-offs are unavoidable, trade-offs at the expense of animal welfare, and therefore sustainability, must be avoided.

The Role of Animals – Enabling Resilient Rural Societies

For many rural populations, animals are often people’s most valuable productive asset and disaster-related losses can have devastating impacts on rural livelihoods. In order for livestock production to be sustainable, it must be resilient. Preparedness for management of livestock welfare in regions faced with environmental challenges such as drought, climate change impacts or natural disasters can ensure resilience of farming systems and prevent damaging losses. This aspect of sustainable livestock production is as yet unexplored by the report. Given the expected higher incidence of natural disasters due to climate change, this becomes increasingly pressing.

The loss of animals during a disaster can create a second crisis in the form of long-term hunger, malnutrition and unemployment thereby increasing debt, recovery time and aid dependency. Livestock act as an important risk buffer during times of food scarcity and variability. Despite their critical importance, animals are often neglected during disasters due to a lack of knowledge, recognition, resources and co-ordination. The UNISDR reports that while human mortality is decreasing during disasters, the value of lost assets is increasing exponentially”. According a recent study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), smallholder farmers and pastoralists absorb 22% of the economic costs of natural disasters yet receive less than 5% of post-disaster aid. Livestock mortality accounts for 36% of those costs, costing the sector $11 billion (USD) annually.

Helping smallholder farmers and pastoralists protect their livestock during disasters is a worthwhile investment for donor countries and should be one of the policy recommendation in this report given its importance to food, nutrition and economic security, sustainability and resilience. Studies show that investing in animal protection saves lives, livelihoods and foreign aid. This would also help countries fulfil their obligations to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction which recommends “strengthening the protection of livelihoods and productive assets, including livestock, working animals, tools and seeds.” (see “Economic case for livestock interventions” for references).

Animals are more than a means of production, and the report needs to address this. Outside industrial systems, animals in agricultural systems often fulfil a range of functions, providing draught power to plough fields, transport, fertilizer, a social safety net, social status, companionship and cultural identity. The zero draft notes the multiple services provided by livestock beyond food and needs to reflect the wider role of animals as productive and cultural assets, so that livestock system specialization does not exclude these services and functions from the production process.

Recommendation: The report should recognize that livestock animals are sentient productive assets with multiple functions rather than commodities and concomitantly that the protection of and care for them will enhance their productive value and functional relevance sustainably. 

Specific points:

-Figure 1. Important influences on consumption are missing, like marketing and education. For example, the Yale Rudd Food Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that only in the US, fast food companies spend 4.6 billion dollars annually on marketing of which more than one billion is directed at children aged 6-11. These companies would not spend these staggering amounts of money if this did not have profound impacts on food choice.  http://www.fastfoodmarketing.org/media/fastfoodfacts_marketingrankings.pdf This issue is (very briefly) mentioned on page 41, but not followed up in the analysis and recommendations.

-‘Agricultural production itself depends on healthy agro-systems’ p.21, line 22/23. What is meant by this? At other points the report recognizes that a lot of agricultural production is actually the result of systems that are not healthy.

-‘animals are an essential part of these cycles’ p.21, line 27. Insert ‘often’ after ‘are’. Explanation: (many) agricultural systems exist without livestock component (based on synthetic, plant based and/or inorganic fertilizers and crop rotation), other agricultural systems do have a livestock component, but one which is not necessarily essential. Moreover, it is not really clear what is meant by ‘these cycles’.

‘there is a wide variation on acceptable ways to treat farm animals’ p.58, line 50. Delete the word ‘acceptable’ as this is in direct contradiction with the sentence before and the rest of the sentence. If there would indeed be a wide variation on acceptable ways, then it would be easy to reach consensus and no controversy would exist. Moreover, it is unclear who thinks that these widely varied ways are acceptable and why.

Comments on the Draft V0

I have read this first draft with great interest as sustainable agriculture is a necessary condition for the adequate nutrition of the world’s human population, and its food security. Therefore, other things being equal, it is vital that we should adopt a holistic approach to identify the appropriate means of ensuring the sustainability of agriculture in its widest sense.

However, this draft seems to represent the traditional anthropocentric thought, i.e. all the world’s resources should be at the disposal of mankind irrespective of the environmental catastrophe it would inevitably entail. We already have sufficient evidence of this in observable climate changes and their consequences.

