​Workshops in villages in Tanzania brought local farmers together to discuss inclusive agriculture and sustainability. Image credit: CIFOR/Nkumi Mtimgwa

‘The future is youth’ 

The pandemic has exposed deep-rooted inequities, including in food systems, the UN Deputy Secretary-General observed. While young people are among those hit hard by the aftershocks, Ms. Mohammed said they have also been resilient, converting challenges into opportunities. 

Agnes Kalibata, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to the Food Systems Summit, stressed that it would be impossible to hold the event without engaging with youth. 
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Ms. Kalibata, who is from Rwanda, recalled that young people make up 77 per cent of the total population in Africa, and around 50 per cent of the global population. ​

#FAO; #SustainableGlobalEconomy; #Bioeconomy; #FoodLoss; #plasticPollution; 

FAO/Canadian-Media: Wasted food. Polluted seas. Landfill sites full to bursting. After years of using our precious natural resources as if they were limitless, the outcomes of our behaviours are making it clear that it is time to change our ways. And the answer? Well, a no-waste, environmentally and socially considerate bioeconomy is an excellent place to start. 

So, what is a sustainable, circular bioeconomy? 

Essentially, a sustainable, circular bioeconomy is a system that is groundbreaking and restorative, one that boosts industry and the economy but also protects our planet for future generations. This includes shifting towards bio-based alternatives to plastics and fossil fuels, eliminating the use of toxic chemicals and cutting down on waste through innovative materials, products, systems and business models. It also means harnessing the power of bioscience and biotechnology to address the challenges we face, like providing food, feed, fibres, wood-products and bio-based chemicals, including alternatives to plastics, for a growing population while preserving our natural resources. 

Here are five ways that FAO is helping the transition to a sustainable and circular bioeconomy for better food production, better nutrition and livelihoods and a better environment:

1)   Reducing food loss and waste

We know that a growing population and rising incomes will lead to increased demand for food and agricultural products, putting more pressure on natural resources. Alleviating problems related to intensive crop and livestock farming or overfishing means being more responsible in our food production and consumption, reusing food that would ordinarily end up in landfills and increasing food production in a sustainable way.

FAO is working with countries around the world to analyse food value chains and reduce food loss at various stages. Currently, 14 percent of all food produced is lost from harvest up to retail. A substantial amount is also lost at consumer level. A circular bioeconomy means reducing food loss and waste by strengthening value chains but also by finding new uses for lost or wasted food.

With their expanding populations, cities have a big part to play in consuming more responsibly. FAO has helped the municipality of Lima, Peru to create a food waste taskforce that has established a composting centre for managing biomass waste. As a result, the amount of organic waste disposed of in landfills and city drainage has been cut dramatically.

2)   Tackling plastic pollution

One major goal of a sustainable and circular bioeconomy is to use more materials made from natural, biodegradable resources, cutting down on plastic waste and CO2 emissions.
Reducing plastic used on farms is a big part of this. These plastics can be especially hard to recycle because many are contaminated with pesticides and fertilisers. Consequently, FAO is launching a new Agricultural Plastics Initiative to assess the magnitude, fate and impacts of plastic products used in agri-food systems globally. The initiative will offer alternatives to plastics and promote the use of biopesticides and organic fertilizers to reduce contaminated plastic waste.
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Other innovative examples for cutting down on plastics are also in place elsewhere. For example, in Mexico, a partnership between a prominent adult beverage company and a car manufacturing company aims to produce bio-based materials with by-products from the processing of agave. Often, much of the residue is burnt or sent to landfills. Now, the two companies are developing a lightweight, bioplastic from the agave residues. These bioplastics will be used in the car company’s Mexican assembly plants.

Two major goals of a sustainable, circular bioeconomy are increasing the use of biodegradable resources to cut down on plastic waste and diversifying our food production to help protect and promote biodiversity.

3)     Diversifying our diets and moving our reliance away from only a few crops
Of over 6 000 plant species that have been cultivated worldwide for food, we rely on only 9 crops for 66 percent of our food production. 

FAO’s work on increasing biodiversity, particularly in agri-food systems, focuses on enhancing the number of foods and species on which we rely. This can help promote crop diversification, moving away from the economic benefits of monocropping. 

