Dear FAO colleagues, Congratulations for this first draft on a great and important topic that would help improving food security (though at relatively small scale in some regions), market access, Bio-food among others. Thank you also for the opportunity to provide comments.
While I am not a food systems specialist, I would like to make a few comments from the climate and water side.
It is good to see that a subsection (4.6.4) is dedicated to climate change, an aspect impacting not only agriculture but all the food systems. The 10-lines section indicates the need for climate research for assessing the impacts of climate change and extreme events on all aspects of food systems. The climate aspect is also mentioned from time to time across the report but given the importance of the dependence of food systems on climate and the effect of climate change, the report seems not giving enough place to these highly impactful pillars. Climate services for agriculture and food security are also missing (excluding a quick mention of climate tool kit) despite their usefulness and necessity for risk reduction, action planning and adaptation. The WMO report on the “State of Climate Services, Agriculture and Food Security” contains information that would help reducing this gap. Several other papers on climate services exists also.
The same remark is valid for water aspect which seems addressed at the same level of other environmental components. However, several questions arise about water availability for UPU agriculture, water related Food safety (risks and possibilities), potential conflictual uses, etc. A dedicated section to Water is al missing.
教授 Fatima Driouech