I plead here for a fresh look at what is necessary to make agriculture sustainable, not merely how to feed growing human population as though we can reconcile population increase and the sustainability of agriculture ad libitum.

Existence of life on earth as we know it, depends on the equilibrium between the living and the resources they require to sustain life. The portion of these resources accessible to the living is finite.

Those resources fall into two logically distinct categories, viz., mineral and biological. The former consists mainly of Oxygen, water, Carbon dioxide (for photosynthesis) and a variety of other inorganic compounds. All of these are in constant re-use as the used material is made available to the living via a set of well-known cycles, eg. Carbond and water cycles. How much agriculture depends on these is already well established.

Existence of all animal life depends on its access to certain mineral and biological resources. The latter may be plants required by the herbevores or the animal diet the carnivores need, while the omnivores require both types.

Meanwhile, the inorganic compounds the living have used are returned for re-use by the action of scavengers and the saprophytic organisms that live upon the dead and/or excreta of the living.

Hence, the possibility of the continued existence of the living depends on the equilibrium between them and the mineral resources they require, and the equilibrium among the living species themselves to accomodate animal and plant predation, scavenging and saprophytism.

This equilibrium among the living depends on their biodiversity and the population of individual species. The danger loss of biodiversity entails is now widely accepted. In nature reserves, authorities have to resort to culling some species in order to preserve the habitat for all the species living there.

Moreover, a quantatative reduction of plant life from a land area has a drastic effect on the water retention by the soil, loss of fertil top soil through increased errosion, and changes in the heat exchange between the land and the atmosphere. This last  will result in a dramatic rise in the local temperature as well as a significant reduction in rain fall. Further,  water errosion results in silting of streams, which in some areas already leads to floods even after a moderate rain fall.

As human population rises together with our expectations, the need for resources exclusively for human use also increases. Every current ’development’ scheme entails anyone or more of the following:

1. Changes in land topology owing to  the building of roads, buildings, deforestation for timber and agriculture, etc.

2. Increasing emission of Carbond dioxide from the use of fossile fuels and animal husbandry.

3. Increased ocean pollution with Nitrogen and Phospherous  from agro-industry that  results in algal blooms that kills all marine life in large areas.

We already see the awful environmental degradation and its effects on global climate and the availability of water. It is difficult to see how one can realistically increase the global food production and achieve an equitable distribution of food to the current world population without more environmental degradation, whose consequences would be far more drastic and unpredictable than what we experience today.

I think this state of affairs arises from the belief that human kind is somehow excempt from laws of nature, and we have a ’right’ to exist at the expense of every other living thing.

The very possibility of sustainable agriculture depends on its full integration into the totality of human affairs, because current notions of development entails the use of an enormous quantity of diverse natural resources, whose extraction, conversion into good and/or services and use entail serious environmental degradation and its known consequences.

Indeed, loss of food  due to several causes and its waste at domestic level could be minimised. But the question is whether this would go a long way to ameliorate the inequities in global nutrition.

I think the time has come to underline that growth of human population is also subject to the same constraints to which all other populations of the living are subject.

Unless active measures are undertaken to curb the global population increase immediately, preferrably to stop it,  I think equity in nutrition can only be achieved at a very high price, viz., high incidence of serious natural catastropes and a general fall in the quality of human lives.

Even though it is stark realism that compels me to be pessimistic, it makes one sad all the same. And yet, I hope my comments may make people think a little more about the crucial subject of sustainable agriculture and the vital need to have it fully integrated into other spheres of human activity.

Best wishes!

Lal Manavado.

Dear  Moderator 

At a quick glance I found the HLPE’s report impressive in terms of wording and interpretation. The background part is presented in very appealing language which might have given a very good impression about the report to many readers. When I constructively analysed its substances, -based on my theoretical knowledge and experiences about the subject matters, I found many issues and doubted on intension of the report. Some of the problems of the report are as follows. 

An improvement area on the methodology part: The outcomes of livestock based sustainable food security and nutrition are largely depend on modalities and degrees of interactions of multiple elements of social, economic and environmental systems.  The phenomena of changing inputs into outputs can be called a process. The report has attempted a few process level phenomena to explain the FSN problem but these are not insufficient. The problems and solutions associated with the complex livestock based food production systems, therefore, could be better explained in the analytical framework that includes a process element. 

The report justified subsidy as a factor driving farming inefficiency and problem of economic sustainability. Market approach is considered as a magic tool for the problem. From my understanding the arguments on the policy tools are partially true. It means not always true. The actors in the agri-economic world are different in strategic positions and needs due to different in access to technologies, resources and other supportive institutions. The actors in weaker position cannot compete or sustain their business and way of lives without some support. They need supports until the economy reach to a sustaining threshold level.  Subsidies are different in modalities and governments are paying to the farmers in need indirectly even in the country that the commission reported subsidy free and competitive farming. If the government of developing economies follow subsidy free policy approach the livestock based food security and nutrition will be further worse or remain stagnant in those countries.   

Citing a report of World Bank, the HLCF stated that the subsidy benefit mostly to rich farmers and a little to poor. The finding or argument is a flaw. The problem arise if the policy is designed and implemented based on the principle of one size fit all. From my understanding, the outcome of the subsidy is more related to the problem of designing and implementing the policy modality. It the subsidy policy had had designed and implemented targeting specially to people in socially disadvantaged position it would make a notable difference to the needy people and but little to rich. It is a big blunder to follow such controversial arguments and reports based on their influences in global financial/economic policy. Some people of such agencies often make such argument to achieve their vested interests. Others do due to wrong understandings or poor studies.  This report requires avoiding uses of such controversial or poor arguments which are used to conclude many policy recommendations.     

This report has missed many critical and emerging issues of livestock farming in developing countries. For example it has missed the forest resource complemented livestock farming system which is a common practice in many Asian and some African countries. Forest resources are vital to sustain the farming systems and livelihoods of forest based communities. Geophysical condition and agroecological environment resulted to adopt and evolve the practices in some communities or regions. Policy on privatization of land area and availabilities of their resources are historically determined the traditional land use practices.   However, the practices are considered bad by influential people of many international organizations and western who shaped the international and national policies for environment management and forest products and services supplies to urban areas. The people or agencies are ceasing the use practices and livestock systems. Even FAO development support policies and practices have also hampered the system. If the HLPE-FSN is aware of the issue I advise to read a journal article on The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of Managing Community Forests for Global Environment Conservation: A Critical Evaluation. 2014. The Open Journal of Forestry. 4(1):58-69. The policy and support practices have severely hampered the business, opportunities, and wellbeing of the resource based people. Neither nomadic and crop - livestock mixed system can represent it. Similarly the report has also ignored mountain livestock farming system which has also some special features and importance. Supply of livestock feed could be increased by improving forest management and improving resource distribution practices in critical scarcity seasons and needy people. This issue is overlooked. It looks the expert team is not interested on this issue.   

One of the emerging problems of livestock farmers in developing countries resulted due to conversation of communal pasturelands and private lands into forestry . Some subsidies and other policy interventions given for afforestation contributed to convert the grazing lands into the forest. The increase in forest areas in India, China and Nepal are the outcomes of the land conversion. The resource based livestock are decreased. Current international policy for carbon emission offset (e.g. REDD forest policy) and expansion of wild lives national parks/reserves are also hampering the livestock business in many developing countries. FAO experts are well familiar with data/the information and problems. The impact of the policy affected livestock based food security of poor, women and indigenous people.  The issues are little stated in the report. This evidence also caste other doubt on the intension (who are hidden beneficiaries) of the report. 

The report has little recognised the contribution and emerging problem of livestock business of smallholders in biodiversity conservation in broader agricultural landscape level. The farmers followed special practices for centuries which contributed in the development of socioecological systems and sustaining the agrobiodiversity. Livestock hostile national and international policies on land uses have hampered the livestock based biodiversity greater landscape level. For example, agri-cultural environment to grow and sustain many indigenous varieties of vegetables and crops are deteriorated due to declining of livestock manure and increasing use of chemical fertilizer in crop field. Exotic weeds and other invasive plant species are also increased in mountains and other forest areas of Himalayan regions due to decreasing access to grazing in forest and alpine pasture resources and seasonal mobility of herds between agro-ecological zones. In addition some indigenous breeds are at the risk of extinction or disappears from many communities. The gene pools of the species could be conserved if alternative breeding and institutional policies were introduced. Smallholders are custodians of the indigenous heritage and a considerable number of people have heritage conservation stewardship. Current both national and international livestock development and support related policies have spoiled the social assets. This report has poorly explained the conservation issues, opportunities and approaches.  