Moreover, diversification boosts nutrition. In many agricultural communities, people rely on one staple crop whose seasonality implies a period of food shortage. Boosting promotion of local, lesser known globally but highly nutritious crops, such as cassava or millet, can help communities better fulfil their dietary needs and support the biodiversity of crops grown.
 
4)     Promoting bio-based products as alternatives to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides
The overuse of chemical fertilisers and pesticides already leads to problems of water and soil pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Finding bio-based solutions to these chemicals is that much more important with a growing population to feed.
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One innovative example of bio-based solutions comes from China where the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance are currently carrying out a programme that explores using straw as a fertiliser. Straw is a common by-product of wheat and grain production and using it as a fertiliser solves two problems in one: cutting down on the use of chemical fertilisers and giving farmers an alternative to burning the left-over straw, which is a common practice but a large source of pollution.

5)     Restoring degraded lands and improving livestock management 
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Many people around the world rely on livestock farming for their livelihoods but doing so in unsustainable ways can lead to land degradation.  FAO’s Climate-Smart Livestock project promotes sustainable livestock management in many parts of the world. For example, in Ecuador, an initiative implemented with the support of Global Environment Facility and the Ecuadorian government provides farmers with practical training such as how to install irrigation systems, drinking fountains and milking infrastructure. Farmers also learn new production methods like rotational grazing, composting for pastures and producing their own animal feed, which helps prevent land degradation and makes livestock farming more sustainable.
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There is no single path for establishing a bioeconomy and sustainability does not happen automatically. However, with successful examples already in place, FAO, together with the International Sustainable Bioeconomy Working Group, is building on this momentum by working towards the creation of Sustainable Bioeconomy Guidelines. These will include good practices, tools and guidance on how to develop monitoring frameworks, helping countries implement national bioeconomy strategies, policies and programmes in a sustainable way.
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A sustainable, circular bioeconomy makes sense, not only environmentally but also socially and economically. Sustainability is an opportunity, one that we need to take to protect our planet and secure a better future.

“Ajay Chopra from Winnipeg and I connected online, and I was thrilled to learn that I had a Canadian namesake. The Canadian Chopra is a successful community-minded entrepreneur with connections to politics and business.  We started chatting, and I really appreciated his warmth and his zaniness.  We decided that a Cookoff with my namesake would be fun and cool, while allowing me to introduce my fans to Canada. And it will create a larger audience for my signature dish of  Butter Chicken,” said Mumbai's Chef Ajay Chopra an acclaimed culinarian as well as one of the most celebrated chefs in the Indian television and food industry. 

Chef Chopra will present his signature recipe of Butter chicken Live which is a favourite cuisine across the globe.
 
 “Butter Chicken is a staple of Indian cuisine, and we felt this was an amazing concept to bring to people Live while learning direct from a master chef and my friend Ajay Chopra.  We are proud to sponsor this very unique and rare special COVID cookoff,” says Hari Brar, CEO, SHER Flour Mills.  
 
“It’s a great honour and gift to collaborate for this rare online cooking lesson with India’s leading Celebrity Chef, my namesake and a wonderful person with whom I’ve forged a friendship.  In this Live Instagram session, we will be cooking butter chicken from scratch together for viewers to follow and learn. Our goal is to create a diversion during these challenging times,” says Ajay Chopra from Winnipeg, Canada. 

With a passion for public and government relations that grew from a series of internships while still a student, first at the Canadian Embassy in Paris and then at the Canadian High Commission in London, England, Ajay Chopra from Winnipeg also possesses strategies that create mutually beneficial collaborations for clients and their target audience. 

Join him Live on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/ajaychopra99/

The event is further supported by Growing Pathways to Immigration and also by Imagebuilderz, Canada’s foremost PR experts, who will be Media partners for this unique event.   
 
"We are delighted to come on board as a media partner and look forward to the culinary experience and partnership between Canada's Ajay Chopra and India's Ajay Chopra," says Renu Mehta, CEO, Imagebuilderz in Toronto.​​

In a video message, Mr. Guterres highlighted the importance of food systems, and their impact on economies, environment and health, but warned that they are “one of the main reasons we are failing to stay within our planet’s ecological boundaries”.

