SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS PROGRAMME OF THE 10-YEAR FRAMEWORK OF PROGRAMMES ON SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION (10YFP) FEEDBACK FORM NOTE TO ALL: Please use this form to provide your general and more specific comments as indicated below, for the proposed 10YFP Sustainable Food Systems draft concept note. NB** all contributions received will be taken into account as much as possible. Due to limited capacity, we will unfortunately not be in a position to inform respondents (individuals &/or organizations) on how their suggestions have or have not been included in the final programme that will be submitted to the 10YFP secretariat. Thank you for your understanding. INDIVIDUAL OR ORGANIZATIONAL CONTACT INFORMATION Name and Title Organization Peter Stevenson Compassion in World Farming Chief Policy Advisor Type: NGO Ministry; Local authority University/ Scientific/Research Business organization X NGO or not-for-profit Financial Institution Other (please specify): Regional Organisation National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) Primary Producers Organization (e.g. farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk) Indigenous group or community based organization Media Inter-governmental organization United Nations agency or programme Email Mailing address peter@ciwf.org River Court, Mill Lane, Godalming, GU7 1EZ, UK Telephone +447765844623 Fax Country UK 1 Instructions: Please provide your feedback for each of the proposed questions on the Sustainable Food Systems Programme by completing the following matrix. If you do not have any comments please check the “No comment” box. General “Sustainable Food Systems” Programme Feedback Feedback Question Select One Provide Your Additional Comments Having reviewed the draft Concept Yes Note, does it adequately identify the X No main global challenges for sustainable food systems? Much in the Note is welcome and helpful. However, it gives insufficient attention to: 1. The detrimental impact on health of Western diets, in particular their contribution to high levels of non-communicable disease. The SFSP should discourage the adoption of Western diets in developing countries while promoting diets of high nutritional quality. 2. The need to promote food systems that minimise water use and pollution, nitrogen emissions, land use (especially arable land use), deforestation and climate change. Also, SFSP should encourage systems that restore biodiversity (at landscape, farm, soil & seed levels) and build soil quality. 3. Animal welfare and health. Unhealthy animals can spread disease. Standards of animal welfare should at least reach the international OIE standards and those of the International Finance Corporation’s Good Practice Note on Improving Animal Welfare in Livestock Operations Having reviewed the proposed They are too broadly worded and are open to a wide range of Yes 2 Vision and Goal, do they adequately X address the needs of the global programme? Having reviewed the proposed objectives, do they adequately address the needs of the global programme? No Yes X No interpretations. This would not be a major problem if the concept note as a whole articulated a clear sense of what kind of production approaches and consumption patterns are sustainable. However, the note does not provide a sufficient understanding of what is and is not sustainable and which factors should be taken into account in assessing sustainability. The objectives are not really objectives but tools for achieving objectives. The objectives themselves have not really been formulated. For example, ‘raising awareness’ (objective 1) and ‘disseminating information’ (objective 3) are not objectives in themselves but means of achieving objectives. I have set out below what I think the fundamental objectives of a sustainable food system should be. Provide Your Feedback Programme Objectives Programme Objective 1: Raise awareness on the need to shift to sustainable food systems and applying a systems approach to addressing No Comment Suggested Text Change Additional Feedback (check the box) (Please insert your text) (Please insert your text) Raise awareness on the need to shift to sustainable food systems and applying a systems approach to addressing food security and 3 Programme Objectives Provide Your Feedback food security and nutrition. nutrition. Awareness should also be raised as to what kinds of farming and food systems are sustainable. Programme Objective 2: Build capacity and enabling conditions for the uptake of sustainable practices across food systems and facilitate access to financial and technical assistance. The developing world is under pressure to adopt industrial agriculture. This would undermine smallholder livelihoods and soil, water and biodiversity. Emphasis must be given to identifying farming practices that are appropriate for boosting the productivity of small farmers e.g. improved health and nutrition for their livestock and increasing crop yields through enhancing soil’s water retention capacity, the use of nitrogen-fixing plants and trees and integrated pest management. Programme Objective 3: Take stock of, categorize and disseminate – and if needed develop – accessible and actionable information tools and methodologies to support governments, X 4 Programme Objectives Provide Your Feedback the private sector, consumers and other relevant stakeholders to act towards more sustainable food systems. Programme Objective 4: Bring together initiatives and develop partnerships to build synergies and cooperation to leverage resources towards the mutual goal of promoting, enhancing and facilitating the shift towards more sustainable food systems Feedback Question Are there additional fundamental objectives that the programme should respond to in your view? X Select One X Yes No Provide Your Additional Comments It should respond to the following additional fundamental objectives: Food security Provision of food of high nutritional quality Promotion of diets that support good health Resource efficiency: efficient use of food and the resources used to produce it Enhancement of soil quality and judicious use of arable land Use water sparingly without polluting it Restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services Sustainable consumption 5 Having reviewed the proposed work areas, do they adequately address the needs of the global programme? Minimisation of food-related greenhouse gas emissions Good standards of animal welfare Yes X No Provide Your Feedback Programme Work Areas Programme Work Area 1: Increase the availability, accessibility and sharing