Livestock management problems of mountain areas are completely neglected in the report as the Abbidash (?) meeting of international communities ignored/avoided in September 2015 the mountain development agenda in 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. Currently some of international agencies are strategically destroying indigenous systems of mountain livestock farming systems. They have provided misleading information and advices on policy formulation, funds for achieving their objectives and incentives to key players. These facts indicate prejudices of international agencies on livestock farming systems of mountain communities. The prejudices also found with the working team of the report. 

This report has focused on conventional system based livestock farming and undermined indigenous people’s rights and existence threats. The ethnic groups requires naturally grown low fat meats (e.g. sourced from fisheries, wild animals and naturally grown pasture. The report as international development agencies are deliberately intervening national policies and introducing conventional farming systems which have hampered indigenous livestock farming and access to low fat animal product. The people are persistently suffering in mass even in many developed countries with indigenous people (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Some of the indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. Nepal and India) are at the risk of extinction due to lack of pragmatic policy. The problems are caused by restricting access on traditional foods and mediating to consumption of the foods products based on conventional systems.  The food and nutrition related problem is more related to national and international policies than resource scarcity. The policy actions are against international agreement of indigenous people’s rights. The action can be termed genocides (UN Declaration on Indigenous People’s Rights 2007). 

The main area of the report is to provide guidelines and rich and quality information to make improvement in international policies on livestock development for sustainable farming. Based on my experience and understanding the report may hardly make difference in livestock development policy of developed countries but it could make significant differences on those countries policies on supporting livestock development in developing countries. For the purpose the report requires to find and explain important issues of developing countries explicitly.  The report has excluded many critical points and made others not clear.  

The report stated that “[A]ttempts have been made to upgrade the fodder quality of crop residues by chemical, biological and physical treatments, but few of these interventions have been widely adopted” but it has not recognised potential of the feed quality improvement of crop residuals at genetic aspect. 

Crop-livestock mixed farming systems areas requires livestock business friendly crop breeding policies.  But current international policies and practices on crop breeding and supports are antagonistic to the crop- livestock mixed farming systems of smallholders.

The report over emphasized on climate change mitigation problem but low value on other environmental problems. One of the main reasons to give low values in livestock development and support at current international agenda is climate change policy. Some of international policies on climate change mitigation have hampered livestock based farming systems and disadvantaged to poor farmers. The report is silent about the international vision and policies.  

Social implications of some international and national policies on climate change related problems (adaptation and mitigation) vary between smallholders (farming for livelihoods) and large scale commercial growers (running business for profit motive). The report has not explained approaches that could help governments and other support agencies in formulating and implementing the climate policies and result fairer outcomes between the livestock business groups.   

It would be more informative if the report would show comparative statistics of per capita livestock based GHG emission in both developed and developing countries and under different kinds of policy supports on livestock farming.  

The report has over valued economic efficiency and undervalued distributive issues of different modalities of livestock policies in recommendations. 

One of the policy approach to ease life of smallholders and indigenous people is scarcity of pasture resources in critical scarcity season. Pasture management plan and some technical support could alleviate the problems but this report has poorly recognised the problem in analysis and policy recommendation. 

The report poorly explained problems and women and children in livestock based communities. Most of the explanations of problems and solutions on livestock based sustainable farming related to women are also based on western values and understanding. If the problems were looked constructive view and pragmatic way the report could be more interesting, informative and useful.  The strategies that increase income and social benefits of women are only highlighted in objectives and poorly looked at explaining approaches and recommendation. Blamed only the traditional institution but bypassed the problem exuberated by policy and other interventions of international development agencies and governments. There are many other policies of international organizations including FAO that have contributed to further marginalization of the social groups. Excluding the policy issues further supports doubt on the quality and intension of the report.   

Migration and cultural assimilation has changed people’s preferences and consumption of food types in developed countries and contributed on slowing down of increasing rate of meat consumption. Cereal food (rice and pasta) has substituted the meat. The issues are not acknowledged. 

Animal based foods are considered socially high value in most society. Adequate access of the foods would provide social satisfaction to those who value the foods. This issue is different from equity in availability of adequate food and nutrition. The issue of social inclusion and equity in meet consumption is not well stated in the report. 

