Building resilient food systems - HLPE-FSN consultation on the scope of the report
During its 51st plenary session (23-27 October 2023), the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) adopted its four-year Programme of Work (MYPOW 2024-2027), which includes a request to its High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) to produce a report on “Building resilient food systems” to be presented at the 53rd plenary session of the CFS in October 2025.
The text of the CFS request, as included in the MYPOW, is as follows:
Global challenges to food security and nutrition, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts, extreme weather events due to climate change, natural disasters, loss of biodiversity and land degradation, reveal structural vulnerabilities of agriculture and food systems. These shocks and stresses may disrupt food value chains and, when combined with other factors such as financial or economic crises, may lead to unaffordability and/or unavailability of healthy food. There are also deep inequalities and unsustainable practices in the current food distribution and marketing systems. There is wide recognition of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of agriculture and food systems, and growing calls to improve their functioning so that they are able to respond to current and future challenges, seeking to diversify sources of inputs, production, markets, supply chain and actors, supporting the creation of small and medium-sized companies, cooperatives, consortiums and other groups to maintain diversity in the agriculture and food value chains. Given the increased frequency of shocks to agriculture and food systems in recent years and the growing risks from a range of sources, it is imperative to explore more deeply how they can be made more resilient – that is, more capable of recovering, adapting and transforming in the face of shocks – as well as more equitable and sustainable, so that they are able to support all dimensions of food security. Understanding the different types of vulnerabilities of agriculture and food systems, and their implications for the different actors involved, will enable CFS to provide a space for exchange and convergence on the policy measures needed to enhance the resilience of local, regional and global food supply chains, including consideration of inclusive and equitable employment opportunities, the role of trade, environmental sustainability, access to healthy diets and human rights.
Objectives and expected outcomes: The objective of the workstream is to create a set of focused, action-oriented policy recommendations on “Building resilient food systems” as a key means of achieving the CFS vision, SDG2, and an array of other SDGs, including SDGs SDG 8, 10, 12, 14 and 15, as a result of the contribution that agriculture and food systems make to livelihoods and natural systems. The workstream will benefit from the findings and recommendations of an HLPE-FSN report on the topic.
To respond to the CFS request, the HLPE-FSN will develop the report “Building resilient food systems”, which will provide recommendations to the CFS workstream of the same title under the focus area: “Fostering resilience of agriculture and food systems to shocks and stresses”. The HLPE-FSN has drafted the scope of the report and seek for the feedback from stakeholders.
Draft scope of the HLPE-FSN report
Food systems have become increasingly complex in recent decades, characterized by growing cross-border trade in food products organized along “just-in-time” distribution systems and the reliance on millions of food system workers to supply inputs and produce, process, move, market and prepare food along the way to its ultimate destination. Different components of food systems have different degrees of vulnerability and resilience to different types of shocks, depending on their characteristics. For example, food supply chains depend on well-functioning transportation networks (Colon et al., 2021), require vast quantities of land, water and fossil fuel energy (Taherzadeh et al., 2021), and rely on regulations to ensure safety and quality (Machado Nardi et al., 2020). In the case of globally oriented food supply chains, these rely on predictable channels of international trade, enabled by globally agreed rules. Domestic food supply chains require robust local and regional infrastructure for inputs, production, stockholding, processing, distribution and marketing. Food supply chains can become strained when any one of the multiple and interconnected factors required for their proper operation is affected negatively. The risks associated with disruptions and existing inequities in these systems can be multiplied when food supply chains rigidly rely exclusively on global or local supplies and labour, or when there are multiple shocks affecting food systems simultaneously (FAO, 2021a). It is important to recognize that food supply chain dynamics are also highly context specific, with unique structures and organization in different regions and countries (Nchanji and Lutomia, 2021).
According to the HLPE-FSN 3rd Note on critical, emerging and enduring issues (2022), these types of shocks have the potential to negatively impact multiple dimensions of food security and nutrition. The 2020 HLPE-FSN report states that we must urgently seize the moment to fundamentally transform food systems and to rebalance priorities to ensure that all people are food secure at all times. The call to action of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (2021) focused on five objectives, one of which is building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks[1] and stresses[2].
This growing awareness of the impact of shocks on food systems and FSN, and the need to enhance resilience of food systems needs stronger conceptual framing and actionable policy recommendations. The HLPE-FSN report will propose a framework for better understanding resilience in the context of food systems and FSN, and consequently for approaching resilience planning. It will review countries’ experiences in creating more resilient food systems, especially with the objective to identify innovations that can enhance resilience and the policies needed to realize this potential.
This report “Building resilient food systems” will be framed by conceptual understandings and analysis of previous HLPE-FSN reports, especially concerning food systems, the focus on the right to food, and the six dimensions of food security. The report will consider shocks of multiple origins that hit countries often already structurally affected by climate change and other stressing social, political or economic factors. In such contexts, the report will identify how a country can best prepare to unforeseen shocks, while preserving sustainability. The report will identify the food systems’ activities, actors and population groups particularly at risk in protracted crises, whilst prioritizing food security and nutrition outcomes.
Resilience is a systemic and complex topic. It varies across regions, changes according to scale, and may involve trade-offs where the same policies that create resilience in one dimension (e.g. environmental) may have shortcomings in another (e.g. access to food).
The HLPE-FSN reports will investigate numerous dimensions of resilience, including the extent to which individual and household food security and nutrition are resilient based on human and financial resources. Families with abundant human and financial resources may be better able to maintain nutritious diets despite shocks(Stringer et al., 2019), but wealth does not always translate in better nutrition, as access, education and awareness have a great impact on consumers’ choices (Popkin, B. M., 2002)
Second, the resilience of food production must also be evaluated based on agroecological factors at the primary production level. Farms, animal production, fisheries and other agricultural production with abundant biodiversity, healthy soils, water, and landscape heterogeneity are often more resilient than intensive systems during shocks and crises, such as droughts or pest outbreaks. The literature suggests that such systems can recover faster after a shock. Therefore, interventions supporting agronomic practices that boost agroecological health can build resiliency.
A third key element of resilience that should be considered is community resilience, which can be enhanced by social capital and networks, civil society and infrastructure. Communities with well-developed social networks and inclusive infrastructure, functioning civil society organizations, lower crime rates, higher participation in public life and decision making, and better access to services may mobilize collective responses to shocks and thus maintain integrity of food systems even during crises (Fraser, E.D., 2006).
Fourth, the resilience of food supply chains in their entirety must be considered (Davis et al., 2021). Efficient and smooth-running supply chains are a vital part of a functioning food system, yet they can easily get disrupted at the onset of a shock, as it has happened in conjunction with COVID-19 and the restrictive policies enforced to contain the pandemic. In addition, food transportation, processing, packaging and retail are a vital source of economic opportunity and livelihoods for millions. Understanding the resilience of supply chains, therefore, is a critical aspect of understanding food system resilience.
A fifth important element in any resilience framework is linked to the institutional resilience of state/local governments. States, local authorities and other institutions that can provide safety nets, early warning systems and good governance offer greater resilience to citizens and are better able to timely implement effective responses when crises emerge.
In the face of the growing frequency and intensity of shocks, making food systems more resilient, as well as more equitable and sustainable, is essential for FSN. Potential measures to improve the functioning of the supply chain include: encouraging greater diversity at all stages of food production, processing, trade and retail, allowing for a better balance between food supply chains at global, regional and local levels, to reduce overreliance on a single food supply channel; promoting shorter supply chains that support local producers; making supply chains more inclusive by creating more equitable employment and income opportunities; finding innovative means of connecting input suppliers to producers and producers to processors and traders, including through widely accessible digital technologies; instituting more effective measures to ensure environmental sustainability at all points along food systems from production to consumption; increasing the transparency of input and output markets and developing international agricultural trade rules that support resilient food systems; strengthening infrastructure to support supply chains at multiple scales, including the local and regional level; strengthening food environments so that they become more resilient and can play a role in mitigating the impact of shocks on access to food; and adopting more coherent policies that support measures for improving food systems’ resilience.
Understanding the different types of vulnerabilities of agriculture and food systems, and their implications for the different actors involved, will set the stage for the CFS to be a catalyst for exchange and convergence on the policy measures needed to enhance the resilience of local, regional and global food systems, including adequate consideration of inclusive and just employment opportunities, the role of trade, environmental sustainability, access to affordable healthy diets and equitable food environments, underpinned by the realization of human rights.
QUESTIONS TO GUIDE THE E-CONSULTATION
ON THE SCOPE OF THE HLPE-FSN REPORT
Based on this framing, in this consultation we seek inputs to the following thematic areas:
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Different ways of defining resilience :
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Understanding what we must be prepared for – the nature of shocks:
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Understanding and mitigating trade-offs:
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Existing programmes and policies to promote resilience – a gap analysis of current strategies and recommendations:
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| 5. | Share recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the questions listed above. |
The results of this consultation will be used by the HLPE-FSN to elaborate the report, which will then be made public in its V0 draft for e-consultation, and later submitted to peer review, before finalization and approval by the HLPE-FSN drafting team and the Steering Committee.
We thank in advance all the contributors for reading, commenting and providing inputs on the scope of this HLPE-FSN report. The comments are welcome in English, French and Spanish languages.
This e-consultation is open until 25 June 2024.
The HLPE-FSN looks forward to a rich consultation!
Co-facilitators:
Paola Termine, HLPE-FSN Coordinator ad interim, HLPE-FSN Secretariat
Silvia Meiattini, Communications and outreach specialist, HLPE-FSN Secretariat
Please note that in parallel to this scoping consultation, the HLPE-FSN is calling for interested experts to candidate to the drafting team for this report. The call for candidature is open until 12 June 2024. Read more here
References
Colon, C., Hallegate, S. & Rozenberg, J. 2021. Criticality analysis of a country’s transport network via an agent-based supply chain model. Nature Sustainability, 4: 209-215.
Committee on World Food Security (CFS) (2023). CFS Multi-Year Programme of Work 2024-2027. CFS 2023/51/7.
Davis, K. F., Downs, S., & Gephart, J. A. (2021). Towards food supply chain resilience to environmental shocks. Nature Food, 2(1), 54-65.
FAO. 2021a. The State of Food and Agriculture 2021. Making agrifood systems more resilient to shocks and stresses. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/ cb4476en
Fraser, E. D. (2006). Food system vulnerability: Using past famines to help understand how food systems.
HLPE. 2022. Critical, emerging and enduring issues for food security and nutrition. A note by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security. Rome.
Machado Nardi, V. A., Auler, D. P., & Teixeira, R. 2020. Food safety in global supply chains: A literature review. Journal of Food Science, 85(4): 883-891.
Matsushita, K., Yamane, F., & Asano, K. (2016). Linkage between crop diversity and agro-ecosystem resilience: Nonmonotonic agricultural response under alternate regimes. Ecological Economics, 126, 23-31.
Nchanji, E.B. & Lutomia, C.K. 2021. Sustainability of the agri-food supply chain amidst the pandemic: Diversification, local input production, and consumer behaviour. In: Cohen, M.J., ed. Advances in Food Security and Sustainability, 6: 1-288. https:// hdl.handle.net/10568/115941
Popkin, B. M. (2002). The dynamics of the dietary transition in the developing world. In The Nutrition Transition (pp. 111-128). Academic Press.
Stringer, L., Fraser, E., Harris, D., Lyon, C., Pereira, L., Ward, C., & Simelton, E. (2019). Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers: key messages.
Taherzadeh, O., Bithell, M. & Richards, K. 2021. Water, energy and land insecurity in global supply chains. Global Environmental Change, 67: 102158.
United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021. Secretary-General’s Chair Summary and Statement of Action on the UN Food Systems Summit https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/news/making-food-systems-work-people-planet-and-prosperity
[1] FAO defines Shocks as “Short-term deviations from long-term trends that have substantial negative effects on a system, people’s state of well-being, assets, livelihoods, safety and ability to withstand future shocks. Shocks impacting on food systems include disasters, extreme climate events, biological and technological events, surges in plant and animal diseases and pests, socio-economic crises and conflicts. Shocks may be covariate or idiosyncratic.” SOFA 2021, https://www.fao.org/3/cb4476en/cb4476en.pdf
[2] FAO defines Stresses as Long-term trends or pressures that undermine the stability of a system and increase vulnerability within it. Stresses can result from natural resource degradation, urbanization, demographic pressure, climate variability, political instability or economic decline. SOFA 2021, https://www.fao.org/3/cb4476en/cb4476en.pdf
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Dear HLPE-FSN Secretariat,
Please find an attachment to my inputs on "Understanding what we must be prepared for – the nature of shocks"
I hope the points suggested will be useful for contributing towards development of this report.
Best regards
Rishiraj Dutta
- What types of shock are more relevant to food systems and which ones are more likely to affect food security and nutrition (FSN)? What type of shocks have been under-researched, especially regarding their impact on FSN and food systems?
Food systems are particularly vulnerable to a range of shocks that directly impact food security and nutrition (FSN) with environmental and climatic shocks, such as droughts, floods, and extreme weather events having direct effects on agricultural productivity and food supply chains. These shocks can lead to significant crop losses, disrupt transportation and distribution networks, and cause food shortages. It is well-known that climate change exacerbates these issues by altering weather patterns, making such shocks more frequent and severe. At the same time economic shocks, including price volatility and recessions, also critically affect FSN as it reduces household incomes and purchasing power, thus limiting access to nutritious food, especially for low-income populations. Health shocks, such as COVID-19 have demonstrated the profound impact that disease outbreaks can have on all aspects of food systems disrupting labor markets, hindering food production and processing, and causing logistical challenges in terms of distribution which directly affects food availability and affordability. Similarly, political and social shocks, such as conflicts and civil unrest, destroys infrastructure, displaces communities, and disrupts market operations. All these shocks often amplify their effects that creates complex crises that are difficult to manage and mitigate. Moreover, slow-onset environmental changes such as soil degradation and water scarcity are often overlooked despite their long-term implications for agricultural sustainability and food security. Therefore, these research gaps needs attention towards addressing them in a comprehensive manner to enhance the resilience of food systems against a broad spectrum of shocks.
2. How might different kinds of shocks (e.g. climatic, social, financial or political) affect different regions and different aspects of the food system (e.g. production, processing or distribution)?
Different kinds of shocks impact various regions and aspects of the food system uniquely. For instance, climatic shocks such as droughts and floods have direct impact on food production, particularly in regions or countries that relies heavily on agriculture. For instance, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and South Asia are agrarian regions where communities depend on rain-fed agriculture and are highly vulnerable to such shocks. Droughts can lead to significant crop failures, thereby reducing food availability and increasing prices. Floods can destroy crops, livestock, and infrastructure that may culminate into food shortages and disruption to the local economies. Such climatic events can affect the overall global food supply chain, causing food shortages, price rise and food access.
