I am pleased to offer the following general comments on the HLPE’s VO draft. I keep them general, about the framework and types of information included, because I believe the draft needs significant simplification, clarification, and refocusing on the crucial subject under study. I also trust that many others will provide some of the missing evidence and references that the current draft lacks. I would be pleased to provide references as needed.
I include more detailed comments in the attached document. Here, I would stress that the introduction should ground the study in two frameworks now widely accepted in the CFS and at the FAO: a rights-based approach to FSN, and a clearly agreed set of 10 principles of agroecology agreed by the FAO. These should be the starting points for the discussion, precisely because of their widely agreed content within the CFS and the FAO.
Rights are not an "other innovation" is in the draft currently; they are the foundation of all CFS work, and they focus our collective attention on the people whose right to food is currently being denied. The marjority of these are smallholder farmer families in rural areas in developming countries. They should be the focus of our efforts, and agroecology is being recognized and studies as a promising alternative to industrial agriculture, which is proving inadequate to the goals of creating sustainable food systems.
The FAO's 10 principles of agroecology are also the product of an inclusive and extensive set of consultations and meetings, which resulted in the "Scaling Up Agroecology" initiative and the subsequent commitments by COAG to the process. The 10 principles should be the criteria against which agroecology and "other innovations" are evaluated, rather than the confusing 16 points in the agroecology chapter and the unrelated and even more confusing 17 points in the "other innovations" chapter.
Detailed comments follow in the attached document.
I am pleased to offer the following general comments on the HLPE’s VO draft. I keep them general, about the framework and types of information included, because I believe the draft needs significant simplification, clarification, and refocusing on the crucial subject under study. I also trust that many others will provide some of the missing evidence and references that the current draft lacks. I would be pleased to provide references as needed.
I include more detailed comments in the attached document. Here, I would stress that the introduction should ground the study in two frameworks now widely accepted in the CFS and at the FAO: a rights-based approach to FSN, and a clearly agreed set of 10 principles of agroecology agreed by the FAO. These should be the starting points for the discussion, precisely because of their widely agreed content within the CFS and the FAO.
Rights are not an "other innovation" is in the draft currently; they are the foundation of all CFS work, and they focus our collective attention on the people whose right to food is currently being denied. The marjority of these are smallholder farmer families in rural areas in developming countries. They should be the focus of our efforts, and agroecology is being recognized and studies as a promising alternative to industrial agriculture, which is proving inadequate to the goals of creating sustainable food systems.
The FAO's 10 principles of agroecology are also the product of an inclusive and extensive set of consultations and meetings, which resulted in the "Scaling Up Agroecology" initiative and the subsequent commitments by COAG to the process. The 10 principles should be the criteria against which agroecology and "other innovations" are evaluated, rather than the confusing 16 points in the agroecology chapter and the unrelated and even more confusing 17 points in the "other innovations" chapter.
Detailed comments follow in the attached document.