CSOs Feeback on Sustanable Food Systems and Heathy Diets

Feedback from the CSOs, to FAO presentation on Sustainable Food Systems and Healthy Diets in Europe and Central Asia

during

Virtual CSO Consultation prior to FAO’s 32nd Regional Conference Europe and Central Asia. October 21, 2020 

Ceyhan Temürcü

Food systems and their functionality in delivering healthy diets are shaped by many factors, forces, drivers and decisions. Hence, in order to improve nutrition, contextual changes are needed across multiple socioeconomic and policy areas related to food and agriculture. 

We cannot speak of one single food system at national, regional or global levels, especially in our diverse Region. In particular, it is necessary to recognize the profound differences between the industrial food system and the agroecological, small scale, local, traditional and indigenous food systems.

The industrial food system needs to be addressed with its problems and weaknesses, while the agroecological, small scale, local, traditional, indigenous ones need to be recognized for their strengths and the opportunities of progress that they represent for our societies. 

Our industrial food system is operating with huge financial, social and environmental costs. It depletes natural resources, destroys biodiversity, contributes to the climate crisis, fosters social injustice, exploits migrant seasonal labor, and violates the human rights of peasants and workers. Peasants, small scale farmers and pastoralists from Eastern Europe, as in many other parts of our Region, are up against the wall on a daily basis, due to inequalities generated by the industrial food system, which exploits migrant labor and profits from inappropriate market regulations and sanitary rules.

Healthy diets are consequences of sustainable food systems. Healthy diets are not possible without a healthy planet and healthy social relations. The industrial food system in our Region generates hunger and all forms of malnutrition, including obesity, undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, which also make people vulnerable to all kinds of health problems and pandemics. It is safe to say that the industrial food system represents a threat to food security as well as health systems of the countries in our Region. Yet, it doesn’t stop begging for public funding and support. 

As recognised in the report of the CFS HLPE and the previous work of FAO; agroecology provides not only sustainable ways of producing high quality and abundant food for all, but also a framework for socioeconomic change. Public systems must support agroecological transition, recognizing that this is only possible by acknowledging the central role of the civil society; small scale farmers, fishers, indigenous people, women and youth living in rural areas, workers in agriculture and food processing sectors. Agroecology provides ways for attaining all the five strategic objectives of FAO: eliminating hunger and malnutrition, sustainable production, reducing rural poverty, enhanced inclusiveness in food systems, and resilient livelihoods.

States are responsible for shaping, implementing and monitoring public policies and measures that protect and support these primary producers of our food, guaranteeing their access to land and other resources for production, as well as to local and territorial markets. These measures should critically include public procurement from small scale farmers and other smallholder food producers. 

Narratives of many public policies about food systems focus on consumers’ individual choices, with arguments to the point that consumers, especially women, have to be educated. Consumers are not stupid; nobody demands poison. We just are not free to decide. The unequal sexual division of labor in households translates into multiple working hours for women, inside and outside the house, which also leads to a limitation of time for tasks such as cooking. The increasing precariousness in jobs and salaries leads families to look for cheap food, although in many cases they know that it is not the healthiest. Finally, cities are designed in ways that prioritize long distribution chains of the industrial food system, rather than farmers’ markets, cooperatives or small businesses which make it possible to access healthy and seasonal products. 

All these indicate the need for a holistic approach to the transformation of food systems. It is the responsibility of states and their public policies to make healthy and nutritious products more accessible than unhealthy products, by fostering local and territorial food systems and by supporting small scale producers, food communities and cooperatives, community-supported agriculture and participatory guarantee systems. In this process, it is essential that states adopt all the necessary measures to ensure that national legislations, standards and international trade agreements observe and safeguard the human rights of people involved in food production and all people’s right to access healthy food.

Rights are more basic than interests. In the current multi actor platforms, stakeholders are at the table, but not all the rights-holders. Rights-holders include small-scale farmers, fishers, indigenous people, agricultural workers, women and youth living in rural areas, and groups who have limited access to healthy and nutritious food. Their meaningful participation in the determination of public priorities and the development of strategies, policies, legislation and other measures is the key for a genuine transformation of our food systems.