Today, different regions are seeing different kinds of conflicts and geopolitical issues with parts of Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa facing ongoing conflicts that has led to direct impacts on the food security situation not only for these regions but direct implications on the global food security situation resulting from destroyed infrastructure, displaced populations, and creating barriers to food distribution. These disruptions have led to acute food shortages and malnutrition with supply chains being severed and markets becoming inaccessible. Political instability also hinders implementation of effective food policies and aid distribution, exacerbating the food insecurity situation. Therefore, these results in shocks that have long-lasting impacts, that may span over several years.
Financial shocks such as economic recessions also affect all aspects of the food system but are particularly detrimental to food accessibility and affordability. Regions or countries with fragile economies become highly susceptible to these shocks. Economic downturns can lead to reduced household incomes and higher unemployment rates, limiting people's ability to purchase food while financial instability can affect the processing and distribution sectors by increasing costs and reducing investments in infrastructure and technology.
3. How to balance preparing for short-term shocks (e.g. droughts and floods) versus the need to ensure food systems fit within planetary boundaries and long-term sustainability of systems?
Balancing preparation for short-term shocks should involve integrating adaptive and resilient strategies into agricultural practices and food policies. For instance, in the short term, investing in infrastructure such as irrigation systems and flood management can help mitigate the impacts of droughts and floods. Crop diversification and the use of drought-resistant and flood-tolerant crop varieties can increase resilience against climatic extremes, ensuring a more stable food supply. Developing early warning systems and emergency response plans can enhance preparedness and response to such shocks.
For long-term sustainability, it is essential to align food production practices with planetary boundaries through sustainable agricultural practices that conserve resources and protect ecosystems. This should include adopting practices such as conservation measures, agroforestry and integrated pest management that tends to help maintain soil health and biodiversity. Reducing food waste and making the supply chain efficient can also contribute to attaining sustainability. There should be policies in place that should incentivize sustainable farming practices and support research develop innovative technologies that enhances the productivity while minimizing environmental impacts.
4. Are there ways of enhancing resilience to unknown and unforeseen shocks?
Diversification:
Enhancing resilience to unknown and unforeseen shocks to food security and nutrition (FSN) requires a comprehensive approach that builds adaptive capacity across the entire food system. The potential areas that could a key role are given below:
Crop and Livestock Diversification: Growing a variety of crops and raising different types of livestock can sometimes pose risk of disease spread. Therefore, diverse farming systems are encouraged that tends to withstand shocks because if one crop or livestock type fails, others may still thrive.
Economic Diversification: It is suggested that farmers and communities are being encouraged to diversify their income sources so that their dependency on agriculture is reduced while providing financial buffers during agricultural shocks.
Strengthening Supply Chains:
Local and Regional Food Systems: Develop local and regional food systems that would help reduce dependency on global supply chains which are more susceptible to disruptions. Local markets can provide more stable and accessible sources of food during global crises.
Redundant and Flexible Supply Chains: Encourage multiple suppliers for critical inputs so that existing supply chain is enhanced that can prevent disruptions. Flexibility in supply chains may allow quick adjustments to new sources or routes when required.
Building Adaptive Capacity:
Education and Training: Arrange capacity building initiatives for farmers and food system workers by training them to understand adaptive practices and technologies which can enable them to respond more effectively to unexpected changes.
Research and Development: Encourage investing in research to develop resilient crop varieties, innovative farming techniques and efficient resource management practices that can prepare existing food systems from a wide range of potential shocks.
Policy and Governance:
Robust Policy Frameworks: Establish policies that promote sustainability, resilience and equity in food systems that can help in coping with shocks. These should include land use policies, water management regulations and support for sustainable practices.
Social Safety Nets: One should also be encouraged to implement social safety nets such as food aid programs and insurance schemes to ensure protection to the most vulnerable groups from the impacts of unforeseen shocks.
Community Engagement and Collaboration:
Local Knowledge and Practices: Engage with local communities and incorporate traditional knowledge and practices to enhance resilience. Community-driven initiatives often provide innovative and context-specific solutions.
Collaboration and Partnerships: Foster collaboration among governments, NGOs, private sector entities and international organizations to create a coordinated and comprehensive approach to building resilience.
Gracias por esta oportunidad. Nos hemos focalizado en las preguntas más directamente ligadas a nuestro trabajo con las comunidades locales.
Fundación Proclade Internazionale Onlus.
Contribuciones y redacción:
Marcos Mendiondo, Marcos Niclis, Franco Torres.
1. Diferentes formas de definir la resiliencia:
- ¿Cómo definen los diferentes grupos la resiliencia (p.ej. las organizaciones de los pueblos indígenas, la literatura científica/revisada por pares, otros titulares de derechos clave)?
La organización del pueblo mapuche, en la Provincia de Río Negro, Argentina, a través su propia historia fue resiliente. Resiste y defiende el territorio a pesar de los embates del sistema capitalista y colonizador, de manera particular a través del extractivismo. Muchas veces violentado y vulnerados en los derechos que supo conseguir (junto a otros pueblos indígenas), muchas veces también busca diferentes modos de recuperar lo que le fue arrebatado (tierra, cultura, espiritualidad, organización) comunidades que ponen el cuerpo, referentes que visibilizan conflictos, litigios legales, procesos organizativos, acompañamiento en diferentes situaciones.
- ¿Cuáles son los principales tipos de vulnerabilidades que enfrentan las cadenas de suministro y cuáles son las posibles consecuencias para los actores del sistema alimentario (entre ellos, los suministradores de insumos, los productores de alimentos, los comerciantes, los trabajadores del sistema alimentario y los consumidores) considerando los diferentes tipos de perturbaciones posibles?
Principales tipos de vulnerabilidades:
- Económicas y demográficas
- La concentración de la tierra y de la riqueza, de la mano con el despoblamiento de las zonas rurales genera vulnerabilidad:
- Hegemonizando una forma de producción dependiente de un paquete tecnológico valuado en dólares, dominado por multinacionales.
- Imponiendo monocultivos en gran parte destinado a la producción de alimento balanceado para la producción de carne.
- Fluctuaciones de precios: La volatilidad de los precios de insumos, energía y productos finales puede afectar a todos los actores, desde productores hasta consumidores.
- Falta de acceso a financiamiento: Los pequeños productores y comerciantes pueden verse especialmente afectados por la falta de capital para invertir en infraestructura o tecnología.
- La concentración de la tierra y de la riqueza, de la mano con el despoblamiento de las zonas rurales genera vulnerabilidad:
- Políticas y Regulatorias
- Cambios en políticas comerciales: Por un lado, los aranceles, cuotas y restricciones a la exportación/importación pueden alterar la disponibilidad y el costo de los productos alimenticios. Por otro lado, la desregulación del mercado en los rubros claves del sistema alimentario es también un factor de vulnerabilidad en la medida en que la producción nacional y local puede quedar desprotegida. Frente a esta disyuntiva, más abajo mencionaremos el impuesto progresivo como una alternativa fecunda para crear resiliencia.
- Normativas sanitarias y fitosanitarias: Cambios en los estándares pueden impactar la capacidad de los productores para acceder a ciertos mercados.
- Naturales y Ambientales
- Fenómenos climáticos extremos: Sequías, inundaciones y tormentas pueden destruir cultivos y afectar la infraestructura de transporte.
- Degradación del suelo y recursos hídricos.
- Tecnológicas
- Fallas en sistemas de información y comunicación: La dependencia de tecnologías avanzadas para la gestión de la cadena de suministro puede ser un punto crítico si ocurren fallos técnicos o ciberataques.
- Innovaciones disruptivas: La introducción de nuevas tecnologías puede desplazar a actores que no se adapten rápidamente. También a que se requiera menos personal para su utilización.
- Sociales
- Cambios en la demanda del consumidor: Las tendencias y preferencias de los consumidores pueden cambiar rápidamente, afectando a los productores y comerciantes.
- Condiciones laborales: Las malas condiciones de trabajo pueden resultar en huelgas o baja productividad.
Consecuencias para los actores de los sistemas alimentarios.
- Productores de alimento, tierra y biodiversidad.
- Vulnerabilidad en los suelos y ampliación de la frontera agrícola sobre montes y selvas, precarizando la posibilidad de resiliencia para soportar inclemencias climáticas.
- Perpetuación de un círculo vicioso que viene recayendo en actores (campesinos) empobrecidos, quedando excluidos-as del sistema, por endeudamiento, embargos remates, desplazamientos.
- Pérdida de cultivos y ganado.
- Dificultades para acceder a mercados: Cambios regulatorios pueden limitar la capacidad de exportación o venta local.
2. Suministradores de Insumos.
- Interrupción de suministros: Los fenómenos climáticos o problemas logísticos pueden detener la entrega de insumos críticos.
- Aumento de costos: Las fluctuaciones en los precios pueden reducir los márgenes de beneficio.
3. Comerciantes
- Escasez de productos: Las interrupciones en la cadena de suministro pueden llevar a la falta de productos en los estantes.
- Variabilidad de precios: Pueden enfrentar dificultades al manejar la volatilidad de precios y trasladar los costos a los consumidores.
4. Otros trabajadores del Sistema Alimentario
- Pérdida de empleo: Las crisis económicas y las interrupciones en la cadena de suministro pueden resultar en despidos.
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Riesgos para la salud:
5. Consumidores
- Aumento de precios: La escasez de productos puede llevar a un incremento en los precios de los alimentos.
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Acceso limitado a alimentos: Las interrupciones en la cadena de suministro pueden causar desabastecimiento, afectando la disponibilidad de alimentos, especialmente en áreas vulnerables, lo cual podría llevar a una alimentación inadecuada o de baja calidad nutricional.
¿Qué tipo de desigualdades y desequilibrios de poder están presentes en los sistemas alimentarios y cómo afectan a la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición resilientes, especialmente en el caso de los grupos que se enfrentan a aspectos multidimensionales e interconectados de la desigualdad y la vulnerabilidad?
Los sistemas alimentarios son complejos y están afectados por diversas desigualdades y desequilibrios de poder que impactan la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición resilientes. Estas desigualdades y desequilibrios afectan desproporcionadamente a ciertos grupos, exacerbando su vulnerabilidad y dificultando el acceso a una alimentación adecuada y nutritiva. Dentro de los tipos de desigualdades podemos encontrarnos con las desigualdades económicas, sociales, geográficas, y desequilibrios de poder.
1. Desigualdades Económicas
- Las desigualdades y la brecha entre ricos y pobres en el sistema actual que lo favorece es el principal factor de vulnerabilidad. Los estados, sobre todo de los países en vías de desarrollo o subdesarrollados disponen sus estructuras de poder al servicio del sistema concentrador de los medios de producción. El poder económico tiene preeminencia ante el poder político y la posibilidad de regulación de los estados. Compra voluntades, funciona con lobby.
- Acceso a recursos: Los pequeños productores y agricultores familiares a menudo carecen de acceso a tierra, crédito y tecnologías avanzadas, mientras que los grandes productores y corporaciones tienen un mayor control sobre estos recursos.
- Distribución de ingresos: Los trabajadores agrícolas y rurales suelen recibir salarios bajos y carecen de seguridad social, lo que afecta su capacidad para adquirir alimentos nutritivos[1].
2. Desigualdades Sociales
- Género: Las mujeres en muchos contextos tienen menos acceso a recursos productivos, capacitación y mercados. También suelen tener menos poder de decisión en el hogar y en la comunidad.
- Etnicidad y clase social: Las minorías étnicas y las personas de clases sociales más bajas enfrentan barreras adicionales para acceder a alimentos nutritivos y a recursos productivos.
3. Desigualdades Geográficas
- Acceso a mercados: Las regiones rurales y remotas suelen estar menos conectadas con los mercados, lo que limita el acceso a insumos y la capacidad para vender productos.
- Infraestructura: La falta de infraestructura adecuada (carreteras, almacenamiento, redes de distribución) en áreas rurales afecta la disponibilidad y calidad de los alimentos.
4. Desequilibrios de Poder
- Concentración del mercado: Grandes corporaciones y minoristas dominan el mercado, imponiendo precios y condiciones que desfavorecen a los pequeños productores y comerciantes.
- Políticas y regulaciones: Las políticas agrícolas y comerciales a menudo benefician a los actores más poderosos, mientras que los pequeños agricultores y productores locales carecen de representación y apoyo adecuado[2].
Impactos en la Seguridad Alimentaria y la Nutrición Resilientes
- Acceso Inequitativo a Alimentos
- Disponibilidad: Las desigualdades en la producción y distribución de alimentos pueden llevar a la escasez de productos en ciertas áreas, especialmente en comunidades rurales y marginadas.
- Asequibilidad: Los precios altos de los alimentos debido a la especulación, la concentración del mercado y la falta de infraestructura afectan desproporcionadamente a los hogares de bajos ingresos.
2. Calidad Nutricional
- Diversidad dietética: La falta de acceso a una variedad de alimentos nutritivos afecta la calidad de la dieta, lo que puede resultar en malnutrición, tanto por déficit como por exceso.
- Información y educación: Las comunidades marginadas a menudo carecen de acceso a información y educación sobre nutrición, lo que puede afectar las elecciones alimentarias y la salud.
3. Resiliencia a Perturbaciones
- Capacidad de adaptación: Los pequeños productores y comunidades vulnerables tienen menos capacidad para adaptarse a cambios y perturbaciones (climáticas, económicas, políticas), lo que afecta su capacidad para mantener la producción y el acceso a alimentos.
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Redes de apoyo: La falta de redes de apoyo y de acceso a servicios (financieros, técnicos, sociales) disminuye la capacidad de las comunidades para recuperarse de crisis.
7¿Qué marcos de resiliencia hay que explorar?
Un marco de resiliencia a explorar es el relativo a la capacidad de las comunidades locales para producir un sistema alimentario lo más autosuficiente y autosustentable posible. En pueblos de la zona rural del gran Bandundu (que pueden considerarse como representativos de un vasto territorio de la RDC) durante la pandemia de Covid 19, el sistema alimentario no se vio perturbado, particularmente en cuanto al suministro de alimentos, por las normas de restricción impuestas a nivel nacional y global. De hecho, hay un amplio espectro de factores que van desde la producción local de los alimentos de base (Maíz, mandioca, maní, pescado producidos en campos y estanques próximos al pueblo, sin necesidad de cadenas de transporte) hasta los hábitos alimenticios (estas comunidades prescinden de alimentos procesados en cadenas industriales) que hicieron a estos pequeños sistemas locales mucho más resilientes que los sistemas urbanos, totalmente dependientes del aprovisionamiento externo.
