EGM on SDG 2: Becca B.R. Jablonski Statement

Becca B.R. Jablonski

Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University

Session 4: SDG 2 Target 2.4 - Ensure Sustainable Food Production Systems

Now is an exciting time to be talking about SDG 2.4 as consumer and municipal interest in sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices has never been greater. This goes to the Director General’s earlier point about demand driving supply. As an example, 280 cities worldwide have now signed onto the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP 2024) and are working to leverage the buying power of the >4.4B inhabitants that currently live in cities (>56% of the world’s population). Urban stakeholders – and their ability to set food policy – represent a critical constituency to support achieving SDG 2.4. Their role and influence will continue to grow at the same time that they are further removed from agricultural production and rural communities (World Bank 2024).

• Often farmers are left out of these conversations due to power imbalances and lack of mechanisms to facilitate regional participation (Jablonski et al. 2019). As a result, there is increased polarization across many rural and urban stakeholders, promotion of certain farm management or production practices that may not actually result in improved environmental outcomes and misunderstanding about the incentives that promote farm transitions to sustainable agriculture.

• I’d like to provide two examples – one from Denver, Colorado, USA, and another from São Paulo, Brazil – that illustrate opportunities to leverage the power of cities to work as partners with regional farmers to support positive progress towards SDG 2.4.
  • Denver, Colorado: like many cities across the U.S., Denver has a Food Policy Council charged with making recommendations to the mayor. By definition, the council is composed only of inhabitants within the city of Denver. Starting in 2017 researchers from Colorado State University led a project to build bridges across rural and urban food system stakeholders, guided by data and modeling to understand economic, environmental, health and sociocultural tradeoffs associated with Denver’s food procurement decisions. We held meetings separately – and then jointly - with Denver buyers / City staff and farmers and ranchers (Jablonski et al. 2022). Because of these interactions, City staff recognized the value in creating the Good Food Purchasing Program Coalition – the first City-organized coalition of urban and regional food system stakeholders to convene around food policy actions. And, results from the modeling work helped this body to make more nuanced food policy recommendations, including in response to COVID-19. For example, though Denver was initially considering incentives for organic products, researchers found tradeoffs associated with organic and no-till production given a dryland production region, resulting in unclear soil health effects (Jablonski 2020). As another example, despite demand for organic products from the City, and researchers ability to demonstrate organic wheat production was more profitable to growers year after year, farmers did not want to transition. Qualitative results demonstrated cultural stigma associated with organic production, with farmers more likely to shift if neighbors had already made the transition. The result was a very different type of producer engagement strategy if transitions to organic are the goal (Hale et al. 2021). The City of Denver has recognized the value of this regional food system governance structure – continuing to fund the facilitator’s position after the grant ended.
  • São Paulo, Brazil: the City of São Paulo has a goal to strengthen urban-rural linkages in an effort to support food sovereignty. To launch this effort, similar to the Denver example, the City of São Paulo organized 10 regional roundtables that led to two conferences. At these events, diverse urban and rural stakeholders developed a framework of social participation that included civil society organizations. The result was the creation of two organizations that have played key and successful roles in coordinating public food supply across rural and urban networks, resulting in the provision of 2.2M meals served daily, with a focus on health, affordability, and sustainability (UN FAO 2018). In fact, through this regional food governance innovation, rural farmers are even offered training in agro-ecological practices, coupled with enhanced access to markets.

   

• To summarize, I leave us with three calls to action in consideration of achieving SDG 2.4: sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices.
  • Regional governance: Continue work to develop governance structures that bring farmers into more equitable dialogues and decision-making relationships with urban stakeholders and municipalities.
  • One size does not fit all: What is “sustainable agriculture” is inherently place based. Global models will not reflect local conditions and should not be used to determine sustainable food production policies. Continuing these one-size-fits all approach (for example with plant-based diets) will increase polarization (Jablonski et al. 2021).
  • Farmer decision-making: Transitions to sustainable agriculture necessarily require understanding of what motivates farmers and ranchers to make decisions (Toulabi et al. 2022). When these are understood, well intentioned consumers and cities can set policies that maximize potential progress towards SDG 2.4.

References:
Hale, J., M. Schipanski, and M. Carolan. 2021. Just wheat transitions?: Working toward constructive structural changes in wheat production. Local Environment 26(1): 43-59.

Jablonski, B.B.R., M. Carolan, J. Hale, D. Thilmany McFadden, E. Love, L.O. Christensen, T. Covey, L. Bellows, R. Cleary, O. David, K.E. Jablonski, A. Jones, P. Meiman, J. Quinn, E. Ryan, M. Schipanski, H. Summers, and M. Uchanski. 2019. Connecting Urban Food Plans to the Countryside: Leveraging Denver’s Food Vision to Explore Meaningful Rural-Urban Linkages. Sustainability 11(7):2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11072022

Jablonski, K.E., J.A. Dillon, J. Hale, B.B.R. Jablonski, and M.S. Carolan. 2020. One place doesn’t fit all: Improving the effectiveness of sustainability standards by accounting for place. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 4:145. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.557754

Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP). 2024. https://www.milanurbanfoodpolicypact.org/
United Nations. Food and Agricultural Organization. 2018. Sao Paulo: Strengthening the urban-rural connection. https://www.fao.org/3/CA0651EN/ca0651en.pdf

Toulabi, S.B., B.B.R. Jablonski, D.G. Holm, M. Carolan, and A.L. Heuberger. 2022. Grower decision-making factors in adoption of specialty cultivators: A case study of potatoes in the San Luis Valley. Plos One 17(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270636

Wentworth, C., M. Torres Arroyo, R. Cavalcanti Lembi, B.J. Feingold, D. Freedman, S. Gray, B.B.R. Jablonski, K.M. Janda, P. Lemoine, A. Nielsen, X.X. Romeiko, D. Salvo, L. Schmitt Olabisi, A.E. van den Berg, O. Yamoah. 2024. Responsive Community Engagement in Participatory Urban Food Systems Modeling: Examples from five U.S. cities. Environmental Science and Policy 152:103645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103645

World Bank. 2024. Urban Development: Overview. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview