Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems – Draft report
FAO’s first-ever Science and Innovation Strategy (the Strategy) is a key tool to support the delivery of the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31 and hence the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Strengthening science-policy interfaces (SPIs) for agrifood systems is one of the nine outcomes of the Strategy (outcome 1.2) under the first pillar on “Strengthening science and evidence-based decision-making”.
The Strategy indicates that FAO will strengthen its contribution to SPIs at national, regional and global levels to support organized dialogue between scientists, policymakers and other relevant stakeholders in support of inclusive science- and evidence-based policymaking for greater policy coherence, shared ownership and collective action. The added value of FAO’s contribution is to focus at national and regional levels in addition to the global level, to address issues that are relevant to agrifood systems taking into account, as appropriate, information and analyses produced by existing global SPIs, such as the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and to enable ongoing and effective dialogue through the institutional architecture provided by the FAO Governing Bodies.
Aligned with the Strategy, the FAO Chief Scientist Office has developed guidance for strengthening science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems at the national level. Work was initiated with the organization of an online consultation to further identify and understand the barriers and opportunities for scientists and other knowledge holders (drawing their knowledge from other knowledge systems, including Indigenous Peoples, small-scale producers, etc.) to contribute to informing policy for more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. The online consultation took place from 5 December 2022 to 24 January 2023, and received 91 valuable contributions from 39 countries.
Subsequently, two background papers were commissioned. The first one at the national level provides an overview of existing models and activities used for developing and operating science-policy systems and supporting the use of evidence, to transform global agrifood systems. Three high-level models are presented: the production-focused model, the policy-oriented model and the integrated model. The second one focusses on the global level to better understand how different international SPIs operate to address the complexities of their tasks. The conceptual framework identifies three key components of SPIs that, operating together, have the potential to anticipate and respond to needs and demands for both policy and science: governance, co-production and learning.
Building on findings from the online consultation, background studies to understand the experiences at global, regional and national levels, key informant interviews, desktop studies, literature reviews and an expert workshop, guidance on strengthening science-policy interfaces (SPIs) for agrifood systems at the national level was drafted. This document is meant to provide guidance to the individuals who produce and use evidence as well as the intermediaries who broker evidence in Member States and in partner organizations. It is targeted to SPIs that are focused on the transformation of agrifood systems (or some particular component of them) to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, with a focus on the needs of low- and middle-income countries.
The guidance includes, among others: core elements for functional SPIs to be considered; principles such as credibility, relevance, legitimacy, etc.; different SPI models and the trade-offs and complementarities between models; cross-scale interactions, i.e. between SPIs at the national, regional and global levels; mechanisms and methods for knowledge co-creation, integration and synthesis; skills and capacities of SPI actors; monitoring, evaluation and learning options. Since circumstances differ according to specific contexts, there can be no one-size-fits-all approach and tailoring to national needs is essential. Accordingly, the guidance document is intended to be a tool to facilitate reflection about advancing an SPI, its possible scope and mandate, and launch a learning process around SPIs. It could be considered at the country level in a process to strengthen existing, or establish new, agrifood system SPIs. The guidance is envisioned to be a living document and improved (through further iterations of the guidance) by learning from such experiences.
As part of the guidance development process, the FAO Chief Scientist Office is launching this e-consultation to seek inputs, suggestions and comments on the draft guidance.
QUESTIONS TO GUIDE THIS CONSULTATION
We invite participants to address some or all of the following discussion questions (as relevant to their experience) and provide examples as appropriate:
| 1. | When you think about advancing an SPI for agrifood systems in your country, what is the greatest challenge that the FAO guidance, such as presented here, can help address? What suggestions do you have to make the guidance more practical and useable at the country level? |
| 2. | Are the sections/elements identified in the draft guidance the key ones to strengthen SPIs at the national level? If not, which other elements should be considered? Are there any other issues that have not been sufficiently covered in the draft guidance? Are any sections/topics under- or over-represented in relation to their importance? |
| 3. | In order to make the guidance as concrete as possible, we are including numerous boxes/cases studies on real-life use cases. In this context, please contribute 300-450 words on examples, success stories or lessons learnt from countries that have/are strengthening SPIs for agrifood systems, including addressing asymmetries in power, collaboration across knowledge systems, connecting across scales, capacity development activities and fostering learning among SPIs. |
| 4. | Is there additional information that should be included? Are there any key references, publications, or traditional or different kind of knowledges, that are missing in the draft and which should be considered? |
Your contributions and the results of this consultation will be used by the FAO Chief Scientist Office to further elaborate and refine this draft guidance. Proceedings of the contributions received will be made publicly available on this consultation webpage.
Comments are welcome in English, French and Spanish.
This consultation is open until 15 May 2024.
We thank in advance all the contributors for reading, commenting and providing feedback on this draft guidance, and look forward to a productive consultation.
Facilitator:
Dr Preet Lidder, Technical Adviser, Chief Scientist Office, FAO
Please read the article of FAO publications on this topic here.
How to take part in this consultation:
To take part in this consultation, please register to the FSN Forum, if you are not yet a member, or “sign in” to your account. Please download the draft Guidance on SPIs for your introduction and insert your comments to the guiding questions in the box “Post your contribution” on this webpage. For any technical support please contact [email protected].