Otro marco de resiliencia a explorar es el relativo a la interdependencia entre el sistema alimentario, los géneros de vida y la biodiversidad. Mientras la resiliencia del sistema alimentario y la misma seguridad alimentaria suelen plantearse de manera más o menos antropocéntrica (a menudo, implícitamente), hay pueblos cuyo género de vida permiten situar dicha resiliencia del sistema alimentario y la seguridad alimentaria en su interdependencia con las demás especies. Un ejemplo de ello está representado por las comunidades nómades y semi-momádes de los pueblos Masai y Tukana en noroeste de Kenya. Durante siglos, estas comunidades han cohabitado los territorios con una gran diversidad de especies. Su género de vida y producción alimentaria (cría de ganado itinerante), ha sido compatible, por ejemplo con los espacios que elefantes, usan como corredores naturales. Cuando este género de vida se reemplaza por el sistema sedentario (agrícola ganadero) la necesidad de proteger cultivos, instalaciones, poblados, perturba esa compatibilidad. Se crean conflictos permanentes entre las zonas cercadas o alambradas y el tránsito de elefantes. Una forma entonces de buscar formas de resiliencia podría comenzar por valorar los diferentes géneros de vida, sus potencialidades y ensayar formas de preservar sus elementos positivos.
¿Cuáles son los factores determinantes, los activos y las capacidades que conducen a la resiliencia a diferentes escalas (familiar, comunitaria, nacional, regional)?
Un factor determinante que conduce a la resiliencia es asumir paradigmas que integren complejidades, diferentes saberes; agriculturas que recuperen principios holísticos, que asuman las conexiones intrínsecas de los ecosistemas. Puede tener diferentes nombres y escalas, como agricultura ancestral, agroecología, agricultura sintrópica, agricultura de patio. Un ejemplo concreto es el “Marco Conceptual de la Agroecología” propuesto por la Secretaría de Agricultura Ganadería y Pesca, Ministerio de Economía Argentina.
- ¿Qué indicadores medirían que los sistemas alimentarios son resilientes en sus diferentes componentes (p.ej. consumo, cadenas de suministro, venta al por menor y producción)?
En la producción:
1. Diversificación de Cultivos
2. Acceso a Recursos (Porcentaje de productores con acceso a insumos críticos).
3. Prácticas Agrícolas Sostenibles: agroecología, conservación de suelos, manejo integrado de plagas.
4. Tecnología e Innovación
En la cadena de suministro
1. Infraestructura: Calidad y extensión de la infraestructura logística (carreteras, almacenamiento en frío, centros de distribución).
2. Diversificación de Proveedores
3. Tiempo de Recuperación
4. Transparencia y Trazabilidad
Venta al por Menor
1. Accesibilidad
2. Variedad de Productos
3. Resiliencia Financiera de Comerciantes
4. Eficiencia de la Cadena de Suministro (pérdidas de alimentos en el transporte y almacenamiento.)
Consumo
1. Seguridad Alimentaria del Hogar
2. Diversidad Dietética
3. Acceso Económico
4. Educación y Conocimiento Nutricional
Indicadores Transversales
1. Redes de Apoyo y Cooperación (asociaciones, cooperativas y redes de productores y consumidores)
2. Políticas: políticas públicas que apoyen la resiliencia del sistema alimentario.
3. Adaptación al Cambio Climático
Además de los indicadores correspondientes a los ODS[3], y particularmente al ODS 2, una serie de indicadores que mediría que los sistemas alimentarios son resilientes es la presencia de comunidades campesinas o locales (incluídas las comunidades indígenas) en la zona rural y la promoción de su calidad de vida (por ejemplo, generando una serie de indicadores basados en sus derechos económicos y sociales). En efecto, mientras más se promueve la población rural y su calidad de vida (diversidad cultural, incluida la pertenencia étnico-lingüística, socio-profesional, etc.) más resiliente es el sistema alimentario que puede generar[4].
- ¿Cuáles y dónde están los puntos débiles de los sistemas alimentarios mundiales a la hora de garantizar la resiliencia de la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición?
Los puntos débiles están distribuidos a lo largo de la cadena de suministro, desde la producción hasta el consumo, y varían en función de las condiciones locales y globales.
1. Producción Agrícola.
Dependencia de Monocultivos: La dependencia de monocultivos reduce la biodiversidad agrícola, aumentando la vulnerabilidad a plagas, enfermedades y cambios climáticos extremos.
Uso Insostenible de Recursos Naturales: La sobreexplotación de suelos y recursos hídricos disminuye la fertilidad del suelo y la disponibilidad de agua, amenazando la sostenibilidad de la producción a largo plazo.
Cambio Climático: eventos meteorológicos extremos (sequías, inundaciones), afectando la producción agrícola y la disponibilidad de alimentos.
2. Cadenas de Suministro
Infraestructura Deficiente. La falta de infraestructura adecuada (carreteras, almacenamiento en frío, centros de distribución) provoca pérdidas post-cosecha y dificulta el acceso a mercados sobre todo en países en desarrollo y zonas rurales.
Dependencia de Importaciones: La alta dependencia de alimentos importados aumenta la vulnerabilidad a fluctuaciones en el comercio internacional y a crisis globales.
Vulnerabilidad a Interrupciones Logísticas: Las interrupciones en las cadenas de suministro pueden causar desabastecimientos y aumentos de precios, afectando la disponibilidad y asequibilidad de alimentos.
3. Venta al por Menor
Concentración del Mercado: concentración del mercado en pocas grandes empresas puede reducir la diversidad de proveedores y productos, además de imponer condiciones desfavorables a los pequeños productores.
Desigualdad de Acceso: La desigualdad en el acceso a puntos de venta y a una variedad de alimentos asequibles afecta desproporcionadamente a las poblaciones vulnerables.
4. Consumo
Inseguridad Alimentaria: La inseguridad alimentaria crónica debilita la resiliencia de las comunidades, haciéndolas más susceptibles a perturbaciones.
Malnutrición (tanto deficiencias como sobrepeso y obesidad) compromete la salud y la capacidad de recuperación de las poblaciones.
La resiliencia de los sistemas alimentarios mundiales se ve comprometida por una combinación de factores locales y globales, que incluyen la dependencia de monocultivos, el uso insostenible de recursos, la falta de infraestructura, la dependencia de importaciones, la concentración del mercado, la inseguridad alimentaria, la malnutrición, y la falta de políticas efectivas. Para abordar estos puntos débiles, es necesario implementar estrategias integradas que promuevan la sostenibilidad, diversificación, innovación, y equidad en todos los niveles del sistema alimentario.
2- Comprender para qué debemos estar preparados: la naturaleza de las perturbaciones.
¿Qué tipos de perturbaciones son más relevantes para los sistemas alimentarios y cuáles tienen más probabilidades de afectar a la SAN? ¿Qué tipo de perturbaciones no se han investigado lo suficiente, en especial en lo que respecta a su efecto sobre la SAN y los sistemas alimentarios?
Tipos de Perturbaciones más relevantes
- Perturbaciones Climáticas y Ambientales: Sequías, inundaciones, huracanes, olas de calor, cambios en los patrones de lluvia. El Impacto en la SAN es que pueden reducir la producción agrícola, aumentar las pérdidas post-cosecha y provocar escasez de alimentos, afectando tanto la disponibilidad como el acceso a alimentos nutritivos. Por otro lado, los daños afectan las vías de aprovisionamiento a nivel nacional (Cf Anexo).
- Perturbaciones Económicas: Recesiones económicas, fluctuaciones en los precios de alimentos y combustibles, inflación. Las crisis económicas pueden reducir el poder adquisitivo de los consumidores, dificultar el acceso a alimentos y aumentar la inseguridad alimentaria.
- Perturbaciones Sociales y Políticas: Como conflictos armados, inestabilidad política, migraciones masivas. Los conflictos y la inestabilidad política pueden interrumpir la producción y distribución de alimentos, desplazar a las poblaciones y destruir infraestructuras críticas.
- Perturbaciones Sanitarias. Pandemias, brotes de enfermedades, crisis de salud pública. Pueden afectar la mano de obra agrícola, interrumpir las cadenas de suministro y aumentar la inseguridad alimentaria debido a restricciones de movimiento y disminución del ingreso.
Perturbaciones con más probabilidad de afectar a la SAN
1. Cambio Climático: Es una de las perturbaciones más omnipresentes y de largo plazo, afectando la producción agrícola, la disponibilidad de agua y la frecuencia de desastres naturales.
2. Conflictos y Desplazamientos Los conflictos armados y la inestabilidad política pueden tener efectos devastadores en la producción, distribución y acceso a alimentos.
3. Crisis Económicas Globales
- ¿Cómo pueden afectar los distintos tipos de perturbaciones (p.ej. climáticas, sociales, financieras o políticas) a las diferentes regiones y a los distintos aspectos del sistema alimentario (p.ej. producción, elaboración o distribución)?
Perturbaciones Climáticas
Producción: Ejemplos: Cambios en los patrones de lluvia, temperaturas extremas, sequías e inundaciones pueden reducir los rendimientos agrícolas, dañar cultivos y afectar la disponibilidad de agua para riego.
-Elaboración: Las infraestructuras de procesamiento pueden ser dañadas por eventos climáticos extremos, interrumpiendo la producción de alimentos procesados y aumentando las pérdidas post-cosecha.
Distribución: Daños a la infraestructura de transporte y almacenamiento pueden interrumpir las cadenas de suministro, dificultando el acceso a los mercados y aumentando las pérdidas de alimentos.
Perturbaciones Sociales
Producción: Conflictos armados y desplazamientos forzados pueden reducir la mano de obra disponible, interrumpir las actividades agrícolas y causar abandono de tierras cultivables.
Elaboración: La inestabilidad social puede afectar la seguridad de las instalaciones de procesamiento, causando interrupciones en la producción y distribución de alimentos procesados.
Distribución: La violencia y la inseguridad pueden dificultar el transporte de alimentos, incrementar los costos logísticos y reducir la accesibilidad a mercados.
Perturbaciones Financieras
Producción: Las recesiones económicas y la inflación pueden aumentar los costos de insumos agrícolas (semillas, fertilizantes), reducir el acceso a crédito y disminuir las inversiones en agricultura.
Elaboración: La volatilidad financiera puede afectar la capacidad de las empresas de procesamiento para invertir en tecnología y mejorar la eficiencia, así como para mantener la operatividad.
Distribución: Las fluctuaciones económicas pueden incrementar los costos de transporte y almacenamiento, afectando la cadena de suministro y el acceso a alimentos asequibles.
Perturbaciones Políticas
Producción: Los cambios en las políticas agrícolas y las restricciones comerciales pueden alterar la disponibilidad de insumos y mercados para los productores.
Elaboración: Las regulaciones estrictas o cambiantes pueden afectar la operatividad de las plantas de procesamiento y aumentar los costos de cumplimiento.
Distribución: Las políticas comerciales y las restricciones a la importación/exportación pueden afectar la disponibilidad de productos en el mercado y los precios de los alimentos.
- ¿Cómo equilibrar la preparación para perturbaciones a corto plazo (p.ej. sequías e inundaciones) con la necesidad de garantizar que los sistemas alimentarios se ajusten a los límites planetarios y la sostenibilidad a largo plazo de los sistemas?
1. Implementación de prácticas agrícolas sostenibles
Agricultura de Conservación: Ej: Rotación de cultivos, cobertura del suelo, siembra directa.
Agroecología: Ej: Integración de árboles y cultivos, uso de abonos orgánicos, control biológico de plagas.-
2. Diversificación de Cultivos y Fuentes de Ingreso
Políticas de Diversificación: Incentivos para la diversificación de cultivos y actividades no agrícolas.
3. Políticas Integradas
Marcos Regulatorios Sostenibles
Participación Comunitaria y Local
4. Educación y Capacitación
Programas de Capacitaciones: Educación sobre prácticas agrícolas sostenibles, gestión de riesgos y adaptación al cambio climático.
Campañas de Sensibilización
Para equilibrar la preparación para perturbaciones a corto plazo con la sostenibilidad a largo plazo, es esencial adoptar un enfoque holístico. El cual debe ser adaptativo y participativo, asegurando que las comunidades locales estén involucradas y capacitadas para implementar y mantener estas estrategias. De esta manera, los sistemas alimentarios pueden volverse más resilientes y sostenibles, garantizando la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional a largo plazo.
3. Comprender y mitigar las compensaciones:
- ¿Cuál es el efecto en los programas de resiliencia de las diferentes concepciones de la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición (p.ej. centrarse en la nutrición, los cuatro pilares, las seis dimensiones de la seguridad alimentaria, etc.)?
Los diferentes enfoques de la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición impactan significativamente en los programas de resiliencia. Un enfoque centrado en la nutrición prioriza la calidad y cantidad de nutrientes, mejorando la salud y la capacidad de recuperación inmediata, pero puede no abordar otros aspectos de la seguridad alimentaria.
La concepción de los cuatro pilares (disponibilidad, acceso, utilización y estabilidad) permite un enfoque integral, mejorando la resiliencia a corto y mediano plazo mediante una combinación de producción, distribución y acceso a alimentos. Sin embargo, requiere una coordinación intersectorial más compleja.
Por otro lado, las seis dimensiones de la seguridad alimentaria (añadiendo sostenibilidad y resiliencia) abarcan un enfoque más completo que no solo aborda las necesidades inmediatas, sino que también asegura la capacidad a largo plazo para enfrentar perturbaciones, integrando prácticas agrícolas sostenibles y medidas de adaptación al cambio climático. Este enfoque es ideal para afrontar perturbaciones sistemáticas y a largo plazo, pero su implementación es más compleja y costosa, requiriendo un compromiso político y financiero sostenido.
En resumen, mientras el enfoque nutricional es más fácil de implementar y medir, los cuatro pilares ofrecen un abordaje equilibrado y amplio, y las seis dimensiones proporcionan la estrategia más completa y sostenible a largo plazo, aunque con mayores desafíos en su implementación. La elección del enfoque debe considerar el contexto específico y combinar elementos de cada uno para equilibrar la preparación a corto plazo y la sostenibilidad a largo plazo.
4. Programas y políticas existentes para fomentar la resiliencia: análisis de las carencias de las estrategias actuales y recomendaciones:
En Países como Argentina y Kenia los programas de alimentación escolar han dado buenos resultados para luchar contra la malnutrición y la inseguridad alimentaria. Durante décadas, estos programas han sido valorados por la población y las organizaciones tanto educativas como vinculadas al área de salud. Los resultados no sólo conciernen los aspectos nutricionales y educativos sino también sociales y económicos. Un buena parte del suministro de alimentos ha estado provista por productores locales, incluidos los productores familiares. Sin embargo, la imposición de políticas de ajuste promovidas por gobiernos de corte liberal pone en riesgo la continuidad y eficiencia de los mismos.