A timely Nobel Prize

This year, the coronavirus pandemic has brought the fragility of the world’s food supplies to the fore, with millions going hungry. At the same time, the climate crisis continues to wreak havoc on food security.

To address these issues, the Secretary-General is convening a Food Systems Summit next year to raise global awareness and spur actions to rethink food systems, so that they can play a more positive role in ending hunger, reducing diet-related disease, and help in the fight against climate change.

The event will be held at UN Headquarters in New York in September, in conjunction with the next UN General Assembly opening session and, said Mr. Guterres, will focus the attention of world leaders on the issue.

“The awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme (WFP) highlights the Summit’s timeliness”, he added, underlining the need for global engagement and action for inclusive and sustainable food systems, and calling on everyone to join these conversations.

The Summit will be run by a specially appointed envoy, former Rwandan Minister for Agriculture, Agnes Kalibata. At a press briefing on Monday, she emphasized the need for food systems – which are responsible for trillions of dollars in wasted food, and significant greenhouse gas emissions – to radically change.

The Special Envoy told reporters that the Summit puts food and food systems at the heart of the UN’s Decade of Action, the 10 years left we have left to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Work to make sure the Summit is a success has already begun, she explained, with a scientific group, made up of experts drawn from a range of disciplines, having met over the summer to ensure that the event is based on sound scientific principles.

This November, dialogues will begin at a national level, involving governments and other stakeholders. These discussions, said Ms. Kalibata, will be critical, and will culminate in a meeting in Rome next Summer, at which actions for inclusive and sustainable food systems will be identified, and taken forward as recommendations for the Secretary-General to submit to world leaders at the September Summit.

‘Grow, nourish, sustain. Together’

This Friday, on World Food Day, the Summit team is holding a 24-hour global relay conversation, involving actors, celebrity chefs, and young people, to raise awareness about the unsustainable nature of the global food system, and will also serve as the launch of the Summit dialogues.

The main World Food Day events will begin at 2pm, Central European Time, with an opening ceremony involving key UN officials, Pope Francis, Queen Letizia of Spain and other prominent figures. 

Other events include a video mapping show, which will be broadcast live from the Colosseum, and the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the Italian capital.

#UN; #Asia; #Pacific; #ChronicUnderNourishment; #FoodSecurity; #FAO

​UN, Sep 6 (Canadian-Media): Transforming food systems in Asia and the Pacific to make them more sustainable, resilient and productive, is vital for countries to rebound from the impact of COVID-19 and address chronic undernourishment, a UN regional forum on food security has heard. ​

Gathered virtually at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s thirty-fifth Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, governments, civil society organizations and the private sector highlighted the importance of innovation, solidarity, coherence and partnerships among and within countries. ​

Big data, digital economy and mobile technology will help producers achieve such transformations, Qu Dongyu, FAO Director-General said on Friday, the Conference’s final day. 

For instance, a smartphone in the hands of a smallholder farmer is a “new farming tool”, he added. 

“Leveraging data, innovation and technology has shown that, here in Asia and the Pacific, we have brilliant minds, scientists and an entrepreneurial spirit that will lead us through the challenges presented by COVID-19 and help us conquer malnutrition and poverty,” said Mr. Qu. 

Agricultural innovation can also reduce back-breaking drudgery, and regional food chains can benefit from innovations such as drones, satellite imagery, big data and block chains, the Conference heard. 

The Regional Conferences, held every two years, are a platform for ministers of agriculture and senior officials, NGOs, private sector and other stakeholders in the field to explore joint and coherent solutions to shared challenges confronting food security and agriculture. The 2020 Regional Conference was held from 1 to 4 September.  

COVID upended efforts to fight hunger According to FAO, the Asia-Pacific region – the planet’s most populous – is also home to over half of the world’s undernourished people, and the number is feared to rise, with the impact of COVID-19. In southern Asia alone, the figure could rise by a third, to some 330 million in the next decade. 

Conference Chair Yeshey Penjor, Minister for Agriculture and Forests of Bhutan, reiterated the need to strengthen collaboration to deal with the challenges. 

“We must prepare for higher risks ahead of us and make sure that there is sustainability in the food supply chain,” he said. 

Working ‘Hand in Hand’ 

New solutions, such as the FAO’s Hand in Hand Initiative, which “matches” stakeholders, bringing the right partners together at the right time, can help. 

According to FAO, some 44 countries with limited capacity or hit by crisis have been invited to join the Initiative as beneficiaries, 80 as contributors, and some 20 have expressed interest to join as both. 

The rollout of the Initiative coincided with the onset of COVID-19 and the urgent need to deal with its complex impacts on agri-food systems, said FAO, adding that the Initiative is helping support evidence-based efforts to prevent breakdown of and address emerging threats to food systems.  

“The HIH approach to analysis and partnership-building has proven to be a useful model for coordinating integrated rapid response to COVID-19 impacts on food systems, particularly at the local or territorial level,” it added. 

FAO Director-General Qu also said that while the COVID-19 has hit countries and societies, innovations are bringing people closer together. 

“So while we are separated by some 11 time zones, we have still managed to come together, have thought-provoking discussions and reach consensus on a number of important issues,” he concluded. 

#UN; #FoodSystem; #Africa; #SDGs; #UNSDGs; #EndHunger; #farming
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UN, Sep 5 (Canadian-Media): Agnes Kalibata, the former Rwandan Minister for Agriculture, has been tasked with leading the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit. In an interview with UN News, she outlined her vision for a transformed international system that is more resilient, fairer, and less harmful to the planet.

Food systems involve all the stages that lead up to the point when we consume food, including the way it is produced, transported, and sold. Launching a policy brief on food security in June, UN chief António Guterres warned of an “impending food emergency”, unless immediate action is taken.

Ms. Kalibata told UN News that her commitment to improving food systems is closely linked to her early life as the daughter of refugees.

“I was born in a refugee camp in Uganda, because my Rwandan parents were forced to leave their home around the time of colonial independence in the early 60s.

Thanks to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), were given land, which allowed my parents to farm, buy a few cows, and make enough money to send me and my siblings to school. This allowed me to experience, first-hand, how agriculture, in a functioning food system, can provide huge opportunities for smallholder communities.

I took this appreciation with me when I eventually returned to Rwanda, as Minister for Agriculture, working with smallholders and seeing them grab every opportunity to turn their lives around against all odds. This was probably the most fulfilling period in my life. 

But, I have also seen what can happen when threats like climate change, conflict and even more recently, a pandemic like Covid 19, hit the world's farmers, especially those who are smallholders, like my parents were.

As a daughter of farmers, I understand how much people can suffer, because of systems that are breaking down. I often reflect that I, and other children of farmers my age that made it through school, were the lucky ones because climate change hits small farmers the hardest, destroying their capacities to cope.

My experience has shown me that, when food systems function well, agriculture can provide huge opportunities for smallholder communities. I am a product of functional food systems, and I am fully convinced of the power of food systems to transform lives of smallholder households and communities, and bring about changes to entire economies.  

I’m extremely passionate about ending hunger in our lifetime: I believe it’s a solvable problem. I don’t understand why 690 million people are still going to bed hungry, amidst so much plenty in our world, and with all the knowledge , technology and resources. 

I have made it my mission to understand why this is the case, and how we can overcome the challenges we see along the way. That is why I gladly accepted the offer by the UN Secretary General to be his Special Envoy for the Food Systems Summit.

Why food systems need to change

Today’s food systems do not respond to what we need as people. The cause of death for one in three people around the world is related to what they eat. Two billion people are obese, one trillion dollars’ worth of food is wasted every year, yet many millions still go hungry.

Food systems have an impact on the climate. They are responsible for around one third of harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change, which is interfering massively in our ability to produce food, upending farmers’ lives, and making the seasons harder to predict. 

We have built up a lot of knowledge around the things that we’re doing wrong, and we have the technology to allow us to do things differently, and better. This isn’t rocket science: it’s mostly a question of mobilizing energy, and securing political commitment for change.