- Read 48 contributions
FAO together with the International Atomic Energy Acency runs its own agriculture and biotechnology research laboratories - an excellent in-house example, how science is used to foster evidence-based policy development.
Since 1964, FAO and IAEA have collaboratively pursued their mandates through Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture. The Joint FAO/IAEA Centre leads the progression and practical application of nuclear and biotechniques in the realm of food and agriculture within FAO and IAEA Member States. The overarching objective is to significantly contribute to global food security and foster sustainable agricultural development on a worldwide scale.
The Joint Centre advances and supports the safe and appropriate use by FAO and IAEA Member States of nuclear and related technologies in food and agriculture, aiming to contribute to global food security and sustainable agricultural development worldwide. It does so through adaptive research and development at its own laboratories in Seibersdorf as well as through annual support and coordination of more than 25 coordinated research projects involving some 400 research institutions and experimental stations; capacity-building and technology transfer to over 200 national and regional technical cooperation projects; and technical and policy advice to policymakers.
Functioning as a key hub for scientific research and development on nuclear and related techniques in food and agriculture, the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre focuses on five key thematic areas: Animal Production and Health, Food Safety and Control, Insect Pest Control, Plant Breeding and Genetics and Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition.
Research activities are conducted within the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre's state-of-the-art Agriculture and Biotechnology laboratories, located in Seibersdorf, Austria. This unique setting provides an optimal environment for innovative scientific endeavours, fostering advancements that resonate globally.
A very concrete example, where science meets policy is our work on Codex Alimentarius Commission and the International Plant Protection Convention. Through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre the two Organizations have worked together on many of the Radiation Safety Standards of the IAEA as well as the international standards of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the International Plant Protection Convention - standards that cover controls on agrifood systems, food safety, food quality and phytosanitary measures against plant pests.
FAO's Strategic Prorgamme Area on Sustainable Bioeconomy aims to strenghten the science-policy interface between the biological sciences and policy (agriculture, climate, environment etc)
The bioeconomy can be defined as the “sustainable production, utilization, and conservation of biological resources, encompassing knowledge, science, technology, and innovation, to deliver sustainable solutions across all economic sectors and facilitate a transition to a sustainable economy.”
The bioeconomy holds great potential for addressing global challenges and driving sustainable development. By utilizing renewable biological resources—such as crops, woody biomass, microorganisms, algae, and marine organisms—and new technologies, the bioeconomy can contribute to reducing dependence on fossil fuels, mitigating climate change, and promoting resource efficiency.
Thus, the bioeconomy can contribute significantly to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the climate change goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
On January 2015, at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin, 62 Ministers of Agriculture agreed on the importance of opportunities provided by a sustainable bioeconomy, while ensuring food security and nutrition. FAO was therefore called to coordinate international work on bioeconomy by facilitating information exchange and providing policy advice to its members.
Since then, FAO provides policy guidance and technical support to assist policymakers in establishing and implementing national and regional strategies, action plans, and programmes to develop a sustainable and circular bioeconomy in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and other Multilateral Environmental Agreements.
Currently, 21 countries and 3 regions have a bioeconomy strategy, while an additional 17 countries are in the process of developing one. Many more have bioeconomy related strategies, that focus on the links between biotechnologies and policy or bioresources and policy alone.
FAO has been supporting countries in the development of such strategies, for instance in Namibia. The National Commission on Research, Science and Technology (NCRST), a coordinating agency under the Ministry of Higher Education, and FAO have been working together to develop Namibia’s Bioeconomy Strategy.Inter-ministerial coordination has led to the identification of existing bioeconomy initiatives. This was a first step in the development of a country strategy, making it easier to identify and prioritize national objectives.
A recently published flagship report of the International Advisory Council of Global Bioeconomy details the development of the bioeconomy science-policy interface country by country over the past years. You may want to select some additional case studies for your report from here: Dietz, T., Bogdanski, A., Boldt, C., Börner, J. ….Wehrheim, P. (2024). Bioeconomy globalization: Recent trends and drivers of national programs and policies. A report by the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB). Global_Bioeconomy_-_April_2024_IACGB.pdf
Dr. Kate Schneider
- Box on the FSCI looks great!
- 4.2, on the second point, the list of sectors expected to be included does not include education. Wouldn't that be essential? Schools have been an important entry point for improving nutrition, and similarly understanding of and willingness to do something about climate change.
- 4.2, in general I wondered if there's some need here to add in a call for resources for the national actors to engage in the regional/global interfaces and, for example, to be able to work with the UNFSS Hub. This may be elsehwere in the doc, I was reading selectively, but it seems an important issue to enable national actors to be able to liaise between the national and international fora.
- 4.2 another missing issue is ensuring the incentives are there inside the national government to make use of the evidence and opportunity that SPIs provide. National bureaucrats assigned to participate without clear evidence of higher level political will have little incentive to make effort, prioritize, or engage. This seems like a risk that deserves at least mention in this section, though again it may be treated elsewhere.
- I agree with your points throughout that the governance and decision-making structure and authority of the SPI matters so much. I didn't see much examples from multisectoral nutrition platforms, but these are another great example and have several cases where they worked really well and others where they were there but not paritcularly effective or lacked sufficient support to be effective. Learning from these efforts seems important and is a gap in the current draft that should be addressed with something like another box. SUN probably has a great list of examples (good and less good) that you could draw from.