Los programas de agroecología, huerta familiar que tienen resultados similares también están en peligro por las políticas de vaciamiento del Estado. En países en desarrollo, la importancia de la continuidad de políticas públicas inclusivas que garanticen la universalidad en el goce de derechos se hace particularmente patente cuando se considera el caso de los sistemas alimentarios y la seguridad alimentaria y nutrición.
https://aphrc.org/blogarticle/school-feeding-programs-in-kenya/
https://www.argentina.gob.ar/capital-humano/familia
Anexos
- Sistema alimentario
Cuando hablamos de sistemas alimentarios nos referimos al conjunto de actividades involucradas en la producción, procesamiento, transporte, consumo y gestión de los residuos de los alimentos. El concepto de seguridad alimentaria según la FAO, existe seguridad alimentaria “cuando todas las personas tienen en todo momento el acceso físico, social y económico a alimentos suficientes, inocuos y nutritivos que satisfacen sus necesidades y preferencias alimentarias para llevar una vida activa y sana”. Se trata de una condición previa del ejercicio pleno del derecho a la alimentación. No obstante, el propio concepto de seguridad alimentaria no es un concepto jurídico en sí mismo, no impone obligaciones a los interesados ni les otorga derechos.
2. Soberanía Alimentaria
Es el derecho de los pueblos, comunidades y países a definir sus propias políticas y estrategias sostenibles de producción, distribución y consumo de alimentos que aseguren el derecho a la alimentación para toda la población, basada en la producción local y en la cultura propia.
1. Derecho a la Alimentación: Asegurar que todos tengan acceso a alimentos adecuados.
2. Producción Local: Priorizar la producción local de alimentos sobre la importación.
3. Control Local: Comunidades y pequeños productores tienen el control sobre la producción y distribución de alimentos.
4. Justicia Social: Abogar por condiciones justas para los trabajadores del sector alimentario y protección del medio ambiente.
- Enfatiza el derecho de los pueblos a controlar sus propios sistemas alimentarios.
- Es una perspectiva más política y cualitativa, centrada en quién controla y decide sobre la producción y distribución de alimentos.
- Promueve la justicia social, la equidad y la sostenibilidad ambiental.
- Se opone a la dependencia excesiva de las importaciones y las grandes corporaciones agroalimentarias.
https://nyeleni.org/IMG/pdf/DeclNyeleni-es.pdf
More information and photos please find in the attahed file.
References:
[1] Un tipo de desequilibrio económico que como organización constatamos particularmente en la zona de Bandundu (oeste de la RD Congo) es la estructura profundamente injusta de distribución de beneficios entre productores, elaboradores, agentes de transporte y comercializadores. Los campesinos, que en cuanto a las condiciones materiales de producción agroalimentaria son los principales agentes, reciben la menor parte de beneficios, quedando bajo el umbral de la pobreza. Los mayores beneficios son captados por los sectores de comercialización en los centros urbanos. La falta de cooperativas locales y de políticas nacionales que promuevan el campesinado local tiene como efecto un profundo desequilibrio que hace a los sistemas alimentarios nacionales más vulnerables.
[2] En el mismo contexto de la RDC, un caso de desequilibrio de poder es el que se da entre la producción piscícola y avícola local y el ingreso de pescado y pollo congelado de origen marroquí, chino o centro europeo (Polaco para el caso del pollo) que presupone largas cadenas de transporte con los consecuentes efectos sobre el calentamiento global (altas emisiones de eqCo) y métodos no-durables de pesca que están amenazando seriamente la biodiversidad marítima. Una vez más este desequilibrio está profundamente ligado no sólo a la falta de “competitividad” de los productores locales sino también a una desregulación estructural del sistema alimentario a nivel nacional y global. Más aún, a nivel nacional, la elaboración y suministro de productos que aportan diversidad en la alimentación están a menudo en manos de capitales extranjeros, profundizando así el desequilibrio entre los productores locales (población autóctona) y los capitales extranjeros
[3] https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/Global%20Indicator%20Framework_A.RES.71.313%20Annex.Spanish.pdf
[4] Los factores ligados a esta serie de indicadores incluyen la capacidad de las comunidades campesinas de comercializar sus productos de una manera justa pero van más allá de ello: el acceso a la educación los servicios fundamentales como agua, salud, hábitat) son determinantes en el mejoramiento de la calidad de vida y en la decisión de una familia rural de quedarse en este medio o de migrar.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments and feedback during this open consultation period on Building Resilient Food Systems- Scope of the report. We have gathered the inputs from specialist in various areas and our suggestions are meant to be constructive.
Key points:
1.- We suggest narrowing the scope of the report.
2.- Start by adopting the FAO definition of resilience
3.- Take the SOFI 2021 report on resilience as a foundation. Update information, identify gaps and new needs and elaborate on best practices and case studies.
4.- Build on this report in gaps and areas such as tools to measure resilience.
5.- Integrate gender and an intersectional lens throughout the report. Gender and social inequalities are deeply entrenched within our global agrifood systems.
We have made further comments following the guiding questions provided. Attached
We look forward to continuing to collaborate with the development of this report.
Thank you/merci
Catalina Canas- GLOBAL AFFAIRS CANADA
Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments and feedback during this open consultation period on Building Resilient Food Systems- Scope of the report. We have gathered the inputs from specialist in various areas and our suggestions are meant to be constructive.
Key points:
1.- We suggest narrowing the scope of the report.
2.- Start by adopting the FAO definition of resilience
3.- Take the SOFI 2021 report on resilience as a foundation. Update information, identify gaps and new needs and elaborate on best practices and case studies.
4.- Build on this report in gaps and areas such as tools to measure resilience.
5.- Integrate gender and an intersectional lens throughout the report. Gender and social inequalities are deeply entrenched within our global agrifood systems.
We have made further comments following the guiding questions provided.
We look forward to continuing to collaborate with the development of this report.
1.- Different ways of defining resilience :
We define resilience according to FAO definition: Agri-food systems’ resilience is the capacity over time to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt, recover and transform in the face of foreseen or unforeseen shocks, stresses and disruptions, so that agri-food systems can contribute to food security and nutrition, decent livelihoods and incomes for agri-food systems’ actors.
Main types of vulnerabilities:
- Rural women are the most affected by poverty, food insecurity, biodiversity loss and climate change, and agriculture is their primary source of income. In rural areas of developing countries, women not only produce most of the food consumed locally, but they also have critical roles in the food system, from management of land and other productive resources, care of crops and livestock, collecting and preserving agricultural biodiversity including seeds, processing and selling food, preparing nutritious meals for their families to fetching water and fuel. Women are also critical to the development and maintenance of social capital within rural community life and agri-food systems. Despite these vital contributions, many women, in particular smallholder women farmers, face diverse challenges including, among others, mobility restrictions, gender-based violence, high illiteracy rates, unpaid care responsibilities, limited decision-making powers, biased legal and financial systems that prevent them from owning land, and difficulties in accessing loans due to gender and social norms or lack of collateral. All of these barriers contribute to increased vulnerability to shocks and stressors for women and girls as well as other groups in vulnerable situations
- Agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate change and biodiversity loss. Climate-change related changes in precipitation patterns, temperatures, extreme weather events, and increased pests and diseases are likely to lead to reduced crop and livestock productivity. Biodiversity loss can have significant impacts on food production, affecting crop yields, soil health, nutrient cycling, pest control, and other ecosystem services that support agricultural productivity. Over 75% of global food crop types rely on animal pollination and many of these pollinators are threatened by habitat loss and other factors associated with biodiversity loss. These shocks and stressors linked to climate change and biodiversity loss can reduce productivity and yields undermine farmer livelihoods, increase food prices and reduce access to nutritious food, particularly in regions where food insecurity is already prevalent.
- Low soil fertility and mismanagement of soils, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, limits agricultural productivity and nutritional content of food, exacerbates variability in crop and livestock productivity, and increases vulnerability of farmers to shocks.
- Water scarcity and lack of access to water in agriculture are strong determinants of poverty. Agriculture accounts for 70% of global freshwater withdrawals, and more than 90% of its consumptive use. Rainfed agriculture remains the predominant production system in many poor countries, yet climate change is increasing the variability of rainfall and causing increasing frequency and severity of drought and flash flood events. The absence and weakness of transboundary and sub-national cooperation agreements for watershed management contribute to sub-optimal investment conditions for improved irrigation, monitoring and social unrest and conflict between different user groups (e.g., farmers and pastoralists; upstream and downstream consumers).
- Economic shocks can elevate food prices, reducing the purchasing power of those living in poverty, increasing poverty rates, malnutrition and hunger. Supply chain disruptions following COVID-19 restrictions, and reduced exports through the Black Sea immediately following the invasion of Ukraine have created additional volatility to already high food prices. The effects are felt most acutely by consumers living in poverty and by those living in vulnerable situations who spend a higher share of their incomes on food. Women are also often more vulnerable to food shortages and scarcity conditions in crisis situations like the pandemic because they have less access to resources, opportunities and information.
- Weak governance within public and private institutions can leave agri-food systems, and the individuals within them, vulnerable to shocks and stressors. Preparedness and early warning mechanisms rely on inclusive governing bodies that can make, implement, monitor, and enforce decisions that promote multi-stakeholder engagement, diversity and inclusion of marginalized groups, and strengthen accountability and resilience at household, institutional and national levels. A human rights-based approach to international assistance is key to addressing multiple and intersecting vulnerabilities in the food security space. This approach is also key to ensuring participation and inclusion of stakeholders at the early stages of an intervention.
- Many agricultural risk management tools are not available or not well-suited to the needs of smallholder farmers. In many places, risk management tools like credit, guarantee funds, and agricultural or crop insurance are not available for farmers or financial institutions due to high transaction costs, under development of markets, low level of financial or human resources, lack of inclusive governance, or market failures. Where they do exist, they are often not designed in a way to be accessible by smallholder farmers due to limited land, resources, information or assets, a challenge that is more pronounced for women farmers.
- One of the potential consequences of the different types of vulnerabilities facing food supply chains for the consumer as the ultimate food systems actor is increased risk of malnutrition.
- Inequities and power imbalances:
- Gender inequalities have been exacerbated by several crises and increasingly undermining nutrition for the most vulnerable women and adolescent girls, resulting in the rise in acute malnutrition. Often, women-owned enterprises face gender inequality barriers, such as unequal access to financial resources and operational resources such as seeds, mechanical equipment and extension services. Poverty and income inequity continue to affect resilient Food Security and Nutrition, especially for those groups facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability. These inequities continue to contribute to the disruption of the systems that support access to nutritious foods and diets, deliver essential services necessary for good nutrition, and promote positive feeding and care practices.
- What resilience frameworks are there that should be explored?
- Theory of Change Framework for Nutrition Resilience
- Determinants, assets and skills that lead to resilience at different scales (household, community, national, regional)
- Financial support measures, such as short-term, low-interest loans, to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises to enhance resilience of food supply chains.
- Flexibility to leverage nutrition interventions across multiple systems such as health and education systems for Iron-Folic Acid Supplementation for adolescents. Food systems and social protection services to scale-up production and distribution of fortified foods.
- Prioritizing the most vulnerable groups, particularly through the social protection system
- Expanding and strengthening local capacities and empowering communities, e.g., community health workers training caregivers to screen for child wasting at home to improve early detection of child wasting and thus initiate treatment as soon as possible.
- Shared management information systems, innovative technologies, collaborative platforms and swift decision-making.
- How Nutrition Resilience can be measured at different scales:
- Measurement of Nutrition Resilience can be at the level of impacts and outcomes. For impact Measurement, it has been recommended to use stunting as a start and end point impact resilience indicator and variability of wasting trends as a regular resilience impact indicator. For the outcome measurement, it is recommended that more nutrition-sensitive outcome objectives and indicators be incorporated into interventions of sectors allied to nutrition, such as agriculture, WASH, education, social protection, etc.
- Indicators that could be used to measure nutrition resilience
- Minimum Dietary Diversity Score
- Wasting/Acute malnutrition screening for children
- Weak points in global food systems in terms of ensuring resilience of nutrition
- Food systems are failing in their primary goal of supporting human nutrition, and this is evident by the result of most country currently affected by at least one form of malnutrition. According to Woods et al[1], the weak points in global food systems are (i) food insecurity, (ii) interconnected environmental and nutritional decline, (iii) Food Systems illiteracy and Inequity and governance. When these challenges are reframed through the resilience lens, the following four transformative pathways are identified for sustainable and resilient food systems: (i) Nurtured diversity at all scales, (ii) managed connectivity, (iii) equitable distribution of power and benefits, and (iv) increased traceability and transparency.
- [1] Wood, A., Queiroz, C., Deutsch, L. et al. Reframing the local–global food systems debate through a resilience lens. Nat Food 4, 22–29 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00662-0
To assess resilience of the project and resilience through the project during the different stages of project development, the World bank Resilience Rating System (RRS) is recommended. The Resilience Rating System (RRS) offers clear assessment and reporting criteria to track resilience in projects, whether by their design or by the tools, institutions, and infrastructure they provide to address climate change impacts, economic shocks, and natural disasters. This methodology is versatile and can be applied to various investments, including those in the private sector. The RRS evaluates resilience in two key aspects: the resilience of project design and resilience through project outcomes. For more info: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/701011613082635276/pdf/Summary.pdf
For ex-ante and ex-post resilience measurement the first approach uses the Resilience Index Measurement Analysis (RIMA) which is a multidimensional household-level resilience framework for food insecurity. The Resilience Capacity Index is measured using the RIMA developed by FAO. RIMA was created using the following definition of resilience: “The capacity of a household to bounce back to a previous level of well-being (for instance food security) after a shock”. RIMA measures household resilience to food insecurity using four key pillars: Access to Basic Services; Assets; Social Safety Nets; and Adaptive Capacity (FAO-RIMA II, 2016).
Regarding the use of the RIMA-Resilience Capacity Index for project monitoring and evaluation, please find the links to:
- The RIMA Short Questionnaire: It allows collecting the minimum information needed for estimating the household Resilience Capacity Index through short interviews;
- The Shiny RIMA web application: It allows users to estimate household resilience under the RIMA II framework easily and rapidly;
- An example of using RIMA to assess the effects of the Pro-Resilience Action (“Building resilience and promoting durable solutions in Lower Shabelle” project) in Somalia.
The second approach uses Resilience Capacity Score (RCS), a subjective household-level resilience metric borrowed from World Food Programme (WFP).
The RCS is a pilot indicator under consideration for the Corporate Results Framework 2022 – 2025 (CRF) as part of measuring United Nations’ World Food Programme’s contributions to the Changing Lives Agenda. The RCS indicator measures a household’s perception of their resilience capacities to generic or country specific shocks and stressors. This indicator specifically refers to four kinds of resilience capacities (anticipatory, absorptive, adaptive, transformative) and five kinds of livelihood capitals (human, financial, social, political, and informational) that support the different resilience capacities (WFP, 2022). The RCS is based on the Subjectively Evaluated Resilience Score (SERS) and WFP’s Climate Resilience Capacity Score (CRCS) and consists therefore of a subjective approach to resilience measurement.
