Consultation

HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Report: Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition

During its 44th Plenary Session (9-13 October 2017), the CFS requested the HLPE to produce a report on “Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition”, to be presented at CFS 46th Plenary session in October 2019.

As part of the process of elaboration of its reports, the HLPE is organizing a consultation to seek inputs, suggestions, and comments on the present V0 draft (for more details on the different steps of the process, see the Appendix in the V0 draft). The results of this consultation will be used by the HLPE to further elaborate the report, which will then be submitted to external expert peer-reviewers, before finalization and approval by the HLPE Steering Committee.

HLPE V0 drafts prepared by the Project Team are deliberately presented early enough in the process – as a work-in-progress, with their range of imperfections – to allow sufficient time to give proper consideration to the feedback received so that it can play a really useful role in the elaboration of the report. It is a key part of the scientific dialogue between the HLPE Project Team and Steering Committee, and the whole knowledge community.

 

Please note that comments should not be submitted as notes to the pdf file, rather contributors are expected to share their main and structuring comments through the website dialog box and/or attaching further elements/references that can help the HLPE to enrich the report and strengthen its overall narrative.

Detailed line-by-line comments are also welcome, but only if presented in a word or Excel file, with precise reference to the related chapter, section, page and/or line number in the draft.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Contributing to the V0 Draft

The present V0 draft identifies areas for recommendations at a very early stage, and the HLPE would welcome suggestions or proposals. In order to strengthen the report, the HLPE would welcome submission of material, evidence-based suggestions, references, and concrete examples, in particular addressing the following important questions:

  1. The V0 draft is wide-ranging in analyzing the contribution of agroecological and other innovative approaches to ensuring food security and nutrition (FSN). Is the draft useful in clarifying the main concepts? Do you think that the draft appropriately covers agroecology as one of the possible innovative approaches? Does the draft strike the right balance between agroecology and other innovative approaches? 
  2. Have an appropriate range of innovative approaches been identified and documented in the draft? If there are key gaps in coverage of approaches, what are these and how would they be appropriately incorporated in the draft? Does the draft illustrates correctly the contributions of these approaches to FSN and sustainable development? The HLPE acknowledges that these approaches could be better articulated in the draft, and their main points of convergence or divergence among these approaches could be better illustrated. Could the following set of “salient dimensions” help to characterize and compare these different approaches: human-rights base, farm size, local or global markets and food systems (short or long supply chain), labor or capital intensity (including mechanization), specialization or diversification, dependence to external (chemical) inputs or circular economy, ownership and use of modern knowledge and technology or use of local and traditional knowledge and practices?
  3. The V0 draft outlines 17 key agroecological principles and organizes them in four overarching and interlinked operational principles for more sustainable food systems (SFS): resource efficiency, resilience, social equity / responsibility and ecological footprint. Are there any key aspects of agroecology that are not reflected in this set of 17 principles? Could the set of principles be more concise, and if so, which principles could be combined or reformulated to achieve this?
  4. The V0 draft is structured around a conceptual framework that links innovative approaches to FSN outcomes via their contribution to the four abovementioned overarching operational principles of SFS and, thus, to the different dimensions of FSN. Along with the four agreed dimensions of FSN (availability, access, stability, utilization), the V0 draft also discusses a fifth dimension: agency. Do you think that this framework addresses the key issues? Is it applied appropriately and consistently across the different chapters of the draft to structure its overall narrative and main findings?
  5. The V0 draft provides an opportunity to identify knowledge gaps, where more evidence is required to assess the contribution that agroecology and other innovative approaches can make progressing towards more sustainable food systems for enhanced FSN. Do you think that the key knowledge gaps are appropriately identified, that their underlying causes are sufficiently articulated in the draft? Is the draft missing any important knowledge gap? Is this assessment of the state of knowledge in the draft based on the best up-to-date available scientific evidence or does the draft miss critical references? How could the draft better integrate and consider local, traditional and empirical knowledge?
  6. Chapter 2 suggests a typology of innovations. Do you think this typology is useful in structuring the exploration of what innovations are required to support FSN, identifying key drivers of, and barriers to, innovation (in Chapter 3) and the enabling conditions required to foster innovation (in Chapter 4)? Are there significant drivers, barriers or enabling conditions that are not adequately considered in the draft?
  7. A series of divergent narratives are documented in Chapter 3 to help tease out key barriers and constraints to innovation for FSN. Is this presentation of these divergent narratives comprehensive, appropriate and correctly articulated? How could the presentation of the main controversies at stake and the related available evidence be improved?
  8. This preliminary version of the report presents tentative priorities for action in Chapter 4, as well as recommendations to enable innovative approaches to contribute to the radical transformations of current food systems needed to enhance FSN and sustainability. Do you think these preliminary findings can form an appropriate basis for further elaboration, in particular to design innovation policies? Do you think that key recommendations or priorities for action are missing or inadequately covered in the draft?
  9. Throughout the V0 draft there has been an attempt to indicate, sometimes with placeholders, specific case studies that would illustrate the main narrative with concrete examples and experience. Are the set of case studies appropriate in terms of subject and regional balance? Can you suggest further case studies that could help to enrich and strengthen the report?
  10. Are there any major omissions or gaps in the V0 draft? Are topics under-or over-represented in relation to their importance? Are any facts or conclusions refuted, questionable or assertions with no evidence-base? If any of these are an issue, please share supporting evidence. 

We thank in advance all the contributors for being kind enough to read, comment and suggest inputs on this V0 draft of the report.

We look forward to a rich and fruitful consultation.

The HLPE Project Team and Steering Committee

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Dear HLPE team,

Please find attached comments from CropLife International on the HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Agroecology Report. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this document and please don't hesitate to contact us should you require any further information.

Kind regards,

Gloria Jaconelli on behalf of CropLife International

 

 

Dear all, 

The National Council on Food and Nutrition Security  (CONSEA) Suggestions to the Report on Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhace security and nutrition are  attached.

Thank you for for the opportunity to review this report

 

 

Many thanks for the opportunity to comment on this V0 draft.  I have attached my personal comments regarding section 3.2.3 on local knowledge, and have pasted them below as well.  I associate myself more generally with the submission "Comment by transdisciplinary team of scientists working in food and agriculture systems." In addition, I note with concern Marcia Ishii-Eiteman's comment among others that the comment process is weakened by the time and language constraints which prevent farmer and other agricultural movements in marginalized spaces of the globe.  This unfortunately leads to the reality that, while the process claims to be participatory, it is still centrally administered (where the FAO is considered to be a "movement"). 

 

The report rightly includes discussion of “global” and “local” knowledge, also termed “indigenous” and “scientific” knowledge or in Scott’s important book Seeing Like a State, metis (practical knowledge) and techne (technical knowledge), in examining agroecology. Though the report introduces the section with straw-man caricatures of “science” and “tradition,” the authors then usefully supplement Robert Chambers’ classic work on rural development with more critical interdisciplinary work by Agrawal, Vandermeer and Perfecto, in arguing that “the notion that science and scientific knowledge are neutral and uninfluenced by human behaviour is not viable.” If the authors took these ideas as the epistemological bases for the approach to “local/global” knowledge and agroecology, this would create a strong statement on the complex and overlapping relations between “global” and “local” knowledge, the central role of power relations, the necessity of solidarity among people at multiple scales, and especially the need for equitable distribution of wealth and governance institutions accountable to social movements and civil society.  

 

Agrawal (1995) argues that “The confusing rhetoric of indigenous vs. western knowledge, and the reliance on the politically and technically convenient method of ex situ conservation fail to address  the underlying asymmetries of power and control that cement in place the oppression of indigenous or other marginalized social groups.” While Vandermeer and Perfecto seem to accept the dualism between “traditional knowledge” which is “profound but local” and “scientific knowledge” which is “general but superficial,” their vision is that these approaches are united by work between these two equally valuable pursuits and populations in order to come somehow to knowledge that is both “deep and general” (Vandermeer and Perfecto 2013, 86).

 

After the opening, however, the authors reference the latter two works only glancingly, disregarding in particular the power relations through which leaders of globalized corporate agri-business monopolize resources for agricultural production and associated production of “legitimate knowledge” that justify monopolization of authority by national governments whose leaders often are intimately invested (through debt and other instruments) in protecting interests of these multinational corporations.  The authors explicitly categorize “local” knowledge as informal (the realm of farmers and activists), and “global” knowledge as formal (the realm of science, the state and the FAO). FAO administrators then implicitly become those responsible for combining “local” sites of “spontaneous” knowledge into planned systems of “organized” knowledge. This removal of contested politics (meaning that the FAO can be designated as a “movement” alongside Via Campesina for example) crystalizes divisions which in reality are often “more about politics than geography” (Forbes 1996, 31; see also Edelman 1996; Fisher 1997) and thus does not address what Chappell considers to be a key problem of food provision and hunger prevention: “Any analysis of hunger that refuses the issue of power is incapable of truly addressing the problem” (Chappell 2018).