- 5.1 - there needs to be a person or group who are funded and can make it their job (full-time if warranted, or enough of their part-time as successful implementation demands) and a clear decision-making structure (addressed throughout but cannot be emphasized enough).
- 5.1 - not all these actions need to be carried out "in house" - there could be a lot of efficiency gains from countries/sub-national jurisdictions having access to an analysis shop whose job is to support with the necessary data, analytics and research - something like applied policy research firms contract by the SPI or the government or even an international capacity hub that serves countries. These may exist, but just thinkint about relevant experiences and where the gaps may be in this guidance depending on context.
- Throughout it seems important to pay attention to the risk of elite capture of the SPI mechanism. Engagement with communities at a very local level needs a way to be part / feed up their priorities, issues, and concerns, etc.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One) organization has expressed a desire to help accelerate crop innovations reaching — and benefiting — smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Here is some background information on attempts to improve smallholder welfare that may be of value.
History of Gates approach
Bill Gates and his advisors investigated methods for reducing global poverty in 1990. At the time Mr. Gates was forming a new company called Teledesic that planned to offer broadband connectivity using a constellation of low-earth-orbit satellites. He wanted ideas that concurrently addressed “Global Issues”. These “Global Issues” are:
· Health
· Food
· Water
· Energy
· Education
· Environment Protection
· Security
· Population Shift
· Governance
· Crime
Solving all Global Issues concurrently proved to be an overwhelming problem. My company management, who supported the Teledesic project, suggested to Mr. Gates that I hire people from 10 different countries to prepare a report that showed how the Teledesic project might help solve one of the 10 Global issues in each of the 10 countries. In contrast, Mr. Gates decided to concentrate on the Gates Foundation instead. The Gates Foundation in turn limited the focus on the Global Issues to four issues:
· Health
· Food
· Energy
· Education.
In this way the Foundation would not be over committed financially.
A problem with the Gates Foundation more focused approach is that a poverty program may fail due to a “Global Issue” not being addressed. In many countries political violence and crime could ruin a well-constructed food security, youth employment, and poverty reduction project. The Gates Ag One organization needs to ensure that all “Global Issues” are addressed even though their primary focus is on food. University personnel with help from government officials, technical personnel, and NGO personnel can support the Gates Foundation by identifying better methods for small farmers to earn a living. University personnel must fully flush out the risks of “Global Issues” ruining their good intentions. The Harvard “Case Method” and Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) principles have proven to be helpful in providing a structured method to study the consequences of each idea.
A second problem with the Gates Foundation approach is that they do not supply a small farm plan that people in poverty can follow. How should small-scale growers reduce their production costs and optimize their profitability? What equipment and supplies should they buy? What laws need to be changed and what investments should national governments make to help small scale farmers?
Small scale farmers do not get grants. They often get loans with high interest rates. They cannot obtain farm insurance. Their costs to transport their products to market may be large. They must support their families using the resources that are available. They must pay their rent and other bills. These are the problems that Dr. Whatley addressed.
History of Booker T Whatley approach
Professor Booker T Whatley (Tuskegee University) developed an approach for helping small southern farm holders in the United States that was very different than the approach used by the Gates Foundation. Dr. Whatley developed a small farm plan for poor black southern family farmers that was designed to net $100,000 a year for farmers who had 25 acres of land. See https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/small-farm-plan-zmaz82mjzkin/
Dr. Whatley noted:
“The truth is that we professional agronomists have helped create the situation that exists today. We’ve made life h”rd on the small farmers by recommending that they grow exactly what the big boys produce. We’ll tell a little guy with 40 acres to plant a scaled-down version of the crop mix that some fellow with 2,000 acres raises. For example, we’ll suggest that he keeps fifteen acres in cotton, ten acres in soybeans, seven acres in corn, seven in pasture and then try to raise a few head of beef cattle. Well, those particular crops give a very low per-acre return, so what happens? The man works hard and just about starves to death.
I say let the big boys grow soybeans, cotton, hay, peanuts and beef cattle. The plan I’m talking about takes the small farmer out of the big guys’ ballpark.”
Dr. Whatley’s plan was adopted by many small farmers in the United States. It is based on developing a plan that meets five essential criteria for the success of this small-farm operation. The criteria are:
1. Each crop component of a limited-resource farm must produce an annual gross minimum income of $3,000.
2. The components of the farm must provide year-round family income.
3. The components of the farm must be compatible. They shouldn’t compete with each other for labor, and you don’t want everything coming in at once.
4. The farm must provide year-round full employment.
5. The farm should be a pick-your-own operation, with a clientele membership club.
Dr. Whatley’s small farm plan criteria were adopted by small farmers throughout the United States. Dr. Whately’s basic principles and the five critical guidelines can be applied almost anywhere. The crop mix will vary from area to area — you must raise products that grow and sell well where you live — but the plan’s basic principles, and the five critical guidelines mentioned, can be applied almost anywhere based on local conditions. Dr Whatley added 10 commandments to further aid small farmers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Whatley. These commandments were:
Thy small farm shalt:
I. Provide year-round, daily cash flow.
II. Be a pick-your-own operation.
III. Have a guaranteed market with a Clientele Membership Club.
IV. Provide year-round, full-time employment.
V. Be located on a hard-surfaced road within a radius of 40 miles of a population center of at least 50,000, with well-drained soil and an excellent source of water.
VI. Produce only what they clients demand—and nothing else!
VII. Shun middlemen and middlewomen like the plague, for they are a curse upon thee.
VIII. Consist of compatible, complementary crop components that earn a minimum of $3,000 per acre annually.
IX. Be 'weatherproof', at least as far as possible with both drip and sprinkler irrigation.
X. Be covered by a minimum of $250,000 worth ($1 million is better) of liability insurance.
What approach should African farmers use?
Both the Gates approach and the Whatley approach are valuable. The Whatley approach to small farm development focuses almost entirely on small farm profits. It is the approach that Asian farmers use extensively. Asian farmers do not focus on “global issues”, “technological breakthroughs” biodiversity, or climate change. The Asian path to reducing poverty has been very successful. NGOs that focus on “global issues” and “technological breakthroughs” may be of more use to big farmers. Bill Gates addressed this issue in his Gates note “Can the Asian miracle happen in Africa? Can the lessons from Asia’s rise apply on another continent?" See https://www.gatesnotes.com/How-Asia-Works. . Bill Gates thought so much of Joe Studwell’s book "How Asia Works" that he bought copies for his entire staff.
I am using the small farm concepts developed by Dr. Booker T Whatley to develop a small farm demonstration for Cameroon Government officials. This demonstration will allow Cameroon government officials to determine if they want to implement the Asian approach to economic development in Cameroon The Asian approach to economic development was used by Japan, Taiwan, South Korea,China and at least five other countries in Asia. The Asian approach to economic development currently is being implemented by the government of India. Dr. Whatley's small farm concepts were used to lift many small farmers in the southern parts of the US out of poverty. It was particularly successful for black farmers who had small farms. See
https://www.gatesnotes.com/How-Asia-Works
https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/small-farm-plan-zmaz82mjzkin/
One of the greatest challenges in advancing strategic science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems in South Africa is ensuring effective communication and collaboration between scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders to inform evidence-based decision-making and policy formulation. The FAO guidance can help address this challenge by providing frameworks, tools, and best practices for establishing and strengthening science-policy interfaces at the national and sub-national levels.
Here are some ways in which the FAO guidance can be practical and usable at the country level, with suggestions for improvement:
- Tailored Approach: The FAO guidance should be adaptable to the specific context, needs, and priorities of South Africa's agrifood systems. It should take into account the country's unique socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions, as well as the diversity of stakeholders involved.
- Capacity Building: Provide capacity-building support to enhance the skills and knowledge of stakeholders involved in science-policy interfaces. This could include training programs, workshops, and mentorship opportunities to strengthen their understanding of scientific evidence, policy processes, and communication strategies.
- Engagement and Participation: Facilitate meaningful engagement and participation of diverse stakeholders, including farmers, industry representatives, civil society organizations, and local communities, in the science-policy dialogue. Ensure that their perspectives, experiences, and needs are adequately represented and considered in decision-making processes.
- Transparent and Accessible Information: Ensure transparency and accessibility of scientific information, data, and evidence to policymakers and stakeholders. Develop user-friendly platforms, databases, and knowledge-sharing mechanisms to disseminate relevant research findings, reports, and policy briefs in a timely and comprehensible manner.
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and co-production of knowledge between scientists from different disciplines (e.g., agriculture, ecology, economics, sociology) and policymakers. Foster mutual learning and exchange of expertise to address complex agrifood system challenges from multiple perspectives.
- Monitoring and Evaluation: Establish mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness and impact of science-policy interfaces over time. Develop indicators and benchmarks to assess the uptake of scientific evidence in policymaking, the quality of policy outcomes, and the extent of stakeholder engagement.
- Policy Coherence and Integration: Promote policy coherence and integration across relevant sectors (e.g., agriculture, environment, health, trade) to address interconnected challenges such as food security, climate change, and biodiversity conservation. Encourage the alignment of agrifood policies with national development priorities and international commitments (e.g., SDGs, Paris Agreement).
- Long-Term Commitment: Recognize that building effective science-policy interfaces is a long-term process that requires sustained commitment and investment from governments, research institutions, and development partners. Foster political will and institutional support to prioritize evidence-informed policymaking and strengthen the role of science in decision-making processes.
By incorporating these suggestions, the FAO guidance can be more practical and actionable for advancing strategic science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems in South Africa, ultimately contributing to more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems.
Mr. DAVID MARIONI
GUIDE QUESTIONS and RESPONDENT INPUTS
-
When you think about advancing an SPI for agrifood systems in your country, what is the greatest challenge that the FAO guidance, such as presented here, can help address? What suggestions do you have to make the guidance more practical and useable at the country level?