International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) commissioned by USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security to map the evidence on Resilience and Food Security
2.- Understanding what we must be prepared for – the nature of shocks
Types of shock:
- Nutrition focus: Conflicts, erratic weather patterns, earthquakes, droughts, floods, food price spikes, financial shock, biological/medical shocks such as emerging diseases and contaminated foods continue to be very relevant to food systems and will continue to negatively impact food security and nutrition if not properly mitigated. Another potential shock is that of technology as a cyber attach could have high impact on computerised systems that are integral to the production, distribution, and supply of nutritious food.
- The impact of gender and equity issues, structural approaches, such as food safety regulations or tariffs, mobilization of public and private sector actors facilitating relationships to improve markets. regulations on processing, storage and packaging, and regulatory approaches to financing on FSN and food systems have been identified in literature to be under-researched.
Impact on resilience programming
- Focus on Nutrition: Resilience strengthening initiatives must focus deliberately on improving women and children’s nutritional status through nutrition sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions to ensure sustainable improvements in human capital and well-being[1]. These interventions should specifically account for the varying nutritional impact of shocks and stresses on nutritionally vulnerable populations (e.g., women, adolescent girls, and children).
- There is still a major need to examine the relationship between resilience capacities and nutritional status more closely. Resilience-strengthening initiatives aimed at reducing nutritional vulnerability must measure and monitor nutritional status, and the ability of individuals and households to maintain nutritional status in the face of shocks and stresses.
Policy changes needed
- Policies that incorporate multi-level nutrition monitoring as a key component of adaptive management should be adopted. These should integrate nutritional indicators in frequent monitoring and early warning systems to ensure that the threat of acute malnutrition is monitored and managed effectively. Also, integration of monitoring nutritional status by families into country, region, project level policy and program design. Furthermore, incorporating nutritional indicators as accountability criteria to incentivize community management committees.
- Policies that incorporate a stronger focus on women and adolescent girls should be adopted, and implemented. As women and girls are often the most severely impacted by shocks and stressors, a programmatic focus on women’s own health, and protecting the women and girls from the impacts of shocks and stressors should be included. women’s financial empowerment and decision-making should be supported. Linkages between women’s savings groups and nutrition programming should be improved upon. Market access for women and girls should be improved while gender and social norms related to women’s diet, caring, and feeding practices should be addressed to strengthen transformative capacities.
- Diverse agricultural and livestock production activities to improve the diets of women and children all year-round should be employed. Including design of strategies to address the social and economic barriers women and their families face in accessing and consuming safe, nutritious foods. Production and consumption of foods that fill critical gaps in local diets, particularly for women of reproductive age and children under two should be promoted. Shock-appropriate, marketable livestock assets to support income generation and ensure availability of critical animal source foods and diets should also be promoted.
-
Policies to promote the integration of programs addressing the immediate causes of malnutrition with other activities such as strengthening health practices and primary health care at the household and community level. Supporting Ministries of Health efforts to achieve full immunization coverage of children for common childhood diseases (which reduce appetite and burn calories and other nutrients) and caretakers for pandemic infectious diseases. Incorporating social protection interventions that can improve nutrition outcomes, including targeted cash transfers to increase access to nutritious foods through community-based nutrition programs, maternal and child health programs, education, or childcare. Ensuring the capacity to rapidly scale up critical nutrition components e.g., community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) and improved coverage of social safety net programs in response to shocks. Integrating Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programming, open-defecation elimination, and control for environmental enteropathy as needed.
- [1] Mock, N. & Jennings, J. (2022). Nutrition and Resilience: Discussion Brief on Better Integration of Nutrition into Resilience-Strengthening Programs. Washington, DC: Resilience, Evaluation, Analysis and Learning (REAL) Associate Award
4.- Existing programmes and policies to promote resilience – a gap analysis of current strategies and recommendations:
Under the Feminist International Assistance Policy, Canada takes a human rights-based approach to international assistance. This approach aims to enhance the resilience of project outcomes by focusing on capacity building of rights-holders (beneficiaries) to know and claim their human rights. It also focuses on building the capacity of duty-bearers (state actors) to respect, protect, and fulfill their human rights obligations towards project beneficiaries.
Note that Canada has a new Resilient Agri-Food Systems Framework. The Framework provides new strategic, policy and technical guidance to improve Canada’s international development agri-food systems programming, policy and advocacy to build resilience to future crises. It complements and reinforces Canada‘s Feminist International Assistance Policy. The Framework promotes evidence-based food systems approaches and shows how programs can support multiple development objectives, including the empowerment of women, gender-transformative change, reduction of climate change and biodiversity loss, reducing malnutrition, and supporting inclusive economic growth. Through this Framework, Canada seeks to strengthen agri-food systems’ resilience to climate, agronomic, economic and conflict shocks at various scales to deliver gender-responsive outcomes. It focuses on four paths of action that are defined from inclusive participatory processes and evidence-based analysis of high impact interventions:
1. Climate-smart Agriculture to ensure the sustainable production of sufficient, nutritious food that is biodiversity-friendly, adapted to future climate change pressures and supports lower carbon development pathways.
2. Sustainable Agri-Food Value Chains to build diversity and resilience along value chains to boost incomes and ensure stable supply of sustainable, affordable and nutritious foods during and after shocks.
3. Inclusive Food Systems Governance to enhance the enabling environment for institutional and government action and inclusion of marginalized actors in decision-making processes that support, inform and invest in agri-food resilience activities.
4. Productive Safety Nets to help farmers living in poverty and vulnerable situations to maintain their farming and agricultural business activities during and following shocks.
5. Share recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the questions listed above.
UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), Standing Together for Nutrition (ST4N), Micronutrient Forum (MNF). Global resilience report: Safeguarding the nutrition of vulnerable children, women, families and communities in the context of polycrisis. Washington, DC: MNF; 2024
Wood, A., Queiroz, C., Deutsch, L. et al. Reframing the local–global food systems debate through a resilience lens. Nat Food 4, 22–29 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00662-0
Mapping the evidence on Resilience and Food Security https://www.3ieimpact.org/research/mapping-evidence-resilience-and-food-security
Mock, N. & Jennings, J. (2022). Nutrition and Resilience: Discussion Brief on Better Integration of Nutrition into Resilience-Strengthening Programs. Washington, DC: Resilience, Evaluation, Analysis and Learning (REAL) Associate Award
D. General Comments
Comment/ suggestion
Source
Please provide a link to support your comment
Given that nutrition is both an input to, and an output of strengthened resilience, increased effort should be made for resilience-building interventions to be nutrition-sensitive. For instance, reducing malnutrition is vital to strengthening resilience, while households that are least resilient are most affected by shocks and therefore face the greatest risk of malnutrition.
UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), Standing Together for Nutrition (ST4N), Micronutrient Forum (MNF). Global resilience report: Safeguarding the nutrition of vulnerable children, women, families and communities in the context of polycrisis. Washington, DC: MNF; 2024
Upon reviewing the document, there is one glaring gap – that is “the importance or critical nature of Gender Equality in building a resilient food system” or “the analysis of gender inequality and food insecurity, and the disproportionate impact of gender inequality on women and girls” in the report - Building resilient food systems. FIAP is the guiding policy of GAC development assistance/IA with Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls in all their Diversity as the core action area and cross-cutting theme. This is not just for GAC but gender equality is integrated in the entire SDGs (why gender equality matters across all SDGs).
Why gender equality matters across all SDGs - UNW
- Primer on Gender-Responsive Parliamentary Work on Food Security – Parl Americas
- The food crisis and the impact on women and girls – FAO presentation to UNW
- Guidelines for measuring gender transformative change in the context of food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture – FAO, WFP, IFAD, CGIAR
- Report on the main decisions, outcomes and policy recommendations of the Committee on World Food Security – UNGA 79th Session 2024
- Gender and Food Security – USAID report to OECD
- Recognizing women’s unpaid care work for food security and climate resilience - IDRC
- How Gender Equality Can Transform Food Systems and Protect Us From Climate Change Disasters – CGIAR
- Gender equality, women’s empowerment, and food systems – IFPRI
- Harnessing nutritional resilience for food security and gender equality – Observer Research Foundation
- Gender and Food Systems: Overcoming Evidence Gaps – OECD
- Securing sustainable food systems hinges on gender equality - UN
Dear HLPE-FSN Secretariat,
Please find in attachment some inputs from a group of scientists collaborating on the CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience. We hope these contributions will be useful in the development of this important report. We look forward to the opportunity to further collaborate on this significant endeavor.
Kind regards
Prof Andy Challinor, University of Leeds
Marieke Veeger, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CGIAR
Dr. Lucas Rutting, CGIAR
Dr. Jon Hellin, International Rice Research Institute, CGIAR
Different ways of defining resilience:
- How do different groups define resilience (e.g. Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations, the scientific / peer reviewed literature, other key rights holders)?
Questions around whose resilience are key. How do smallholder/Indigenous communities define resilience? Resilience of what, i.e., how do they define the system (who are part of that, for example)? And to what, i.e., what do they consider threats/challenges? And how do these differ from globally dominant perspectives in international agricultural research? This touches on work on critical systems theory (CST) (Rutting et al, 2021).
An established body of work on resilience places emphasis, on the one hand, on recovery and return time following a disturbance, and, on the other, on how much a system can be disturbed and still persist without changing its function (Miller et al. 2010). However, resilience can encompass both adaptation within current development processes, and new development trajectories when older systems are no longer appropriate. Boyd et al., (2008) argue that “a resilience lens may assist development policy to consider pathways towards more successful livelihood transformations in the face of climate change”.
A first step is to unpack the differences between the social and ecological dimensions of resilience. Folke et al. (2010) argue that resilience can be seen variously, in terms of persistence, adaptability and transformability. Persistence is the capacity of a socio-ecological system to change and adapt while remaining within critical thresholds. In the case of adaptability, the system adjusts responses to changing internal processes and external drivers in ways that allow for development along the current trajectory. Transformability is the capacity to transcend thresholds and move into novel development trajectories. In the context of climate change, a resilience approach is one that transforms undesirable socioeconomic states, such as inequalities in power and income, into more desirable ones without undermining the integrity of ecological systems that humans depend on (Fisher, Brondizio, and Boyd 2022).
References
Hellin, J., E. Fisher, M. Taylor, S. Bhasme, and A. M. Loboguerrero. 2023. Transformative adaptation: from climate-smart to climate-resilient agriculture. CABI Agriculture and Bioscience 4(1):30.
Boyd, Emily, Henny Osbahr, Polly J Ericksen, Emma L Tompkins, and Maria Carmen. 2008. “Resilience and ‘ Climatizing’ Development : Examples and Policy Implications,” 390–396. doi:10.1057/dev.2008.32.
Fisher, Eleanor, Eduardo Brondizio, and Emily Boyd. 2022. “Critical Social Science Perspectives on Transformations to Sustainability.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 55. Elsevier B.V.: 101160. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101160.
Folke, Carl, Stephen R. Carpenter, Brian Walker, Marten Scheffer, Terry Chapin, and Johan Rockström. 2010. “Resilience Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability.” Ecology and Society 15 (4). doi:10.5751/ES-03610-150420.
Miller, Fiona, Henny Osbahr, Emily Boyd, Frank Thomalla, Sukaina Bharwani, Gina Ziervogel, Brian Walker, et al. 2010. “Resilience and Vulnerability : Complementary or Conflicting Concepts ?” Ecology and Society 15 (3).
Rutting, Lucas, Joost Vervoort, Heleen Mees and Peter Driessen. 2021. Participatory scenario planning and framing of social-ecological systems: an analysis of policy formulation processes in Rwanda and Tanzania. Ecology and Society 26(4):20. https://doi.org/10.5751/ ES-12665-260420
- What kind of inequities and power imbalances are present in food systems and how do they affect resilient FSN and especially for those groups facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability?
How does resistance of so-called “vulnerable” communities relate to resilience? Our work as part of the CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience’s Disruptive Seeds project in Guatemala shows how understudied power imbalances relate to land rights and access to water and may affect food security. Farmers and indigenous communities lose land because the government grants private sector actors' access to communal lands for mining, the construction of hydroelectric dams, or the production of palm oil (Veeger et al, 2023). This directly affects smallholders’ food production. They respond with peaceful resistance and legal actions, often met with state violence, but ultimately enabling them to maintain their traditional livelihoods.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 2 report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability highlights the danger that climate responses can inadvertently lead to detrimental impacts upon vulnerable groups (IPCC 2022). Recent scientific studies refer to this outcome as ‘maladaptation’ (Schipper 2022; Eriksen et al. 2021). Climate adaptation projects can reinforce existing vulnerabilities either by promoting adaptation interventions that benefit powerful elites or by transferring risks and exposures between groups rather than alleviating them (Blythe et al. 2018; Schipper 2020). In other cases, actions undertaken in the name of adaptation created new risks and sources of vulnerability, often by neglecting the unintended outcomes of project activities (IPCC 2022; Eriksen et al. 2021). Such maladaptive outcomes often stem from overly technical adaptation programming that is driven by outside objectives and knowledge and insufficiently considers the social and political dimensions of vulnerability (Schipper 2020). Mitigating maladaptation requires a robust consideration of the social contexts and power relations through which agriculture is both researched and practiced.
Even within superficially homogenous farming populations, social distinctions and hierarchies across such target populations greatly shape farmers’ differential ability to successfully adapt to climate change. A fundamental issue with climate responses is that they often underplay social distinctions and divisions within target populations, coupled with how these divisions are underpinned by inequalities bound to local power relations. Socio-economic differences in access to inputs including land, labor, water, and credit can create sharply diverging – and gendered - farmers’ experiences and impacts (Cavanagh et al. 2017).
In one case in southern India (Taylor and Bhasme 2021), a program to expand rainwater harvesting empowered more affluent farmers by building infrastructure on their strategically-placed land. These farmers were able to diversify into higher value vegetable crops while simultaneously selling water to less affluent farmers for a third of their final crop (a form of sharecropping based on water not land). The result was growing inequality between the wealthier and more powerful farmers and marginalized farmers who were unable to benefit from the promotion of rainwater harvesting.
References
Hellin, J., E. Fisher, M. Taylor, S. Bhasme, and A. M. Loboguerrero. 2023. Transformative adaptation: from climate-smart to climate-resilient agriculture. CABI Agriculture and Bioscience 4(1):30.
Blythe, Jessica, Jennifer Silver, Louisa Evans, Derek Armitage, Nathan J. Bennett, Michele Lee Moore, Tiffany H. Morrison, and Katrina Brown. 2018. “The Dark Side of Transformation: Latent Risks in Contemporary Sustainability Discourse.” Antipode 50 (5): 1206–1223. doi:10.1111/anti.12405.
Cavanagh, Connor Joseph, Anthony Kibet Chemarum, Paul Olav Vedeld, and Jon Geir Petursson. 2017. “Old Wine, New Bottles? Investigating the Differential Adoption of ‘Climate-Smart’ Agricultural Practices in Western Kenya.” Journal of Rural Studies 56. Elsevier Ltd: 114–123. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.09.010.