The problem resulting trade-offs and synergies relationship on environment, economic and social dimensions requires compromise solution. This report has not explicitly and adequately explained and points the approaches and areas that requires compromise solution.  

Some case studies are also miss leading and little helpful. A team with professional integrity would not use the case study, for example, of biosecurity of livestock related Australian aborigine. It is because many policies related to food security and nutrition (especially animal foods) have resulted poor health (persistent suffering in mass) and affected indigenous people’s rights and cultural values. They have loss access to low fat animal products due to closing their original residential areas, wild life conservation policy and forceful assimilation to European culture (read case studies of stolen generation).  Australia has others interesting cases and more useful lesson learning about livestock farming such as dryland pasture and livestock management. 

Some parts have are very poor level of analysis referring poor quality of references. For example, referring to an argument of Convey (2012) in page 19, the report described intensification from three aspects (genetic, ecological and market). The reference has found only three factors but missed technological intensification (beyond genetic improvement or change) which contributed much more than any other factors in sustainability of farm. However, the roles of technology innovation and adoption on livestock based agricultural development are well explained in other sections. 

Some policy recommendations are ackwards and meaningless. The problems and solutions are poorly explained. 

Conclusion

In fact there is a need of a robust study to increase understanding about emerging issues and solutions of sustainable agriculture development including livestock farming at broader landscapes level, and draw the attention of socioecomically powerful agencies. The study that benefit all societies could be carried out by the team of fair minded people with constructive thinking and rich knowledge of diverse kinds of farming systems and socioecological issues. However the draft document of HLPE on FSN has many serious problems in constructive analysis. If the policy recommendations are followed it may bring substantial benefits to institutionally strong and economically competitive countries particularly developed ones but it may further hamper livestock business of smallholders and other vulnerable farmers in long terms. The policy approaches play slow poison role on sustaining ruminant livestock business in many developing countries and poor societies. The imports of red meat and milk increase significantly in developing countries. The global agribiodiversity will be decreased. People who asses problems on critical theoretical framework (such as institutional theory of gender analysis) can argue that the problems on the report are associated with composition of members in the HLPE team and working mission and intension of FAO including funding agencies in the background.  

Thanks.

Bhubaneswor Dhakal

Dear Madam/Sir,

Please find some into the draft HLPE report on sustainable agriculture development for food security and nutrition. I could go through some portions of the report only because of paucity of time.

Also I am sharing a report on pasture commons from India. Please see it is of any use to you.

warm regards

Bratindi Jena|Head - Knowledge Activist Hub Natural Resources

1.      The report striking the right balance between agriculture development and the live stock sector specifically with respect to their relative contribution to FSN.

The report is comprehensive covering a wide range of challenges to be faced in the future.

2.      Nutritionally it is mentioned in the report ( 1.4 sustainable agricultural development for FSN : the key role of the live stock sector ), the importance of animal protein food meat , milk and eggs in compacting malnutrition and wide range of nutritional deficiencies, the consumption difference between developed and developing countries.

In the same paragraph it is mentioned the relation between meat consumption (especially red and processed meat and cardiovascular diseases some cancers and diabetes.

I hope that reasonable amount of meat consumption could be advised in the report for covering nutritional needs without affecting health.

3.      The development of animal production in developing countries needs involvement of all stakeholders public, private and NGO’s, as mentioned in the report.

The role of NGO’s is essential and needs to be highlighted in the report.

Example of what is running now in Egypt. The establishment of MisrElkheir and other organizations to help the poorest villages and gender in rural areas in the field of animal production beside its other activities.

MisrElkheir organization established a company “ArdElkheir” in 2009 for marketing products for small and medium income generating projects .in the year 2011. ArdElkheir became one of the most important companies for animal production, meat and milk, it own four farms of five thousand dairy and fattened animals.

The company delivered 6287 animals to MisrElkheir organization to be distributed to 6287 families in the poorest villages, and conducting training programs helping them in management and feeding and also with veterinary service.

The cost of animals is 11,000,000. $. the organization also distributed 12071 tons of feed to the families costing  5,000,000  $ during the period from 2011 to 2014

4.      MisrElkeir animal production project for gender:

The organization established three farms financed by united nation with 300.000 $ for one year from 2012 – 2013. The farms are managed by gender.