 

Chappell, M. J. (2018) Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond. University of California Press.

 

Edelman, Marc (1996) Reconceptualizing and Reconstituting Peasant Struggles: A New Social Movement in Central America. Radical History Review 65, 26-47.

 

Fisher, William F (1997) Doing Good? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices. Annual Review of Anthropology 26, 439-464.

 

Forbes, Ann Armbrecht (1996): Defining the "Local" in the Arun Controversy. Cultural Survival Quarterly, 20:3, 31-34.

 

Scott, James C (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve The Human Condition Have Failed. Yale Agrarian Studies. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

Vandermeer, John & Ivette Perfecto (2013): Complex Traditions: IntersectingTheoretical Frameworks in Agroecological Research, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 37:1,76-89.

Felix zu Löwenstein

Germany

Dear HLPE team,

thank you for the opportunity to comment the V0 Draft on the agroecological approaches to FSN for FSN.

Please find attached the comments of Mister Felix zu Löwenstein, organic farmer from Germany.

Please do let us know if you request any more information.

 

Best wishes

Claude Blaschette

 

Marienstr. 19-20, 10117 Berlin, Germany

Tel. + 49 30.28482 310

I thank the Committee for opening this draft up for public review. My contribution is independent, but in agreement with several points listed in the key summary points of a review document put forward by a transdisciplinary team of scientists (referred to from here on as “Comments”), submitted late Sunday evening (4 Nov 2018).

I include an attachment of my contribution, for the Committee's consideration. 

In particular I address section 3 of the report, considering the dimension of i) scale, ii) knowledge, and iii) how transition relates to the first two points. I deal particularly with agency and how it can be made more central in the report.

My comments relate to several points in the Comments including:

- supporting the notion that policy recommendations should shift to an "enabling environment" concept.

- that knowledge generation deserves a deeper and broader treatment that goes byeond science and industry to the knowledgemaking roles of farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and other producers, as well as the contributions of social movements to the "scaling across" of agroecology knowledge and practice.

They particularly support and provide suggestions to address the following:

- Avoid emphasis on "Innovations" theory, which is grounded in business and manufacturing studies and therefore illfitting for an agroecology report.

- Avoid treating agroecology as an essentialized, singular concept, which sets up for rigid binaries between conventional/industrial and agroecology.

- Instead, emphasize transitions to sustainable food systems, and the process of making those transitions in science, policy, and practice.

 

---

At the heart of my three points on scale, knowledge, and transition, is agency, which the report has identified as central to the narrative of agroecology’s relation to the world of scientific and technological development. My first general comment is about the absence of socio-political language in the report, which makes it difficult to make the case for agency front and centre of the narrative. The draft’s depoliticisation of the context from which different narratives about agroecology (chapter 3.2) arise, runs the risk of reducing their distinct impulses to a homogeneous set of interchangeable terms, that will consequently inform the report’s actual audience: policy makers and business leaders with no understanding of the historical context of these approaches and terms. Rather than pushing forward a set of agroecological directions with new evaluative potential, the draft will allow status quo business and governance mechanisms to swap out old appearances for a new set of (“unevaluative”; see page 32 of the comments) terminology and appearances.

The better option would be to clearly define the contextual background of the 9 different agroecological narratives the report identifies: the question of “who” and “where”, and bring that more fully into the report. This relates to the point made that “[a]n innovation system cannot be prized apart from what gave birth to it” (Comments, 28). Whopractises and espouses and puts forward each narrative, in which part of the world does it emerge, and which groups respond to these? This first grounding (if possible, in a chart or diagram) will allow the “Barriers and drivers of innovation” (Section 3.1) section to identify more clearly the challenges facing each of these, including policy and technological lock-ins. It also allows (and requires) the question of Scale (Section 3.2.1) to be better interrogated and refined, and sets out potential connections between the different stakeholders (private, public, people etc) that can be taken up in Section 4, making the report a key enabling site/“enabling environment” (Comments) for future connections to address the unevenness of the social landscape that produces each approach. Bringing in this context will also allow the report to more assiduously deal with agroecology as a continuum of levels that speaks to differentially embedded socio-technical practices, and which can be systematically considered without losing the particularity of each transition necessary in each context. This builds on the combined comments from the scientists also articulates in a detailed reply on page 30, to Section 2.2 (on Innovations theory and the use of agroecology as a black or white concept). This is ultimately I believe the report’s ambition and strength also: the ability to set out something that passes for an impartial, holistic overview of agroecology’s potential contribution to business leaders and policymakers today.