Eriksen, Siri, E. Lisa F. Schipper, Morgan Scoville-Simonds, Katharine Vincent, Hans Nicolai Adam, Nick Brooks, Brian Harding, et al. 2021. “Adaptation Interventions and Their Effect on Vulnerability in Developing Countries: Help, Hindrance or Irrelevance?” World Development 141 (May). The Authors: 105383. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105383.
IPCC. 2022. “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. A. Al.” Cambridge University Press.
Schipper, E. Lisa F. 2020. “Maladaptation: When Adaptation to Climate Change Goes Very Wrong.” One Earth 3 (4). Elsevier Inc.: 409–414. doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2020.09.014.
Schipper, E. Lisa F. 2022. “Catching Maladaptation before It Happens.” Nature Climate Change 12 (July): 2021–2022. doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01416-3.
Taylor, Marcus, and Suhas Bhasme. 2021. “Between Deficit Rains and Surplus Populations: The Political Ecology of a Climate-Resilient Village in South India.” Geoforum 126 (January). Elsevier: 431–440. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.01.007.
- What resilience frameworks are there that should be explored?
Folke C, Carpenter SR, Walker B, Scheffer M, Chapin T, Rockström J (2010) Resilience thinking: Integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecol Soc. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03610-150420
Walker B, Holling CS, Carpenter S., Kiznig A (2004) Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–ecological Systems. Ecol. Soc. 9:
Barrett CB, Constas MA (2014) Toward a theory of resilience for international development applications. PNAS 111:14625–14630
Fisher E, Brondizio E, Boyd E (2022) Critical social science perspectives on transformations to sustainability. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 55:101160
Understanding what we must be prepared for – the nature of shocks:
- What types of shock are more relevant to food systems and which ones are more likely to affect FSN? What type of shocks have been under-researched, especially regarding their impact on FSN and food systems?
Land grabbing by powerful actors can be considered a major shock to smallholder communities. There is also a growing concern about how the energy transition will affect community and farmers' lands.
Additional recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the questions listed above.
Laura N. Arenas-Calle, Julian Ramirez-Villegas, Stephen Whitfield, Andrew J. Challinor, Design of a Soil-based Climate-Smartness Index (SCSI) using the trend and variability of yields and soil organic carbon, Agricultural Systems, Volume 190, 2021, 103086, ISSN 0308-521X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103086.
Arenas-Calle LN, Whitfield S, Challinor AJ. 2019. A Climate Smartness Index (CSI) Based on Greenhouse Gas Intensity and Water Productivity: Application to Irrigated Rice. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 3:105. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00105/full
Barrett CB, Constas MA (2014) Toward a theory of resilience for international development applications. PNAS 111:14625–14630
Blythe, Jessica, Jennifer Silver, Louisa Evans, Derek Armitage, Nathan J. Bennett, Michele Lee Moore, Tiffany H. Morrison, and Katrina Brown. 2018. “The Dark Side of Transformation: Latent Risks in Contemporary Sustainability Discourse.” Antipode 50 (5): 1206–1223. doi:10.1111/anti.12405.
Boyd, Emily, Henny Osbahr, Polly J Ericksen, Emma L Tompkins, and Maria Carmen. 2008. “Resilience and ‘ Climatizing ’ Development : Examples and Policy Implications,” 390–396. doi:10.1057/dev.2008.32.
Cavanagh, Connor Joseph, Anthony Kibet Chemarum, Paul Olav Vedeld, and Jon Geir Petursson. 2017. “Old Wine, New Bottles? Investigating the Differential Adoption of ‘Climate-Smart’ Agricultural Practices in Western Kenya.” Journal of Rural Studies 56. Elsevier Ltd: 114–123. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.09.010.
Challinor Andy J., Adger W. Neil, Benton Tim G., Conway Declan, Joshi Manoj and Frame Dave. 2018. Transmission of climate risks across sectors and borders. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.37620170301. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2017.0301
Challinor, AJ , Arenas-Calles, LN and Whitfield, S (2022) Measuring the Effectiveness of Climate-Smart Practices in the Context of Food Systems: Progress and Challenges. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 6. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.853630/full
Challinor, A. and Benton, T. G. (2021) International dimensions. In: The Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Technical Report [Betts, R.A., Haward, A.B. and Pearson, K.V. (eds.)]. Prepared for the Climate Change Committee, London. https://www.ukclimaterisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CCRA3-Chapter-7-FINAL.pdf
Challinor, A., Adger, W.N., Di Mauro, M., Baylis, M., Benton, T., Conway, D., Depledge, D., Geddes, A., McCorriston, S., Stringer, L., and Wellesley, L. (2016). UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Report: Chapter 7, International Dimensions. Report prepared for the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change, London. https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/UK-CCRA-2017-Chapter-7-International-dimensions.pdf
Eriksen, Siri, E. Lisa F. Schipper, Morgan Scoville-Simonds, Katharine Vincent, Hans Nicolai Adam, Nick Brooks, Brian Harding, et al. 2021. “Adaptation Interventions and Their Effect on Vulnerability in Developing Countries: Help, Hindrance or Irrelevance?” World Development 141 (May). The Authors: 105383. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105383.
Falloon Pete et al. 2022. What do changing weather and climate shocks and stresses mean for the UK food system? Environ. Res. Lett. 17 051001DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac68f9
Fisher E, Brondizio E, Boyd E (2022) Critical social science perspectives on transformations to sustainability. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 55:101160
Fisher, Eleanor, Eduardo Brondizio, and Emily Boyd. 2022. “Critical Social Science Perspectives on Transformations to Sustainability.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 55. Elsevier B.V.: 101160. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101160.
Folke C, Carpenter SR, Walker B, Scheffer M, Chapin T, Rockström J (2010) Resilience thinking: Integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecol Soc. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03610-150420
Folke, Carl, Stephen R. Carpenter, Brian Walker, Marten Scheffer, Terry Chapin, and Johan Rockström. 2010. “Resilience Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability.” Ecology and Society 15 (4). doi:10.5751/ES-03610-150420.
Hellin, J., E. Fisher, M. Taylor, S. Bhasme, and A. M. Loboguerrero. 2023. Transformative adaptation: from climate-smart to climate-resilient agriculture. CABI Agriculture and Bioscience 4(1):30.
IPCC. 2022. “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. A. Al.” Cambridge University Press.
Jennings, S., Challinor, A., Smith, P. et al. Stakeholder-driven transformative adaptation is needed for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa. Nat Food 5, 37–47 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00901-y
Miller, Fiona, Henny Osbahr, Emily Boyd, Frank Thomalla, Sukaina Bharwani, Gina Ziervogel, Brian Walker, et al. 2010. “Resilience and Vulnerability : Complementary or Conflicting Concepts ?” Ecology and Society 15 (3).
Rutting, L., J. M. Vervoort, H. Mees, and P. P. J. Driessen. 2021. Participatory scenario planning and framing of social-ecological systems: an analysis of policy formulation processes in Rwanda and Tanzania. Ecology and Society 26(4):20.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12665-260420
Schipper, E. Lisa F. 2020. “Maladaptation: When Adaptation to Climate Change Goes Very Wrong.” One Earth 3 (4). Elsevier Inc.: 409–414. doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2020.09.014.
Schipper, E. Lisa F. 2022. “Catching Maladaptation before It Happens.” Nature Climate Change 12 (July): 2021–2022. doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01416-3.
Taylor, Marcus, and Suhas Bhasme. 2021. “Between Deficit Rains and Surplus Populations: The Political Ecology of a Climate-Resilient Village in South India.” Geoforum 126 (January). Elsevier: 431–440. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.01.007.
Veeger, M.; Rutting, L.; von Breymann, R. (2023) Semillas disruptivas para imaginar un sistema alimentario justo y sostenible en Guatemala. Informe de Taller. Iniciativa CGIAR sobre resiliencia climática, ClimBeR. Panajachel, Guatemala. 69 p. https://alliancebioversityciat.org/publications-data/semillas-disruptiv…
Walker B, Holling CS, Carpenter S., Kiznig A (2004) Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–ecological Systems. Ecol. Soc. 9:
Other
The integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED) provides integrated evidence to shape policies towards climate-smart nutrition security: https://ifeed.leeds.ac.uk
Contributors
Prof Andy Challinor, University of Leeds
Marieke Veeger, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CGIAR
Dr. Lucas Rutting, CGIAR
Dr. Jon Hellin, International Rice Research Institute, CGIAR
- Which and where are the weak points in global food systems in terms of ensuring the resilience of food security and nutrition?
If we refer to Figure 2 of the following article, you can see the "Environmental impact of the current diet and alternative dietary scenarios based on a mass-based functional unit" it is a reflection of the lower resilience of animal sourced foods versus the resilience of plant based foods. Clearly we can see the lower GHG of plant based foods, including meat replacements.
Centering our food sources around a non resilient supply chain, which is becoming increasingly unpredictable, as a result of the climate crisis, and isn't sustainable. Resilient supply chains should include expanding and slowly moving the supply chain to more innovative options
The Vegan Society: Building Resilient Food Systems
A critical missing element in the scope for the ‘Building Resilient Food Systems’ investigation and report is:
Consistent Global North leadership in the transition to plant-based food systems.
At every level of Government and policy-making, this must now be explicitly, constantly emphasized:
There is an urgent, overdue necessity for consistent leadership in the Global North in making the vital, rapid shift towards sustainable, fair, plant-based food systems and away from our dependence upon industrialised exploitation of animals (The Vegan Society 2022).
The stated aim of the “Building resilient food systems” process is help achieve the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) vision – ‘for all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all ’ – as well as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs ) 2 – ‘End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’ - and an array of other SDGs, including SDGs 8 (economic growth), 10 (inequality), 12 (sustainability), 14 (marine environment) and 15 (terrestrial environment).
Transitioning to plant-based agriculture, aquaculture and food systems in the Global North is crucial for achieving all these aims, alongside the many other valuable elements of resilient food systems which are proposed in the report draft scope.
Research in the UK suggests that many current farmers of animals are open to transitioning to plant-based methods to create a more sustainable food system, with the right support (Thriving Beyond the Protein Challenge 2022, Planting Value In Our Food System 2021).
In response to some of the specific guiding questions of this consultation:
Q1c: What kind of inequities and power imbalances are present in food systems and how do they affect resilient FSN and especially for those groups facing multidimensional and intersectional aspects of inequality and vulnerability?
The Global North and especially, our animal farming industry lobby, has disproportionate influence in our current food system.
For example, InfluenceMap demonstrates how reveals the the European animal use industries are investing heavily in lobbying to disrupt EU policies attempting to transition to sustainable food systems less reliant upon industrial-scale farming of animals (InfluenceMap 2024). Similar tactics have been revealed by studies in the USA (Lazarus 2021).
They use their power to directly work against fair, sustainable, culturally appropriate plant-based food security, which would benefit us all but particularly those facing ‘multidimensional and intersectional’ food insecurity. Yet, it is rarely acknowledged that amongst the many ‘inequities and power imbalances .. present in food systems’, the power of leaders and influencers in the Global North - policy-makers, large company owners and executives, large farmers, and animal farming industry lobbyists - vastly exceed the power of plant-based food system practitioners, of people in Global South, of non-human animals, and of their would-be allies.
The evidence to support plant-based global food security has been accumulating over decades. This evidence has been documented from at least 1971, when Frances Moore Lappé in ‘Diet for a Small Planet’ argued that basing global food policy on large-scale farming of animals was causing both hunger and environmental damage, to ‘Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems’ in 2019. Industrial-scale farming of animals, which relies upon feed grown on land that could grow food for human consumption, arguably causes the greatest range of harms including to people living with food insecurity, free-living animals and animals in farming (Hampton et al. 2021).
Yet, the disproportionate power of industrial farmers of animals and their supporters continues to drive expansion of their model, eroding the resilience of our food and nutrition systems, especially for those ‘living with multidimensional and intersectional’ food insecurity. The 2023 Global Hunger Index - a peer-reviewed annual report, jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe – concludes that global hunger remains too high, and progress on reducing hunger has largely stalled.
Research in the UK suggest that many current farmers of animals are open to transitioning to plant-based methods to create a more sustainable food system, with the right support (Thriving Beyond the Protein Challenge 2022, Planting Value In Our Food System 2021). This must include moving Global North Government subsidies away from less resilient industrial-scale agriculture, towards sustainable plant-based methods.
At the same time, Global North countries need to be systematically reducing demand for unsustainable food, by supporting the transition the sustainable, healthy, culturally appropriate plant-based diets. This can be, for example, through improved Global North public procurement policies and public health campaigns, and re-targetting subsidies. Denmark for example is showing leadership in this area with The Danish Action Plan for Plant-based Foods (2023).
Transitioning away from industrial-scale farming of animals will reduce both the reliance of Global North countries upon food imported from regions already experiencing serious food insecurity, and our contribution to the accelerating climate crisis. The UK Food Security research network emphasises that – because we currently import over 10% of our food from Global South regions – we are decreasing their food system resilience due to the embodied water, fertility, finance, labour and energy resources as well as the food value (BBSRC 2024). In temperate zones, we will then be able to revert former extensive woodlands back from pasture to managed tree cover and use all the arable land to grow food instead of feed for industrially farmed animals. This could sequester carbon equivalent to up to 12 years of temperate country carbon dioxide emissions, based upon the UK case study (Harwatt & Hayek 2019). Both through sparing Global South food resources, and reducing our contribution to carbon dioxide emissions, this will reduce the stress upon those already living with food insecurity and extreme climate events.
Policymakers must resist the power and influence of Global North industrial-scale farming of animals and its supporters, and instead, urgently promote the transition to a plant-based food system and stop blocking the Global South and plant-based food system practitioners who are already reducing inequality and food insecurity.
Q1f: How can resilience be evaluated and/or measured at different scales (household, community, national, regional)?
Industrial-scale farming of animals always tends to reduce resilience and cause disproportionate harm, as is currently the case in the Global North (Hampton et al. 2021).
This is, firstly, because of the disproportionate use of land, soil fertility, water, energy, finance, food and other vital resources. This use should be evaluated as waste, since we could produce significantly more food calories, protein and other nutrients, in a more resilient plant-based food system, if we moved away from industrial-scale breeding of animals for farming. The United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that, by 2050, in cereal calories alone, we could be losing sufficient to meet the needs of 3.5 billion people per year (UNEP 2009) in this way. Secondly, industrial-scale farming of animals causes disproportionate pollution of air, water and land, and damage to ecosystems. Thirdly, industrial-scale farming of animals is a significant cause of potentially epidemic and pandemic serious diseases such as COVID19, for example due to habitat destruction and over-crowding of animals in industrial farming.
Some key measures we can use to measure resilience are the proportion of calories and protein from, and funds allocated to, industrial-scale farming of animals (including fish) vs. plant-based food at each scale in the Global North.
For example, we need to track how much protein and calories are produced and imported by Global North countries such as the UK, accounting for plant-based protein and calories, industrial-scale animal farming-based protein and calories, and other sources. This will reveal how much protein, calories, and other vital nutrients such as dietary fibre, are lost to the food system at each scale because they are used to feed farmed animals (UNEP 2009 ), thus undermining nutrition and food system resilience and security.
We must also track how Global North Governments are shifting funding away from industrial-scale farming of animals, towards sustainable plant-based methods.
Q1h: Which and where are the weak points in global food systems in terms of ensuring the resilience of food security and nutrition?
We must be explicit about how Global North reliance upon industrial-scale farming of animals is disproportionately harmful, including to the resilience of our global food and nutrition security (Hampton et al. 2021).
These harms are due, for example, to the harms to ecosystems; the risks of serious zoonotic diseases; the disproportionate use of land, water, food, finance, energy and other resources for industrial scale farming of animals; and the calories and protein lost to the food supply chain.
The loss of calories simply from feeding cereals to industrially farmed animals, instead of using the cereals directly as human food, would add net calories to the food system sufficient for the annual needs of hundreds of millions of people (UNEP 2009).
Research in the UK suggest that many current Global North farmers of animals are open to transitioning to plant-based methods to create a more sustainable food system, with the right support (Thriving Beyond the Protein Challenge 2022, Planting Value In Our Food System 2021).
In Alternatives to Commercial Grazing (2020), experienced plant-based farmer Jenny Hall sets out viable temperate climate options for Global North farmers currently reliant on large-scale farming of grazing animals.
Therefore, these ‘weak points’ can significantly be addressed by urgent leadership in the Global North to promote a rapid transition towards sustainable, fair, plant-based food systems (The Vegan Society 2022).
Q2d: Are there ways of enhancing resilience to unknown and unforeseen shocks?
Diverse plant-based food systems in the Global North, which rapidly reduce our reliance upon industrial-scale farming of animals, will enhance resilience to as-yet unknown or unforeseen shocks.
Industrial-scale farming of animals always tends to reduce resilience and cause disproportionate harm (Hampton et al. 2021). For example, the EU-27 ecological footprint is disproportionately due to our food systems, and despite improvements, still significantly exceeds our sustainable regional natural resource capacity (Galli et al. 2023). Plant-based food systems including much increased Global North pulse production for food are vital for resilient global farming and food.
These changes will free up land, water, energy, finance, labour and food resources, including in the Global South, to help provide more options to cope with unforeseen and unknown shocks.
Research in the UK suggest that many current Global North farmers of animals are open to transitioning to plant-based methods to create a more sustainable food system, with the right support (Thriving Beyond the Protein Challenge 2022, Planting Value In Our Food System 2021). This must include moving Global North Government subsidies away from less resilient industrial-scale agriculture, towards sustainable plant-based methods.
Q4a: How are countries preparing for food systems resilience today? What are the main policies and documents that can provide information on these national level plans?
There are a few examples of better practice already underway in countries of the Global North, in the necessary shift towards sustainable, fair, plant-based Global North food systems.
Denmark has made significant national policy and finance commitments to a plant-based food plan, for health, environment and food security reasons. This is set out in Denmark: The Danish Action Plan for Plant-based Foods (2023) for example: “Plant-based foods are the future. .. Denmark — and the rest of the world — has faced several major crises in recent years that have affected our health, environment, climate and food supply. .. Increasing the production and consumption of plant-based foods will help solve these challenges. ..”
The Netherlands has developed, funded and begun to implement plans to reduce the numbers of animals in farming, to cut nitrogen pollution by 50%. However, this programme is currently paused. Much more work in partnership with farmers – such as proposed by The Vegan Society’s 'Grow Green' plant-based farming transition (Planting Value in Our Food System 2021) – is required to meet the needs of farmers who want to move out of farming animals. Global North Governments need to significantly improve our plant-protein food supply chains, including nitrogen-fixing pulse protein crops. This must include investment for farmers to reskill, re-equip and connect to distribution networks so they can make the plant-based transition smoothly.
Canada has a four-decade track-record of consistent investment in plant protein crops including peas, lentils, beans and chickpeas. Canada had only c. 200,000 hectares (ha) of pulses in 1981, which had been expanded to 3.5 million ha – 10% of field crops – by 2021, predominantly using sustainable no-till growing. Canada is now the largest exporter of pulses in the world, and projects up to 40% more hectares of pulse farming by 2030. This work is continuing, with proven results and plans improve locally viable varieties, farmer livelihoods, and sustainable, healthy, culturally appropriate food supply, as well as reduce greenhouse gases and nitrogen pollution (Pulse Canada 2023). Pulse Canada gives national representation to Canadian pulse growers, traders and processors. Canada's International Development Research Centre notes that pulses need up to 20 times less water than the farming of animals, increasing protein food supply resilience and sparing increasingly scarce drinkable water supply.
In 2017, Portugal put into law a requirement for vegan-friendly plant-based meals in all public sector catering (Portugal Lei n.º 11/2017). Surveys by the Portuguese Vegetarian Association (AVP) suggest that more work is needed to ensure all public sector caterers are confidently implementing this provision. There are also policies in Germany, France, Sweden and the USA encouraging the inclusion of pulses in school and other public sector menus.
Since 2019, Scotland has been working towards becoming a ‘Good Food Nation’ , to create a locally-centred, environmentally sustainable, healthy food system that supports flourishing rural as well as urban communities, and respects their international sustainability duties too. Their first concrete step was passing the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act in 2022. Now, Scotland is developing their Good Food Nation implementation plan. At every step, the Scottish Government is emphasising transparent, collaborative, cross-Departmental work so that everyone with a legitimate interest in food in Scotland can be suitably involved. This working philosophy should reduce historic food systems power imbalances, and allow full weight to be given to locally appropriate plant-based food system techniques.
Q4e: What gaps are there in the current portfolio of country adaptation / resilience policies?
Consistent leadership from the Global North - both collectively and on a country-by-country and region-by-region basis - in the shift towards sustainable, fair, plant-based food systems, away from reliance upon industrial-scale farming of animals, is currently missing from the portfolio of policies (The Vegan Society 2022).
Research in the UK suggest that many current Global North farmers of animals are open to transitioning to plant-based methods to create a more sustainable food system, with the right support (Thriving Beyond the Protein Challenge 2022, Planting Value In Our Food System 2021). This must include moving Global North Government subsidies away from less resilient industrial-scale agriculture, towards sustainable plant-based methods.
A rapid transition away from industrial-scale farming of animals is needed to reduce both the reliance of Global North countries upon food imported from regions already experiencing serious food insecurity, and our contribution to the accelerating climate crisis (Harwatt & Hayek 2019).
Sources: Share recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the questions listed above.
Alternatives to Commercial Grazing 2020, A guide for farmers in an age of climate emergency and public goods, Hall J https://www.vegansociety.com/sites/default/files/uploads/Campaigns/Alternatives%20to%20Grazing_0.pdf
BBSRC 2024, The Food Security Challenge: Your Food is Global, https://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/challenge/your-food-is-global/
Denmark: The Danish Action Plan for Plant-based Foods 2023
Overview: https://en.fvm.dk/news-and-contact/focus-on/action-plan-on-plant-based-foods
Detail: https://en.fvm.dk/Media/638484294982868221/Danish-Action-Plan-for-Plant-based-Foods.pdf
Galli et al. 2023 EU-27 ecological footprint was primarily driven by food consumption and exceeded regional biocapacity from 2004 to 2014 Galli et al. Nat Food 4, 810–822 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00843-5
Global Hunger Index 2023, Global Hunger Index: The Power Of Youth In Shaping Food Systems, von Grebmer et al. 2023
https://www.globalhungerindex.org/pdf/en/2023.pdf
Hampton et al. 2021 Animal Harms and Food Production: Informing Ethical Choices. Hampton et al, Animals (Basel). 2021 Apr doi: 10.3390/ani11051225 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8146968/
Harwatt & Hayek 2019, Eating away at climate change with negative emissions: Repurposing UK agricultural land to meet climate goals
https://animal.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Eating-Away-at-Climate-Change-with-Negative-Emissions%E2%80%93%E2%80%93Harwatt-Hayek.pdf
InfluenceMap 2024, The European Meat and Dairy Sector's Climate Policy Engagement How the meat and dairy industry is influencing the EU's agenda to reduce the climate footprint of diets and livestock, 2024
https://influencemap.org/report/The-European-Meat-and-Dairy-Sector-s-Climate-Policy-Engagement-28096
Lazarus 2021, The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers Lazarus, O., McDermid, S. & Jacquet, J. Climatic Change 165, 30 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03047-7
Planting Value In Our Food System 2021, Parts 1 Our Vision & 2 The Research, The Vegan Society & Sunderland University https://www.plantingvalueinfood.org/
Portugal Lei n.º 11/2017: An Act to Establish the Mandatory Existence of a Vegetarian Option on the Menus of Canteens and Public Cafeterias (Estabelece a obrigatoriedade de existência de opção vegetariana nas ementas das cantinas e refeitórios públicos)
https://diariodarepublica.pt/dr/detalhe/lei/11-2017-106886578
Pulse Canada 2023: Pulse Canada Submission on the Canadian Sustainable Agriculture Strategy, 2023
https://pulsecanada.com/news/2023-04-14-submission-on-the-sustainable-agriculture-strategy
Scotland Good Food Nation: https://www.gov.scot/policies/food-and-drink/good-food-nation/
The Netherlands: The National Termination Scheme for Livestock Farming Locations with Peak Load (Lbv-plus) 2023 https://www.onslevendlandschap.nl/maatregelen/landbouw/landelijke-beeindigingsregeling-veehouderij-plus-lbv-plus
The Vegan Society, 2022, Achieving climate goals through plant-based agriculture and food: Policy Briefing for UN FCCC COP27 https://www.vegansociety.com/sites/default/files/uploads/downloads/2022-COP-27-The-Vegan-Society-Policy-Briefing.pdf
Thriving Beyond the Protein Challenge 2022, Thriving Beyond the Protein Transition Farmer Receptiveness to Stockfree Land Management Farmers For Stock-Free Farming https://stockfreefarming.org/home-3/latest-3/survey-report/
UNEP 2009: The environmental food crisis, United Nations Environment Programme 2009
https://www.unep.org/resources/report/environmental-food-crisis
p 27, “Thus, taking the energy value of the meat produced into consideration, the loss of calories by feeding the cereals to animals instead of using the cereals directly as human food represents the annual calorie need for more than 3.5 billion people.”
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Dear colleagues,
Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to such an important and timely report.
Please see the contributions from the FAO's Responsible Fruits Project in the attached document. We remain available should you have any questions or need further information.
Thanks,
María
Contributors: María Hernández Lagana, Michael Riggs and Pascal Liu, Markets and Trade Division, FAO.
- Existing programmes and policies to promote resilience – a gap analysis of current strategies and recommendations:
- Are there current or recent partnerships / initiatives proven to contribute to building resilience? What are the lessons learned?
The Responsible Fruits Project, launched in 2020, exemplifies a recent initiative that has contributed to building resilience in global avocado and pineapple value chains. This project, through its engagement with a dynamic network of value chain actors, has identified key resilience and sustainability challenges and organized activities to address these issues effectively. Some of the main contributions from the project are:
- Identification of resilience and sustainability challenges and opportunities for addressing them: Working with the network of stakeholders, including producers, packers and exporters, their associations, and other value chain businesses, has enabled a comprehensive understanding of the primary challenges facing global avocado and pineapple industries. A resilience assessment has been published. This collaborative approach has been essential in guiding the project's technical work, ensuring the knowledge products and practical tools are demand-driven, targeted and impactful. (See a list of resources below.)
- Risk assessment and mitigation: One of the significant achievements of the project is the heightened awareness and implementation of risk assessments in tropical fruit value chains. By conducting thorough environmental, social and economic risk mapping, value chain actors can proactively identify and mitigate potential negative impacts. This has been facilitated by practical guidance developed under the project, aligning with the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains.
- Capacity development: The project's technical assistance and training on risk-based approaches and measuring carbon and water footprints in pineapple value chains has empowered various stakeholders to adopt sustainable practices. This is critical to minimize environmental and social impacts of production, processing and trade.
- Climate change adaptation and mitigation: Through technical guides on climate change adaptation and carbon and water footprint measurement tools, the project has equipped value chain actors to contribute to climate action goals. These resources help stakeholders not only improve their adaptive capacity to current and future climate hazards, but also take concrete steps to mitigate climate change drivers, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preventing natural resource degradation.
- Collaboration and stakeholder engagement: The success of the Responsible Fruits Project underscores the importance of collaboration among all value chain actors. Engaging a broad group of stakeholders has ensured that the approaches developed are context-specific and effective. This inclusive engagement is crucial for tailoring solutions that address both local and global challenges.
Over the four years of project implementation, there are some important lessons learned. First, multistakeholder collaboration and dialogue are vital to understand and address complex and multifaceted resilience and sustainability challenges. Also, there is a strong need for capacity development, especially for groups that tend to benefit less from global supply chains, including small-scale growers and companies, women and youth. Investing in capacity development ensures that all stakeholders are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to implement sustainable practices effectively and build long-term resilience capacities.
Efforts to improve resilience should include a focus on continuous risk assessment, management and reporting. By implementing risk-based due diligence processes, value chain actors can identify risks and address the risks in a timely manner before they grow bigger. Tracking progress and reporting on results can foster transparency and build trust, while ensuring that the resilience and sustainability actions taken are achieving the intended goals.
Finally, resilience building interventions should always be context specific. Tailoring solutions to specific contexts and engaging a broad range of stakeholders leads to more effective and sustainable outcomes.
Responsible Fruits Project resources:
Our guides and practical tools are available in English, French and Spanish. Responsible Fruits Project webpage https://www.fao.org/markets-and-trade/areas-of-
work/emerging-trends-challenges-and-opportunities/building-responsible-global-value-chains- for-the-sustainable-production-and-trade-of-tropical-fruits
Resilience assessment of avocado and pineapple value chains https://doi.org/10.4060/cc5967en
Responsible business conduct in the avocado industry: a guide for producers and exporters
https://doi.org/10.4060/cd0963en
Responsible business conduct in the pineapple industry: a guide for producers and exporters
(available in July 2024, refer to project webpage)
Adapting to climate change in the tropical fruit industry: a technical guide for avocado producers and exporters https://doi.org/10.4060/cc9309en
Adapting to climate change in the tropical fruit industry: a technical guide for pineapple producers and exporters https://doi.org/10.4060/cc9310en
Introduction to measuring carbon footprints in pineapple value chains (video): www.youtube.com/watch?v=APdrly9YyVs&ab_channel=FoodandAgricultureOrganizationoftheUnit edNations
Introduction to measuring water footprints in pineapple value chains (video): www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1xH69V0q2s&ab_channel=FoodandAgricultureOrganizationoftheUn itedNations
Measuring carbon and water footprints in pineapple value chains – a methodological guide (available in July 2024, refer to project webpage)
Gap analysis to support due diligence in the avocado and pineapple sectors www.fao.org/markets- and-trade/areas-of-work/emerging-trends-challenges-and-opportunities/building-responsible- global-value-chains-for-the-sustainable-production-and-trade-of-tropical-fruits/gap-analysis-tool/
Technical briefs on various resilience-related topics https://www.fao.org/markets-and- trade/publications/en/?news_files=120351
Other resources:
Increasing the resilience of agricultural supply chains https://www.fao.org/markets-and- trade/areas-of-work/emerging-trends-challenges-and-opportunities/agricultural-markets-supply- chains-and-sustainable-development/increaseresilience/en/
OECD-FAO Guidance for responsible agricultural supply chains https://www.fao.org/markets-and- trade/areas-of-work/emerging-trends-challenges-and-opportunities/oecd-fao-guidance-for- responsible-agricultural-supply-chains/en/
OECD-FAO Business Handbook on Deforestation and Due Diligence in Agricultural Supply Chains https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cc6595en
Reducing carbon and water footprints on banana plantations https://www.fao.org/world-banana- forum/projects/reducing-carbon-and-water-footprints-in-banana-plantations/en/
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this report. Suggestions from Fauna & Flora are attached.