The first one include 170 cows, managed by 40 women,

The second include 40 cows managed by 25 women and the third include 25 cows, managed by 15 women.

All women have been trained for breeding, management and feeding .

MisrElkeir is a good example for describing the role of NGO’s concerning livestock.

Dr. Akila Saleh

General coordinator

Food Security Information Center

Comments on the HLPE draft report on Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock

From

The Food Sovereignty Alliance, India

[email protected]

http://foodsovereigntyalliance.wordpress.com

The HLPE Report is an affront to social movements: indigenous peoples , pastoralist and peasant farming every step of the way. Whilst an extended critical narrative will follow here are our quick key concerns:

1)     Food Sovereignty: its appropriation and mis-appropriation

It is absolutely shocking how the report has misused the concept of Food Sovereignty. Whilst it quotes the first few sentences of Via campesinas original declaration “Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems “ (pg 20 box),  it fails to understand that the core of Food sovereignty challenges the entire framework of Corporate Agriculture, Food Systems, Corporate control over resources, and that Food Sovereignty is about people taking back control:

It puts those who produce, distribute and consume the food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interest and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty priorities local and national economies and markets and empowers peasants and family farmer-drive agriculture, artisan fishing, pastoralist-led grazing and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all people and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, water, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.

Via Campesina

As far as peoples movements go,  there is no confusion about what Food Sovereignty means, and the supposed “debates” which is what the document wishes the reader to believe (pg 20 , box on Food Sovereignty).  

As peoples movements we are clear that Food Sovereignty is the only framework possible, to revision and strategise  a future of how communities will meet their food needs now, for future generations and ensuring that we protect and defend the rights of mother earth. Within this, the role of livestock finds a place.  The entire conceptual framework of this document is a far cry from Food Sovereignty, and hence we reject the existing entire conceptual framework itself. 

2)     The premise of the entire HLPE report, is no different from the premise of the Global Livestock Dialogue and their central argument of demand  “ There is a massive growth in demand for animal protein (milk and meat) globally, with the majority of this demand coming from the low-income and emerging economies (such as India and China). This demand, they argued is largely driven by increasing urbanization, increasing incomes and increasing populations . (essentially repeated ad-nauseam throughout he HLPE document)

and we re-iterate the critiqes already made by FSA in our document ‘Dialoguing on the Future of Livestock”: available at the blogsite http://lvcsouthasia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/dialoguing-on-future-of-live…

The big lie of demand: the projected demands of animal protein in the global south,  that form the basis of the argument of an urgent need to augment production of milk and meat industrially, need to be questioned. The big lie is best illustrated by India where the past twenty years of neo-liberal economic reforms has unleashed “Growth” , that has triggered massive and rising inequality within the country. A nearly “300 million” strong rich and wealthy India is consuming more and more meat and milk, with a large part of rest of India being permanently under-nourished; where the  consumption of milk and meat is minimal. The current consumption levels of the rich Indian cannot be used as a parameter/ thumb rule to project national demands. Nor can one use the completely unhealthy and medically inadvisable meat and milk consumption patterns of the global north to project future demands. Infact today there is a crying need for a reduction in consumption by the global rich and wealthy (including in India)  of  these meat and dairy products from both a health and environmental stand point. Similarly peasant, pastoralist, indigenous and working class India, have the right to enjoy milk and meat (including beef) consumption according to their cultural and traditional customs and norms. In India, the existing milk produced in the country is infact more than sufficient to meet the national milk average per-capita intake. The issue is not of production, but of access and distribution.

Further the issues of urbanization are spoken of as some evolutionary inevitable, conveniently forgetting that governments of the world are using their power to engineer and finance this massive shift from rural to urban and thus forcing urbanisaion.

3) However what is worse is that they have gone a step further to suggest that the current nutritional – particular protein deficiencies of the world, particularly of people residing in the chronically nutritionally deficient regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, parts of South-east Asia, and parts of Latin America- can only be addressed by increasing supply and availability of animal protein i.e Meat

It is downright colonial arrogance to suggest that 2 billion people whose diets are primarily derived of crops (lines 36-37, pg 8) , are deficient in essential nutrients , which must now be derived from livestock protein. It smacks of cultural insensitivity and disrespect, and speaks poorly of a UN initiative.