In each point I focus my attention around the central concept of agency, in contribution to the report’s goal.

-- 

(See attachment for more)

In addition to the comments on the V0 Draft outlined in our previous submission, Pesticide Action Network International would like to draw your attention to the following publication, which we believe provides a useful source of case studies for the report:

Watts, M. & S. Williamson, 2015. Replacing Chemicals with Biology: Phasing Out Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agroecology. PAN Asia Pacific, Penang, Malaysia. 208 pp.

https://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Phasing-Out-HHPs-with-Agroeco…

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the HLPE Version-Zero Draft of the report, “Agroecological and Other Innovations for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems.”

I note here that members of the PAN International network (which includes over 600 organizations in 90 countries) would appreciate the chance to provide feedback on this report as well, but have not yet been able to do so, due to time and, in some cases, language constraints.

As a global network of civil society organizations representing peasant and family farmers, food system workers, agricultural and health professionals, Indigenous groups and consumer requests, with regional centers in Africa, Asia & the Pacific, Latin America, North America and Europe, we note with disappointment that the draft report was not translated into Spanish or French, or any of the other UN languages. We have requested the HLPE to extend the period for public consultation by at minimum two weeks, until 20 November 2018, to expand the possibility that interested groups may be able to participate.

In the meantime, I provide the following comments on behalf of Pesticide Action Network North America. We would be happy to expand upon the points outlined in the attached document and to provide additional literature references, upon request and time permitting.

Wit kind regards,

Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, Senior Scientist, Pesticide Action Network North America

Andy Goldring

The Permaculture Association
United Kingdom

Please find attached:

  • Our organisational response to HLPE Draft 0. HLPE_Permaculturte_Assoc_response.pdf
  • A recent study conducted by Dr Anne-Marie Mayer - "Exploring, documenting and developing sustainable approaches to improving nutrition in the global south. A case study on Permaculture Design Systems (PDS) implemented in Nepal". HPC report AM 011118.docx

If we can be of any further assistance - especially regarding permaculture section and further case studies - please do let us know.

With best wishes,

Andy Goldring

--

Andy Goldring

Chief Executive

Maywa Montenegro

University of California Davis
United States of America

Dear CFS/HLPE Secretariat,

Please find below a review of the V0 draft of the report: “Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and

Nutrition.”

This submission is the result of a collaboration among several academics and researchers who work in agroecology, sustainable agriculture, and food systems policy. We connected with each other after independently reviewing the V0 and realizing that several of our reflections and suggestions were complementary. It thus made sense to collaborate on a single submission, given the complexity and length of the report.

We subsequently circulated the review among a small network of colleagues who made comments and suggestions for improving the review. The names of all contributors are included below.

Our review proceeds as follows. First, we provide a brief summary of our main recommendations (also in the email below). Next, we respond to the FAO 10 Guiding Questions. We then provide feedback on Tables, Figures, and Boxes used in the report. Finally, we offer a section-by-section review with more in-depth commentary on many chapter subsections, including references and suggestions for improvement.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We hope that our comments are constructive and we look forward to remaining in touch as the HLPE process continues.

Kind regards,

Maywa Montenegro, Alastair Iles, Annie Shattuck

Writing on behalf of all undersigned

 

Authored by:

Alastair Iles, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California at Berkeley, US.

Maywa Montenegro, Ph.D., UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Human Ecology, University of California at Davis, US.

Annie Shattuck, Visiting Scholar, Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, US.

Hannah Wittman, Ph.D., Professor of Land and Food Systems and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Academic Director, Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

JoAnn Jaffe, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, Regina, Canada

Molly D. Anderson, Ph.D., William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Food Studies, Academic Director, Food Studies Program, Middlebury College, US.

M. Jahi Chappell, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Coventry, UK.

Mariaelena Huambachano, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies and Sustainability, California State University, Northridge, California, US.

Rebecca Tarlau, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education and Labor Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, US.

Reviewed and Endorsed by:

Raj Patel, Ph.D., Research Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, US.

Christopher M. Bacon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Santa Clara University, US.

Joshua Sbicca, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, US.

Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of International Service, American University, US.

Timothy Bowles, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Agroecology and Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of California Berkeley, US.

Johanna Jacobi, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Switzerland.

Liz Carlisle, Ph.D., Lecturer, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, US.

Noa Lincoln, Ph.D. Assistant Researcher of Indigenous Crops and Cropping Systems, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, US.

Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Pesticide Action Network North America, US.

Marcia DeLonge, Ph.D., Scientist, Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, US.

Rafter Ferguson, Ph.D., Scientist, Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, US.

Doug Gurian-Sherman, Ph.D., Strategic Expansion and Trainings, LLC, US.

Samir K. Doshi, Ph.D., Senior Technology and Innovation Advisor, World Wildlife Fund, International

Neeraja Havaligi, Ph.D., ED, Greater Portland Sustainability Education Network, Courtesy Faculty at Oregon State University’s Environmental Science Graduate Program, Corvallis, Oregon, US.

David Meek, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, International Studies, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, US.

Summary of Recommendations

- Clarify the understood relationship between Sustainable Food Systems and Food Security, moving away from an "impact model" towards a relational "ecosystem" model.

- Provide much stronger evidence-based assessment of agroecology and other innovations in terms of meeting holistic criteria for Sustainable Food Systems that includes, but is not limited to, Food Security & Nutrition.

- We suggest a holistic framework for SFS that includes FSN within a larger “ecosystem” of metrics would also include ecosystem/ecological health, knowledge and cultural diversity, equity, and rights-based democratic governance. (See Diagram: An ecosystem of Sustainable Food Systems framework).

- Rights is not another innovation. It is important to ground the entire analysis within the rights-based mandates of the CFS. Currently, Right-based innovations are included alongside other production systems, when they do not belong in that analysis. Rights provide a fundamental base that underpin all of SFS and FSN.

- Simplify the thicket of different principles, criteria, and metrics while strengthening the analytical coherence of a smaller few. To characterize agroecology, we suggest eliminating the 16 principles from different sources and instead using the FAO's 10 Elements.

- Improve the analytical development and treatment of scale. While particularly beneficial for smallholders and vulnerable rural populations (including Indigenous peoples, peasants, family farmers, and more) agroecology is not limited to small-sized farms, as the current report suggests.

- Avoid emphasis on "Innovations" theory, which is grounded in business and manufacturing studies and therefore ill-fitting for an agroecology report.

- Avoid treating agroecology as an essentialized, singular concept, which sets up for rigid binaries between conventional/industrial and agroecology.

- Instead, emphasize transitions to sustainable food systems, and the process of making those transitions in science, policy, and practice.

- Avoid abstract enumeration of "drivers and barriers." Focus instead on understanding the drivers and identifying barriers to the development and scaling up and out of agroecology and those innovative approaches that the weight of evidence has indicated are strong contributors to a holistic SFS (which includes FSN).

- Significantly strengthen the recognition and analysis of political economy factors in creating "barriers" to agroecology and other innovations that support and complement agroecology. Several prominent texts and references are provided.

- Reframe and strengthen the "Diverging Narratives" section which is currently disjointed, underdeveloped, and not clearly contributing to the overall objectives of the report. A possible reframing could be: "Given the varied interests in our current food systems, how can we best assess the validity of objections to agroecology and other sustainable innovations?"

- Policy recommendations should shift to an "enabling environment" concept.

- Knowledge generation deserves a deeper and broader treatment. Rather than focus principally on science and industry, the report should explicitly recognize the knowledge-making roles of farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and other producers, as well as the contributions of social movements to the "scaling across" of agroecology knowledge and practice.

- Strengthen overall recognition and analysis of political organizing in transitions to sustainable and food secure food systems. A variety of social movement, civil society, and scientific actors are essential to helping create policies and enabling environments that shift deeper structures (trade regimes, corporate consolidation, agro-industry friendly policy etc.) so that agriculture and food systems can be transformed.