Galvanise and engage

The main impetus behind the Food Summit is the fact that the we are off track with all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that relate to food systems, principally ending poverty and hunger, and action on the climate and environment.
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We want to use the Summit to galvanise and engage people, raising awareness about the elements that are broken, and what we need to change; to recognize that we’re way off track with the SDGs, and raise our ambitions; and to secure firm commitments to actions that will transform our current food systems for the better.

Pulling together the UN System

The UN system is already doing a lot of work in this area, and we’ve pulled together several agencies and bodies to support the Summit.

We have formed a UN Task Force to channel the existing research, so that nothing falls through the cracks, which will work closely with a core group of experts we have assembled, which is looking at scientific data pooled from institutions all around the world. At the same time, we are examining national food systems, to see what is and isn’t working. 

We are going to pool all the information, evidence and ideas we receive, and create a vision for a future food system that benefits all."

At a briefing on the Food Systems Summit held on Friday, Amina Mohammed, the UN Deputy Secretary-General, noted that a transition to more sustainable systems is already underway, with countries beginning to “take action and change behaviours in support of a new vision of how food arrives on our plate.”

UN Member States, she continued, are increasingly aware that food systems are “one of the most powerful links between humans and the planet”, and bringing about a world that "enhances inclusive economic growth and opportunity, while also safeguarding biodiversity and the global ecosystems that sustain life. "

The Summit objectives

• The 2021 Food Systems Summit will bring together the UN System, and key leaders in food-related fields, to bring food systems in line with the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN’s blueprint for a better future for people, and the planet.
• Ms. Kalibata outlined the main objectives, or action tracks, of the summit, which will launch bold new solutions or strategies to deliver progress on the SDGs. The five tracks look at ensuring safe and nutritious food for all; shifting to sustainable consumption patterns; boosting nature-positive production at sufficient scale; advancing equitable livelihoods and value distribution; and building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses.
• Participants, including experts such as farmers, indigenous peoples and academics, will explore ways to make food systems more resilient to vulnerabilities and shocks, including those linked to climate change.

#UN; #WFP; #FoodInsecurity;#BurkimaFaso; #Covid19; #FAO

​UN/WorldFoodProgram, Aug 23 (Canadian-Media): Urgent and sustained action is needed to address worsening food and nutrition insecurity in Burkina Faso, say the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), citing alarming new data. Some 3.3 million people are estimated to be facing acute food insecurity during the current lean season, that period which precedes the harvest in September.​

The latest analysis by the Cadre Harmonisé  indicates an increase in acute food insecurity of more than 50 percent since the situation in Burkina Faso was last assessed in March.Experts say the crisis has been exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 on people’s ability to earn money to cover their daily needs in a country already reeling from conflict and climate change.

Two provinces in the Sahel region – Oudalan and Soum – have been driven into the Emergency phase of food insecurity, as defined by the Cadre Harmonisé. Some 3 percent of people in these northern areas are said to be experiencing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity and facing extreme food consumption gaps, also resulting in alarming levels of acute malnutrition. Many of those worst affected have been displaced from their homes by fighting in the region.

“We’re seeing an alarming deterioration in food security across the worst-hit parts of the country,” said David Bulman, WFP Country Director and Representative in Burkina Faso. “We need to take immediate action to reverse this trend in the two provinces. It would be nothing short of a disaster were a whole generation to be crushed by conflict, displacement and hunger.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic is further exacerbating a crisis that was already deteriorating at a worrying pace, pushing more and more people into severe food crisis and acute food insecurity,” said Dauda Sau, FAO Representative in Burkina Faso. ”We can reverse this trend if we act now by supporting the Government to protect livelihoods, rapidly increase local food production and availability, and support rural populations to access food.”

Many of those most at risk are subsistence farmers and livestock herders. While urgent humanitarian life-and livelihood-saving assistance is needed to address immediate needs, so too is longer-term investment in rural livelihoods and social services which, say experts, can help reinforce social cohesion and contribute to peace.

FAO and WFP have been responding to the crisis in Burkina Faso by providing food assistance coupled with livelihood protection and support for displaced people and the host communities that receive them.