4)The question of availability / shortages of food and growing protein deficiency: Whilst recognizing that there is a problem of over nutrition and obesity in the global North and amongst the elite of the Global South, there are absolutely no political recommendations on the fundamental structural questions of distribution, which are embedded and has its roots in the current Trans-National Corporate controlled Global Food Systems. There is no shortage of Food , (as is reluctantly referenced here and there in the report), but there is a major question of who controls food production today, distribution and access to Food.

India’s experience is telling in this regard: from mid 1960s onwards to early 1990s, the green revolution attempted to enhance productivity and yields in crops through what is often referred to as high response agriculture. The state began to push a technology and approach to farming that laid the base for farmers losing control of their seeds, knowledge systems and diverse food farming, and wherein began the process of animal power being replaced by mechanized machinery. Upto the 1990s we were self sufficient in pulses, oilseeds, and livestock still continued to play an extremely important multifunctional role in agriculture and peoples livelihoods and directly and/ or indirectly playing a vial role in providing nutrition for people. Pulses have always been the primary source of protein for a vast majority of Indians. With neo-liberal capitalist economic reforms forced upon the people of India, in the early 1990s, by IMF and World Bank and Govt of India signing into WTO, Govt of India cut back hugely their budgets /  public support for agriculture: we were forced through the various international agreements  to cut back hugely on input subsidies, Minmum Support Prices, public procurement of food crops, and changed its policies so as to make it unviable for farmers to grow diverse food crops, including pulses, and switch to commercial cash crops (flowers, sugarcane, animal feed maize, soya, sugarcane, paddy, cotton). All of this has resulted in a situation today where there is massive decline in pulse cultivation in India, and an acute shortage of pulses in India, and we are importing pulses in massive quantities.  We have reduced our import duties on pulses to “0”. This will further drive farmers out of pulse cultivation.  The average Indian is consuming less pulses today than they did at independence. Similar is the story with cooking oil. Where we were self-sufficient in nutritious and diverse oil production upto 1990s, today we are importing the most unhealthy and worst form of oil –palmoil, and 60% of it is imported.

Animals role in such mixed cereal-pulses- oilseed-vegetable- fruit systems , have been

i)                   Providers of draught / work power

ii)                 Providers of milk and milk products

iii)               Providers of manure

iv)               Providers of meat

v)                 Providers of future generations

vi)               Transporation  

The White Revolution of the mid-1970s to mid 1990s (again heavily financed by a nexus of global and national policies), attempted to replace this robust system of animals  in multifunctional role, to only produce milk. Make Milk producing machines. Once again driven and financed heavily by the state. The 1990s to date have largely witnessed policies and finances that have further alienated livestock from agriculture, and pushing farmers to speicalise and intensify production- the core tenets of “Livestock Revolution”: get rid of animals and primarily grow crops, or reduce crop production and specialize in animals.

Today the once robust mixed animal-crop farming system, has been replaced by monocultures. Global policies, International finance,  and trade agreements to date have ensured that farmers have been pushed from rich, biodiverse, food farming systems, to monocropped commodity farming, and that farmers who are themselves consumers of food, along with others – say 70-80% of Indians are today “protein” deficient.

So massive global powers – the nexus between politicians across countries, TNCs, global financial sectors, IMF and World Bank, have shaped a scenario 25 years down the road from 1990, where farmers have been pushed away from these robust agro-ecological systems of farming- with livestock’s role therein.

It is the reason today of farmers suicides, massive departure of youth from farming, growing undernutrition, malnutrition and chronic nutrition amongst rural and urban poor, and farming families.  Instead of correcting this, the HLPE takes these developments as if they happened on their own, with absolutely no role of global politics in having made this happen. 

5)The questions of meeting protein deficiencies most efficiently through meat: 

The second major proposition of the report, is to “meat” this nutritional deficiency.  The entire argument of the report is to reorganize livestock to become merely providers of protein, completely ignoring the larger role livestock has played in agro-ecological food farming systems. 