My central drive is to obtain Scientific guidance for the optimum / maximum utilization of agri-wastes. I focus on cellulosic agri-wastes, biomass, which are typically in the millions of metric tonnes. Material flow economic modelling is needed to recognize that the sunk resource to produce crops are producing vastly underutilized and often deleteriously managed products. There should be no “waste”, only optimized resource utilization. The planet is over-stretched in providing resource for human economic activity, yet all the science that permits biomass to be converted into nutrition, renewable energy, building materials, and other valuable products is ignored, including the processes of up-valuing by biological and technological means, of industrial development with education and employment, and of replacement of many unstainable products that are globally used, with sustainable ones.
2. Are the sections/elements identified in the draft guidance the key ones to strengthen SPIs at the national level? If not, which other elements should be considered? Are there any other issues that have not been sufficiently covered in the draft guidance? Are any sections/topics under- or over-represented in relation to their importance?
Agriculture in every country, based on multiple crops and farming techniques, contains many sectors which can be dealt with independently but also holistically. Policy is the opportunity to install effective Material flow economic modelling which has to be initiated and managed at National level at least.
3. In order to make the guidance as concrete as possible, we are including numerous boxes/cases studies on real-life use cases. In this context, please contribute 300-450 words on examples, success stories or lessons learnt from countries that have/are strengthening SPIs for agrifood systems, including addressing asymmetries in power, collaboration across knowledge systems, connecting across scales, capacity development activities and fostering learning among SPIs.
I think it most productive to produce multiple stories and lessons not learned regarding biomass management.
4. Is there additional information that should be included? Are there any key references, publications, or traditional or different kind of knowledges, that are missing in the draft and which should be considered?
Please understand I don’t have time to write a book to integrate the above inputs into SPI most effectively. However, if windows must be opened, please consider opening the Material Flow economic model and biomass windows.
Please find attached a detailed set of comments on the Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition’s draft Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems from Professor Erik Millstone, of the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, England.
Email: [email protected]
CONTRIBUTIONS
The questions posed to guide this consultation are:
- When you think about advancing an SPI for agrifood systems in your country, what is the greatest challenge that the FAO guidance, such as presented here, can help address? What suggestions do you have to make the guidance more practical and useable at the country level?
- Are the sections/elements identified in the draft guidance the key ones to strengthen SPIs at the national level? If not, which other elements should be considered? Are there any other issues that have not been sufficiently covered in the draft guidance? Are any sections/topics under- or over-represented in relation to their importance?
- In order to make the guidance as concrete as possible, we are including numerous boxes/cases studies on real-life use cases. In this context, please contribute 300-450 words on examples, success stories or lessons learnt from countries that have/are strengthening SPIs for agrifood systems, including addressing asymmetries in power, collaboration across knowledge systems, connecting across scales, capacity development activities and fostering learning among SPIs?
- Is there additional information that should be included? Are there any key references, publications, or traditional or different kind of knowledges, that are missing in the draft and which should be considered?
There is a great deal in this draft concerning agrifood systems’ science-policy interfaces that deserves to be welcomed, including the recognition that the scientific basis of advice to policy makers is often characterised by “high levels of uncertainty”, and that “A narrow view of what counts as evidence favors specific expertise over others, and a wide range of evidence remains undocumented and unpublished, leading to bias.”
Moreover, the text recognises that many of the most important science-policy interactions occur within official institutional bodies, and that those bodies have often been designated as having responsibility for ‘risk assessments’, which are portrayed as ‘scientific’, and which are delivered to official policy decision-makers, or ‘risk managers’. Those risk managers are expected to integrate the scientific risk assessment advice with ‘other legitimate factors’ when making agrifood policy decisions. Those other legitimate considerations include for example an understanding of what is affordable, practicable and acceptable.
Questions 2 and 4: the importance of risk assessment policies
This response primarily addresses questions 2 and 4 above; it identifies an important gap in the draft and provides the missing element to fill that gap. The missing element that should be taken into account can be found in the rules of a UN Food & Agriculture Organisation body that the draft did not reference; the body in question is the international food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission (or CAC).1
The CAC has made an important contribution to our understanding of the interactions between scientific and policy considerations in agrifood standards-setting, with important implications for what is needed to strengthen both national and international science-policy interface institutions with responsibility for agrifood systems. The key provisions introduced by Codex refer to ‘Risk Assessment Policy’, which is the term used to refer to the policy- judgements that frame the deliberations of scientific advisory risk assessment bodies, and which consequently frame the advice provided to policy-makers.
In 2003, the Codex Alimentarius Commission introduced an innovative provision into its Procedural Manual which was directly concerned with the interface between science and policy-making. The innovative text referred to what it characterised as ‘Risk Assessment Policy’ in the following terms:
- Determination of risk assessment policy should be included as a specific component of risk management.
- Risk assessment policy should be established by risk managers in advance of risk assessment, in consultation with risk assessors and all other interested parties. This procedure aims at ensuring that the risk assessment is systematic, complete, unbiased and transparent.
- The mandate given by risk managers to risk assessors should be as clear as possible.
- Where necessary, risk managers should ask risk assessors to evaluate the potential changes in risk resulting from different risk management options.2
- what is to count as a relevant risk?