of actionable knowledge, information and tools for SCP. No Comment Suggested Text Change Additional Feedback (check the box) (Please insert your text) (Please insert your text) This should include dissemination of information on the resource-inefficiency of industrial livestock production. This inefficiency stems from its dependence on feeding human-edible cereals to animals. Studies show that for every 100 calories fed to animals in the form of humanedible crops, we receive on average just 17-30 calories in the form of meat and milk. i A FAO report points out that the feeding of cereals to livestock 6 Programme Work Areas Programme Work Area 2: Encourage, facilitate and support inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue to help inform interconnected policymaking towards sustainable food systems at local, national, regional and international levels. Provide Your Feedback capacity building provision to governments and policy makers to facilitate: (i) the sustainable management of natural biological processes to increase efficiencies for sustainable intensification provided that this does not undermine natural resources or animal welfare; (ii) the uptake of new technologies for production, processing, and for the mitigation of negative externalities while recognising that negative could threaten food security by reducing the grain available for human consumption.ii The use of cereals as animal feed is a wasteful use not just of the crops but of the land, water and energy used to produce them. In contrast to this the following forms of livestock production are efficient: raising animals on pastures and using crop residues, by-products and unavoidable food waste as animal feed. (i) In the West further intensification of farming (which is already highly industrialised) would not be sustainable. It would undermine the natural resources – soil, water, biodiversity – on which the ability of future generations to feed themselves depends. In the developing world increased crop yields (e.g. through agro-forestry and wáter harvesting) and livestock productivity (e.g. through 7 Programme Work Areas Provide Your Feedback externalities are best addressed by farming that works in harmony with natural resources rather than by high-tech; Programme Work Area 3: Facilitate the use and enhance opportunities for market-based and/or voluntary approaches throughout supply chain towards sustainable food systems. Facilitate the use and enhance opportunities for market-based and/or voluntary approaches throughout supply chain towards sustainable food systems including giving consumers information about the health, environmental and animal welfare implications of their dietary choices. improved health and nutrition) are possible. However, the term ‘sustainable intensification’ should not be used to justify the further expansion of industrial farming. (ii) Many food system negative externalities (e.g. water and air pollution; biodiversity erosion) stem from industrial agriculture. It is inappropriate to use hightech to solve the problems caused by high-tech. Instead negative externalities should be addressed by adopting farming methods that produce positive rather than negative externalities. If food consumption is to be sustainable, consumers must be given information regarding the fact that certain diets, in particular those with a high proportion of animal products, have a larger negative impact on natural resources and produce more greenhouse gas emissions than other diets.iii iv 8 Programme Work Areas Provide Your Feedback Studies show that a reduction in Western consumption of animal products would also produce important health benefits.v vi Feedback Question Are there other work areas you think should have priority, if so, what? Can you propose priority activities under the Work Areas, if so, what? Select One Provide Your Additional Comments Yes X No X Yes No The concept of ‘food waste’ should be extended to include the feeding of human-edible cereals to animals. Globally 36% of cereals are used as animal feed.vii However, as indicated earlier, only 17-30% of these calories are returned for human consumption as meat or milk. The effect of this is that 70-83% of the 36% of the world’s crop calories that are used as animal feed are wasted; they produce no food for humans. This means that 25-30% (70-83% of 36%) of the world’s crop calories are being wasted by being fed to animals. Other Feedback on the document Line Number Reference Provide Your Feedback 9 Line Number Reference 64 Provide Your Feedback We must be careful about what is entailed in saying that food systems “have to become more efficient in their use of resources”. For example, at first sight the use of monocultures and chemical fertilisers appears to be efficient in boosting yields. However, in the medium-term they can erode biodiversity and soil quality. A recent study concludes that “modern agriculture, in seeking to maximize yields ... has caused loss of soil organic carbon and compaction, impairing critical regulating and supporting ecosystem services”.viii Similarly, industrial livestock production may appear efficient. However, its dependence on using grain as animal feed (which animals convert very inefficiently into meat and milk) means that it generally uses more arable land and pollutes and uses more ground- and surface-water than pasture and integrated crop-livestock systems. Nellemann, C., MacDevette, M., Manders, et al. (2009) The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal, www.unep.org/pdf/foodcrisis_lores.pdf ii Gerber, P, 2013. Tackling climate change through livestock – A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome. iii Westhoek H et al, 2014. Food choices, health and environment: Effects of cutting Europe’s meat and dairy intake. Global Environmental Change, Vol 26, May 2014 p196-205. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378014000338 iv Bajželj B. Et al, 2014. Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation. Nature Climate Change http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/nclimate2353 i 10 v Ibid Green R et al, 2015. The potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK through healthy and realistic dietary change. Climatic Change (2015) 129:253–265 DOI 10.1007/s10584-015-1329-y vi vii Cassidy E.M et al, 2013. Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare. University of Minnesota. Environ. Res. Lett. 8 (2013) 034015 viii Edmondson et al, 2014. Urban cultivation in allotments maintains soil qualities adversely affected by conventional agriculture. Journal of Applied Ecology 2014, 51, 880– 889 11