We strongly condemn this myopic vision of protein, which reduces nutrition to “meat”. Flowing from this argument ofcourse, is the oft repeated business as usual arguments:

“ To meet the protein needs with meat,  we need more animals, more productivity, and more grain, fodder, to feed the animals.  “

At this point we can only re-iterate what we have already written:

a) The protein needs can be met in diverse ways, including meat and milk. In India the huge protein deficiencies we witness today amongst an overwhelming number of citizens, has been directly attributed to declining cultivation and availability of staple pulses (dals), which have always been our primary source of protein. Culturally daily consumption of milk/ milk products/ meat, varies from community to community and there is no standard monoculture consumption practice. The FAO (and now HLPE) projections assume a monoculture food consumption menu, as do also today the right wing Hindutava Brigade who are dead set in forcing Indian’s to stop consuming goat, sheep, cattle, and buffalo meat according to customary cultural practice.  

6)The Final completely contentious proposition is that all this increased demand of meat protein can be best met, by different “production systems” co-existing with one another, and each one improving themselves to become more efficient: economically, ecologically, resource use, productivity.  

Today the monster of global capital and corporate agriculture including livestock is fully supported by rulers of the world, and has impacted and cannibalized upon all other systems of peoples livestock rearing:

Be it pastoralism, indigenous peoples livestock rearing, or small peasant mixed-crop-livestock food farming systems.

There is the march of global industrial corporate system of production (referred to as Intensive livestock farming) , distribution and consumption on the one hand, and its aggressive monopoly of the entire value chain from production to the plate.

Rapidly laws and changed and trade agreements signed up which is facilitating the transfer of control of to the corporations:

Land, water, air, genetic material, disease and health care, labour, knowledge , markets and at the end consumers

Today the small holder is completely impacted by the TNC:  either because their land and resources have been snatched away, or their genetic material has been insidiously replaced by “high producing” genetic material pushed aggressively by the corporations via state development programs in to small farmers farming systems (eg Holstein Friesans and Jersey becoming the primary breed of milk production globally).  Or another instance: Today govts have encouraged the growth of industrial poultry production, and in turn created a demand for animal feed, in turn forcing small farmers to cultivate monocrop maize as animal feed on their fields. 

In the meat markets of the world:

2 massive corporations control broiler poultry genetics globally (Hendrix Genetics, Grimaund)

2 massive corporations control layer poultry genetics globally (Erich Wesjohann, Hendrix Genetics)

similar the story of pig  

Hence the insidious arguments of “intensification” imply and we have seen happen, is that small farmers get contracted in by local integrators, and their labour, land, resources of the small farmer is used to rear the genetics supplied by the corporations. The genetics is not controlled by the farmer at all. The farmers loses their independenc and control and has to produce for this larger global corporate controlled market. Farmers becomes a provider of labour.

When the former predates on the latter, where is the question of co-existance?

A clear example of the destruction of small farmers , as a result of sustainable intensification and vertical integration into the industrial markets, is evident in the recent crises of  Milk, not only in India but globally (please see our brief of this at our blog site- https://foodsovereigntyalliance.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/milkcrisesdialogue_preparatorynote.pdf. Our extended report will be made public  shortly.

7)The propositions on need to intensify, vertically integrate, and that intensive systems are less GHG producing than small farmers and extensive systems, have already been challenged in our paper “ Dialoguing on Livestock”- (see attached the paper)

When the cause of all the mess in the world of agriculture livelihoods, production, coupled with nutritional deficiencies , is global capitalist industrial corporate agriculture, then there is no way that we can continue with this framework like “business as usual” .

Finally our counter proposal:

I)                   Begin with a Food Sovereignty framework and reposition livestock’s role therein to meet food demands of 2050, using agro-ecological practices.

II)                There is no question of co-existance of a corporate industrial system along with peasant , pastoralist, indigenous peoples food farming systems and peoples markets. How will the world look and meet its needs without corporations, and with decentralized, localized, people controlled culturally appropriate and just systems of food farming based on agro-ecological principles.

Submitted by the Coordinating Council of The Food Sovereignty Alliance, India  

1.       Mr Sidham Shambu, Telangana Adivasi Aikya Vedika

2.       Mr Kunjam Pandu Dora, Andhra Pradesh Adivasi Aikya Vedika

3.       Ms Murugamma, Dalita Mahila Sangham

4.       Ms Susheela, Dalita Mahila Sangham

5.       Mr Chiguri Yelliah, Deccani Gorrela Mekala Pempakadharula Sangham

6.       Mr Adinarayana, Sri Gopi Rythu Sangham

7.       Dr Radha Gopalana

8.       Dr Sagari R Ramdas 

November 2015.