The implications of this innovation were profound although their significance was not, and is not yet, widely appreciated. Initially the provisions applied just to the way in which Codex scientific advisory bodies, such as the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives3 and the Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues4, interacted with the Codex risk management bodies that they advise, namely the Codex Committee on Food Additives and the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues.5
The importance of the provisions regarding risk assessment policy were substantially enhanced at the July 2007 plenary meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission when a text on the Working Principles for Risk Analysis for Food Safety for Application by Governments was formally adopted.6 Under the provisions of that agreement, and in a section headed: Proposed Draft Working Principles for Risk Analysis for Food Safety for Application by Governments, all Codex Member States, and regional jurisdictions like the European Commission, in its interactions with the European Food Safety Authority, accepted the obligation for their domestic food safety risk managers to provide their scientific risk assessors with explicit risk assessment policies prior to the start of the deliberations of those risk assessors.7 The text the Codex Member States adopted on ‘risk assessment policy’ is identical to that in the 2003 13th edition of the Codex Procedural Manual, cited above at reference 2.
Whether or not the CAC and UN Member States fully appreciated the implications of those RAP provisions, they have all, at least implicitly, acknowledged that scientific advice on agrifood risks cannot be fully separated from risk policy-making considerations.
The change accomplished by the adoption of those provisions constituted to a repudiation of an orthodoxy that had prevailed since the mid-1980s. That orthodoxy emerged in the USA in 1983 in a report from the US National Research Council called Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process. That report was published with a bright red cover, and consequently it has often been referred to as the Red Book model.
The Red Book model: science first, policy-making second (the scheme please find in the attachment)
A defining feature of this model is that, while it acknowledged that both scientific and non- scientific considerations are indispensable ingredients to policy-making, it portrays the science as influencing policy-making, but with the direction of influence going only one way; it portrays science as if it were entirely independent of all policy considerations.
The adoption of the RAP provisions by the CAC and by all of its Member States constituted a repudiation of the Red Book model and, at least implicitly, by the acceptance of an alternative that can be represented graphically in Figure 2, which is called a co-dynamic model.
Figure 2: Co-dynamic model: scientific risk assessments framed by risk assessment policies (the scheme please find in the attachment)
The co-dynamic perspective recognises that conducting risk assessments for official policy- making bodies routinely entails presupposing a set of evaluative judgements. They relate, for example to:
- what kinds of evidence should be deemed relevant?
- how much of which kinds of evidence should be variously deemed necessary or sufficient to justify advising risk managers that some product or process should be permitted, restricted or banned?
For example, when the Joint (WHO and FAO) Expert Committee on Food Additives sets an ‘acceptable daily intake’ for a food additive, it is making an assumption about ‘acceptability’, which is an irredeemably evaluative consideration about how much evidence to require and/or accept.
The co-dynamic model also acknowledges that interactions between scientific and policy considerations are reciprocal, rather than unidirectional. The Codex RAP provisions also acknowledge that, while scientific and policy-considerations reciprocally interact, their separate contributions can and should nonetheless be explicitly identified and acknowledged by accountable institutions following transparent decision-making processes.
If the Codex RAP provisions were implemented, then the resultant changes could substantially contribute to meeting many of the aims and objectives of the Draft Guidance. It could, moreover, substantially enhance both the scientific and political legitimacy of the processes by which agrifood policies are decided.8
A study of the risk assessment policies that prevailed in six different jurisdiction, which was supported by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre’s Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, comparatively reviewed four agrifood debates across those six jurisdiction. That study reported that, notwithstanding the wide diversity of RAP assumptions, in all cases those RAPs included at least 3 distinct types of up-stream framing assumptions, namely those concerning substantive, procedural and interpretative issues, although they were also often inter-dependent.9
Substantive RAPs are firstly concerned with delineating which potential changes and effects are to be included within the scope of risk assessments and which are outside their scope, but also judgements about which kinds of evidence are admissible and which are not. For example, when the risks posed by food additives are considered should they focus solely on toxicological issues, or should they be extended also to consider possible impacts on public health nutrition?
Studies have recently been increasingly indicating that consuming chemical emulsifier additives can have adverse effects on intakes of oils and fats, gut microbiomes and nutritional public health by increasing the risk of Type II diabetes.10 But official risk assessments of the putative risks of emulsifiers, singly and collectively, have been and remain confined to toxicological considerations, to the exclusion of all other possible types of adverse consequences. That is a substantive RAP assumption, and an increasingly problematic one.
Procedural RAPs are concerned with characterising the processes by which risk assessments are conducted and reported. For example, should risk assessment deliberations be conducted in open or closed meetings, and how should risk assessors respond to conflicting evidence and uncertainties?
Interpretative RAPs are concerned with the ways in which data are interpreted. Data and documents do not interpret themselves. In policy contexts, interpretation routinely involves value judgements and assumptions. For example, are laboratory rodents treated as good or as poor models for the effects of chemicals on humans – and for all types of adverse effects at all sites, or only for some? Should equal weight be assigned to identifying and evaluating putative false positives and for false negatives, or should one type receive preferential consideration?11
Furthermore, the processes by which risk managers should establish their RAPs, should be completed before particular risk assessments commence. Deliberations on selecting the RAPs should also be conducted in consultation with risk assessors and all other interested parties. Those procedures should help ensure that the risk assessments are systematic, complete, unbiased and transparent.