Emma Scott
Senior Technical Specialist, Agriculture
Fauna & Flora
1. Different ways of defining resilience :
- How do different groups define resilience (e.g. Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations, the scientific / peer reviewed literature, other key rights holders)?
Ingram, J., et al. "Further concepts and approaches for enhancing food system resilience." Nature Food 4.6 (2023): 440-441.
- Where food systems resilience is defined according to 3 Rs – robustness, recovery & reorientation
Oliver, T.H., et al. "Biodiversity and resilience of ecosystem functions." Trends in ecology & evolution 30.11 (2015): 673-684.
- Definition and metrics of resilience focusing on ecological functioning
- "...the degree to which an ecosystem function can resist or recover rapidly from environmental perturbations, thereby maintaining function above a socially acceptable level. This can be thought of as the ecosystem functions-related meaning of resilience, or alternatively as the inverse of ecological ‘vulnerability’. Resilience in this context is related to the stability of an ecosystem function as defined by its constancy over time, but the approach of using a minimum threshold more explicitly measures deficits of ecological function that impact on human well-being. Note that here we focus on the resilience of individual ecosystem functions, which might be appropriate for policy formulation (e.g., pollination resilience), although ecosystem managers will ultimately want to consider the suite of ecosystem functions supporting essential services in a given location."
- What resilience frameworks are there that should be explored?
Ollivier, Guillaume & Magda, Daniele & Mazé, Armelle & Plumecocq, Gaël & Lamine, Claire. (2018). Agroecological Transitions: What Can Sustainability Transition Frameworks Teach Us? An Ontological and Empirical Analysis. ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY. 23. 10.5751/ES-09952-230205.
- Here the authors adapted the panarchy model of adaptive and resilient change from Gunderson and Holling 2002 to identify paths to transitioning toward more sustainable agriculture systems.
Dear FSN-Moderator:
Subject Matter Expert (Food Loss and Waste Cohort 5)
Seed Scientist (Retd.), University of California, Davis, USA
Former Coordinator of NRNA Americas to Agri Promotion Committee; Asta-Ja RDC-USA; Nepalese Agricultural Professional Association (NAPA)
Building resilient food systems
Contributors:
Peetambar Dahal, Kent Bradford, Pedro Bello, University of California, Davis, USA; Aditya R. Khanal, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Johan van Asbrouck, Shakeel Imran, Rhino Research, Bangkok, Thailand; Irfan Afzal, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad-38040, Pakistan; Keshavulu Kunusoth, President, ISTA and Govt. of Telangana, Hyderabad, Telangana State, India; Filippo Guzzon, Bioversity International, Rome, Italy and Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees, Suva, Fiji; Denise E. Costich, Institute for Genomic Diversity, Cornell University, New York, USA; Luis Barboza, Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica; Muhammad Amir Bakhtavar, MNS University of Agriculture, Multan, Pakistan; Maraeva Gianella, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom; Durga D. Poudel, Asta-Ja USA and University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana, USA; Sarah De Saeger, Centre of Excellence in Mycotoxicology and Public Health, Ghent University, Belgium; Krishna Belbase, United Nations Children’s Fund, New York, USA (Retd.); Ravi Kafle, Dept. of Public Health, Washington State, USA; Meghnath Dhimal, Ministry of Health, Kathmandu, Nepal; Sundar Tiwari, Agriculture and Forestry University, Chitwon, Nepal; Balkrishna Joshi, Krishna Timsina, Nepal Agricultural Research Council, Kathmandu, Nepal.
We presented multidisciplinary dry chain (Bradford et al., 2018) to improve quality of dry products (seed, food/feed). This is a recently emerged concept to improve quality in agrifood systems. It has been appreciated by the Agrilinks, USAID to reduce farm food losses in the developing countries (https://agrilinks.org/post/cold-and-dry-chain-reduce-food-loss-and-waste). Furthermore, several FAO FSN calls have also realized the utility of the dry chain for agrobiodiversity and nutrition, science-policy interface, regional and multistakeholder perspectives on emerging technologies and innovations in agrifood systems (https://www.fao.org/fsnforum/comment/12332; https://www.fao.org/fsnforum/comment/12377); https://www.fao.org/fsnforum/comment/12438; https://www.fao.org/fsnforum/comment/12478).
The ability of the dry chain to protect dry products from adverse effects of high humidity (high moisture content) enables quality storage for prolonged periods. Such storage could be up to several decades for dry seeds. Storage of 50-ton dry corn feed in a barn near Beijing maintained nutrients and quality for 4 years where the quality parameters declined on the 5th year. Growth rate of chicken and meat quality corresponded with maintenance and decline of feed quality parameters. Following initial natural drying, continuous forced aeration and annual fumigation was used to maintain corn quality. However, dry chain needs initial drying to safe humidity levels followed by waterproof packaging to enable climate smart and pesticide-free storage. To face frequent and irregular climates now and in the future, dry chain is an innovative tool to complement food resilience.
Thank you for this opportunity to submit. Comments from Global Dairy Platform are attached as a PDF.
Regards,
Beth Bradley, PhD
Chief Science Officer, Global Dairy Platform
Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments during this open consultation period on Building Resilient Food Systems – scope of the report. These comments are submitted on behalf of Global Dairy Platform (GDP), a non-profit organization whose membership of dairy companies, associations, scientific bodies and other partners collaborate pre-competitively to lead and build evidence on dairy’s role in the diet and show the sector’s commitment to responsible food production.
- Defining A Resilient Food System
In the peer-reviewed literature, a resilient food system is one that prioritizes the health and well- being of both people and the planet, ensuring that all individuals have access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, even in the face of adversity. A resilient food system is one that can withstand and adapt to shocks and stresses, such as climate change, economic downturns, and disease outbreaks, while continuing to provide sufficient, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for the world. Key components of a resilient food system include:
- Diversity: A diverse range of food sources, production methods, and markets that can help mitigate the impacts of shocks and stresses on the food system. This includes promoting biodiversity in agriculture, supporting small-scale farmers, and fostering diverse diets for improved nutrition outcomes.
- Flexibility: A resilient food system is able to adapt quickly to changing conditions, such as shifting climate patterns or market demands. This may involve promoting crop and livestock diversity, supporting innovation in food production and distribution, and fostering adaptive capacity among farmers and consumers.
- Sustainability: A resilient food system is sustainable over the long term, nourishing the world, ensuring the health of ecosystems, the livelihoods of farmers, and the well-being of communities. This includes promoting equitable access to nutritious food for all individuals and sustainable agricultural practices.
- Collaboration: Building public-private partnerships and networks among stakeholders in the food system, including farmers, policymakers, researchers, the food industry, and consumers, can help enhance resilience by sharing knowledge, resources, and best practices, and fostering collective action in response to a changing world.
2. Weak Points in the Global Food System that Threaten Resilience of Food Security and Nutrition
Currently, improvements to the following aspects of the global food system would help enhance food security and nutrition worldwide:
- Access to markets: Small-scale farmers in developing countries often struggle to access and compete in formal markets, leading to lower incomes and poorer nutrition outcomes for themselves and their communities.
- Improved infrastructure and technology: Many farmers, especially in developing countries, lack access to basic infrastructure and modern technologies to improve productivity and reduce losses.
- Affordability: Farmers, particularly in low and middle-income countries, cannot afford the basic infrastructure necessary to improve productivity and reduce losses.
- Stability in global trade policies: Fluctuations in global trade policies and market prices can impact commodity prices and farmer incomes, leading to increased food insecurity and malnutrition in vulnerable populations.
3. Resilience Programming Can Help Ensure Food and Nutrition Security for All
Resilience programming can ensure that a holistic and multi-dimensional approach is taken to ensure food and nutrition security for all individuals. By considering the various dimensions of food security and nutrition, resilience programming can better address the complex challenges and opportunities inherent in building sustainable and resilient food systems that promote the health and well-being of both people and the planet.
When resilience programming considers the goal of improved food and nutrition security for all, it prioritizes interventions that specifically target improving the quality and diversity of diets, ensuring access to essential nutrients, and addressing malnutrition in all its forms. This could include promoting domestic agricultural production and practices that enhance the nutritional value of food, supporting food fortification and supplementation programs, and improving access to nutritious food for vulnerable populations.
This cannot be achieved without considering availability, access, utilization, stability, safety, and cultural acceptability – the pillars of nutritional security. Resilience programming informed by this framework may involve interventions that address each of these pillars, such as:
- promoting sustainable agriculture practices to enhance availability,
- improving market access and income generation strategies to improve access,
- promoting nutrition and safety education and behavior change interventions to encourage utilization, cultural acceptability, and safety,
- implementing social protection programs to enhance stability.
4. Public-Private Partnerships Demonstrated to Have Contributed to Building Resilience The global dairy industry can provide examples of recent partnerships and initiatives demonstrated to contribute to building food system resilience.
Example 1: Dairy Nourishes Africa (DNA), a public-private partnership which leverages the collective strength of Global Dairy Platform as well as community and governmental stakeholders, to drive the accelerated transformation of African dairy industries. DNA takes a market-led, value- chain approach to foster and support activity throughout the dairy ecosystem. DNA has grown consumer demand, driven farmer-allied intermediaries, significantly increased farmer production, enhanced women’s active participation throughout the value chain, improved environmental sustainability, and created a supportive and interconnected operating environment in which the dairy industry can thrive.
DNA launched in Tanzania in 2020, where the objective was to develop scalable and replicable business models. In 2021, DNA leveraged its learnings and expanded into Kenya. Subsequent scaling in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Rwanda are on the horizon.
The DNA initiative was founded by GDP in partnership with Land O’Lakes, Venture37, and Bain & Company. The DNA initiative aims to contribute to the achievement of several SDGs as it relates to ending hunger, providing nutritious food, ending stunting, and promoting sustainable agriculture. To date, the impact of DNA has been the following:
- Reaching more than 10 million consumers through targeted marketing and behavior change campaigns, ensuring access to safe and nutritious foods across East Africa.
- Nourishing more than 40,000 children daily through school feeding programs.
- Supporting 45,000 farmers to enhance on-farm productivity and economics.
- Accelerating and incubating more than 50 leading dairy enterprises through the promotion of innovative, sustainable, and farmer-allied business models.
- Transforming the dairy industry to catalyze long-term outcomes, including:
- 20-35%% reduction in children stunted
- 25-55% meeting WHO recommended dairy intake
- 3 million jobs created within the dairy sector, 70% of which are held by women
- >20% climate mitigation from livestock
Example 2: Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF) is a continuous-improvement framework for the global dairy sector to responsibly align, connect and progress its sustainability efforts in a pre- competitive and collaborative way. The DSF is the sectors sustainability monitoring and reporting facility that reports annually the global dairy sector’s progress against 11 Sustainability Criteria, celebrating improvements and drawing attention to areas where greater attention is necessary.
Members who are implementing, quantifying and providing data on their proactive sustainability efforts are also encouraged to share their solutions and experiences with sector colleagues facing similar challenges. DSF partners with over 1,000 organizations across the public and private sectors, NGOs, and dairy industry associations to provide the annual reporting. It operates on a global level. To-date, the impact of the DSF has been the following:
- A robust monitoring and reporting framework that takes a holistic approach to solving sustainability challenges, while impacting the vast majority of SDGs it specifically contributes to SDG Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.
- Coverage of approximately 30% of total global dairy production, which equates to ~52% of the formal milk market. It quantifies the dairy sector’s aggregate sustainability progress at scale under 11 focused sustainability criteria.
- Requirement of members to approach their mitigation/adaptation/improvement programs through a wide lens allowing the interrelationships between environmental, economic, and social sustainability to be understood, maximize benefits and minimize unintended consequences.
- Development of a pre-competitive framework with a range of criteria focused platforms that has encouraged members to connect and share solutions and have increased the speed at which the sector can deliver impactful outcomes.
- Information sharing and progress reporting that has inspired the dairy value chain to increasingly invest energy and effort in addressing the unique sustainability challenges found in a globally diverse sector producing a nutrient dense product.
Example 3: Pathways to Dairy Net Zero (P2DNZ) is a first of its kind effort that brings together dairy companies, organizations and farms of every size and type to work together on their pathways toward Dairy Net Zero by 2050. With a goal of optimizing productivity and reducing emissions, P2DNZ has distinctive programs for both developed countries and emerging economies.
P2DNZ, which started in 2021, is governed by The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the International Dairy Federation (IDF), SAI Platform, the IFCN Dairy Research Network, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), DSF and GDP. P2DNZ supporters include some of the largest dairy companies and organizations in the world. Partnership is prevalent throughout the P2DNZ program, with companies working on a pre-competitive basis to solve environmental-related issues.
DNA is part of the P2DNZ focus on long-term programs that are ideal for emerging markets. DNA’s model is in line with the overall P2DNZ goal – to address food and nutritional security while simultaneously enhancing livelihoods, economic growth and delivering improved climate outcomes. DSF is also strongly tied to P2DNZ, as it is the only global measurement of key sustainability data points that can chart progress toward net zero.
5. Lessons learned from public-private initiatives to help ensure resilient food systems
- Investment and support across the entire value chain is vital to success.
- Recognition of the interrelationship between nutritional, environmental, and socio-economic aspects of a sustainable food system are vital to building resilient food systems.
- Information sharing and progress reporting drive action.
- The importance of a progressive policy framework that both supports and drives the right behaviors.
- The role of agriculture beyond the production of nutrition. Dairy, for example, is the world’s number one traded commodity by value and number three by volume and provides employment for approximately 1 billion people globally.
Agriculture (sequestration/ bioenergy production) is one of the most important components for governments in delivering mitigation opportunities under their nationally determined contributions.
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