Despite the importance and ubiquity of such risk assessment policy assumptions and judgements, the commitments made by the CAC in 2003 and all UN Member States in 2007 are only rarely fulfilled.12 That is important because if they were, that would substantially contribute to enhancing both the scientific and political legitimacy of official agrifood policy decisions.13
In practice, what frequently happened, and frequently continues to happen, is that risk assessment bodies, which are composed of scientists and their official secretariats, take selected RAP assumptions for granted, without explicit engagement with the risk managers who will be the recipients of their advice, or the numerous ‘other interested parties’ that should have had an opportunity to comment on those RAPs. In other words, the RAPs that are adopted are routinely chosen in opaque and unaccountable processes, often behind closed doors. Moreover, they are so closely integrated in the deliberations, reports and recommendations that are provided, that those evaluative RAP assumptions are routinely misrepresented as if they were purely scientific.14
Given that the draft Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems fails to acknowledge the risk assessment policy requirements that have been established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, I strongly recommend that the Guidance be revised to include references to those requirements as their implementation could significantly strengthening national science-policy interfaces and enhance the scientific and political legitimacy of agrifood policy regimes.
Conflicts of Interest
A distinct set of considerations relates to the challenges posed by the risk that scientific risk assessors might have commercial conflicts of interest. It is not always possible to discover what conflicts of interest prevail, because in many jurisdictions that information has never reached the public domain. A recent study in the UK, however, where declarations of conflicts of interest have to be publicly disclosed (although contractual details and levels of payments remain undisclosed) reported that there was extensive evidence of conflicts of interest across the UK’s entire range of official food and agriculture advisory and policy- making bodies.15 The rules governing scientific advisors to the UK government stipulate that conflicts of interest should be declared, and those declarations published. Evidence shows however that declarations are not sufficient to ensure that they don’t influence judgements, recommendations and decisions.16
By contrast, a 2021 report to the UN General Assembly from the UN Human Rights Council entitled Right to science in the context of toxic substances, said: “In order for the science that forms the basis of policy to be trusted, conflicts should be avoided rather than simply managed through disclosure processes.”17 (emphasis added) That stipulation should also be incorporated into a revised Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems.
1 See https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/en/
2 Codex Alimentarius Commission, 2003, Procedural Manual, 13th edition, Appendix IV paras. 13-16; available at http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/procedural_manual.jsp. The same provisions remain part of the CAC’s 2023 28th Procedural Manual, available at https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cdb4b110- b8bf-45dc-9c53-4ea9fcda1fc8/content
3 https://www.fao.org/food-safety/scientific-advice/jecfa/en/ JECFA and JMPR are ‘Joint’ as they are convened jointly by the WHO and the FAO.
4 https://www.who.int/groups/joint-fao-who-meeting-on-pesticide-residues-(jmpr)/about
5See https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/committees/general-subject-committees/en/
6 CAC (2007) Report of Thirtieth Session of the JOINT FAO/WHO FOOD STANDARDS PROGRAMME, CODEX ALIMENTARIUS COMMISSION, p. 9 paras 56-60, available at https://www.fao.org/fao-who- codexalimentarius/sh- proxy/en/?lnk=1&url=https%253A%252F%252Fworkspace.fao.org%252Fsites%252Fcodex%252FMeetings%2 52FCX-701-30%252Fal30REPe.pdf accessed 6 May 2024
7 Op cit page 9
8 E. Millstone, ‘Can food safety policy-making be both scientifically and democratically legitimated? If so, how?’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2007, Vol. 20, pp. 483-508; DOI: 10.1007/s10806- 007-9045-x
9 D Ibarreta Ruiz, E Millstone, P van Zwanenberg, L Levidow, A Spök, H Hirakawa & M Matsuo, Risk- assessment policies: differences across jurisdictions, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Seville, Spain, EUR Number: 23259 EN, April 2008, available at https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC37719; The topics were 1) the environmental impact of cultivating GM crops, 2) the safety of GM foods for human consumers, 3) food chemical risks where thresholds are known or assumed to exist and 4) food chemical risks for which no dose threshold is presumed. The institution settings were 1) the Codex Alimentarius Commission and its scientific advisory bodies, the UK, Germany, the USA, Japan and Argentina.
10 S Naimi, E Viennois, A T Gewirtz & B Chassaing, ‘Direct impact of commonly used dietary
emulsifiers on human gut microbiota’, Microbiome, 2021, 9:66, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-020-00996-6 ; B Chassaing et al, ‘Randomized Controlled-Feeding Study of Dietary Emulsifier Carboxymethylcellulose Reveals Detrimental Impacts on the Gut Microbiota and Metabolome’, Gastroenterology 2022;162:743–756; D Franssen & A-S Parent, ‘Emulsifiers during gestation: The risks of ultra-processed food revealed in mice’, PLOS Biology, 2023, 21(8):e3002265. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002265; M Milà-Guasch et al, ‘Maternal emulsifier consumption programs offspring metabolic and neuropsychological health in mice’, PLOS Biology 2023, 21(8): e3002171. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002171; K Whelan, ‘Ultra-processed foods and food additives in gut health and disease’, Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 22 Feb. 2024, Pp 1-22; C Salame et al, ‘Food additive emulsifiers and the risk of type 2 diabetes: analysis of data from the NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort study’, Lancet Diabetes Endocrinology, 2024; 12: 339–349
11 E Millstone & E Dawson, ‘EFSA’s toxicological assessment of aspartame: was it even-handedly trying to identify possible unreliable positives and unreliable negatives?’, Archives of Public Health, 15 July 2019, 77:34, https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-019-0355-z and https://rdcu.be/bKpOq
12 E Millstone, ‘Science, risk and governance: radical rhetorics and the realities of reform’, Research Policy, Vol 38, No 4, May 2009, pp 624-636, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2009.01.012
13 E Millstone, ‘Can food safety policy-making be both scientifically and democratically legitimated? If so, how?’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2007, Vol. 20, pp. 483-508; DOI: 10.1007/s10806- 007-9045-x
14 E Millstone, ‘Science, risk and governance: radical rhetorics and the realities of reform’, Research Policy, Vol 38, No 4, May 2009, pp 624-636, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2009.01.012
15 E Millstone & T Lang, ‘An approach to conflicts of interest in UK food regulatory institutions’, Nature Food, 30 December 2022, DOI 10.1038/s43016-022-00666-w
16 See eg P van Zwanenberg & E Millstone, BSE: Risk, Science and Governance, Oxford University Press, 2005, Chapter 9
17 UN Human Rights Council. Right to science in the context of toxic substances, 26 July 2021, Document Id A/HRC/48/61, available at https://undocs.org/A/HRC/48/61) (United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, 2021)
Question 3
National Information Platforms for nutrition: a multisectoral data and policy initiative
The European Union launched the National Information Platforms for Nutrition (NIPN) initiative in 2015 with the aim of creating government-led platforms that establish an evidence-based multisectoral nutrition policy dialogue to inform and strengthen strategic policy, programme, and investment decisions for preventing and reducing undernutrition. To date, NIPN has been set up in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Lao PDR, Niger, Uganda, and Zambia; Bangladesh closed in 2022. NIPNs are embedded in national host institutions, work to convene national actors with a stake in nutrition with the aim of establishing national multisectoral coordination systems for nutrition.
A NIPN is comprised of a data component and a policy component, which are jointly responsible for implementing the NIPN operational cycle. The operational cycle begins with the policy question formulation process on what nutrition needs must be addressed, followed by the analysis of existing multisectoral data, and to complete the cycle strategic, communication of recommendations is carried out. The operational cycle is iterative and can be repeated several times in a year based on the country’s priorities and pace.
Lessons can be learned from the design, set up, and implementation of NIPN in nine very different country and institutional contexts:
- A functional NIPN requires a mature nutrition coordination mechanism that has defined what is expected from NIPN and how NIPN will be embedded in existing structures, whose mandates align with NIPN functions.
- Multisectoral collaboration platforms are more likely to succeed when three sets of conditions point in the same direction: aligned institutional mandates, effective leadership and functional capacities, and trust and credibility. Guatemala, Niger, and Lao PDR are good examples of this successful condition whereby country context, and institutional logics were considered from the design phase of the project which resulted in high-level political support, contributing to the progress and success of the platform in the early implementation phase.
- A mitigation plan must be developed during the setting up of multisectoral collaborations, with assigned responsibilities for implementing mitigating strategies.
- Investment in strengthening leadership skills and the strategic capacity of a core team in the first months of implementation will help avoid early setbacks in any multisectoral collaboration.
- Multisectoral platforms should be flexible and adaptive, learn by doing, and make iterative adjustments based on ever changing context.
- A neutral implementing partner may provide support to the platform’s leadership, facilitate learning, and help to overcome hurdles between different partners.
Establishing a NIPN holds significant promise for countries to achieve nutrition policy objectives while fostering impactful collaboration across sectors and national actors.
I share my experience of influencing policy and practice using SPI under the research consortium programme on Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA). The research uptake strategy was formulated through stakeholder engagements that identified priority issues to be addressed and related challenges. The Farming System for Nutrition (FSN) study under LANSA in India engaged in participatory research involving farm men and women at the community level, formed technology platform of research institutions to guide the agriculture interventions and stakeholder platform of civil society organisations, local government agencies, banks, and progressive farmers, for feedback/suggestions and dissemination. Government agencies and staff at the village, sub-district and district levels were informed and sensitized about the relevance of nutrition sensitive agriculture. Evidence emerging from the study was shared with officials at the district, state and central levels and with research institutions as part of the research uptake strategy for policy influence. There were encouraging results at the household community level (with changes in dietary pattern observed and more villages coming forward to adopt nutrition sensitive agriculture after the project ended) and at the policy level (support for nutrition-sensitive agriculture at both the state and national levels) - https://www.mssrf.org/our-stories/the-project-lansa-results-in-multiple-level-uptake/
Related Links:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248698
http://59.160.153.187/blog/taking-farming-system-nutrition-approach-scale
http://59.160.153.187/sites/default/files/IndiaImpact%20brief%20NSA-4pg-online.pdf
http://59.160.153.187/sites/default/files/IndiaImpact%20brief%20NA-2pg-online.pdf
Advocacy for a Farming Systems for Nutrition Approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2waQI7p54
(I shall be happy to proved a focused box for inclusion as case study in the report)
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