Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

Government: The State should have special preferential policies to attract investment in processing industry, strengthen the state management of inputs in agricultural productivity (fertilizers, animal feeds, veterinary drugs, plant protection drugs, etc.); support for farmers participating in agricultural insurance; strengthen cooperation with other countries, especially China in the consumption of agricultural products, invest funds to support farmers produce agricultural products that meet VietGAP, GlobalGAP standards and traceability, invest in building large-scale animal feed material are... Read moreas to reduce import dependence, build policies and mechanisms related to population planning, production areas, develop agricultural insurance system. Vietnam Farmers’ Union at all levels should strengthen propaganda and mobilization to raise awareness and participation of farmers in eco-friendly production and nutrition improvement through agriculture, promote the development of collective economy, establish cooperatives, promote supporting services to help farmers to associate in production and consumption, promote “linking 6 houses” (farmers, government, scientists, enterprises, banks, journalists), organize and coordinate with relevant ministries, sectors to provide training courses, training workshops on capacity-building for farmers, mobilize domestic and external resources to develop agriculture, farmers and rural areas. Enterprises should associate with other parties to support farmers in production, distribution and consumption, provide technical support and technology transfer. International organizations, non-governmental organizations should develop projects to support farmers to apply new technologies in production, design capacity-building program for farmers, send experts to provide technical assistance. Read less

- Difficulties and challenges faced by farmers when they perform their roles in the Food systems. - Solutions to address the issues relating to the Food Systems.

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Private sector engagement Private sector representatives highlighted the pivotal role the government should play through regulation and the creation of a level playing field to support the transition to more sustainable business models. A safe level playing field is needed to support businesses to transition to value-inclusive business models in a competitive space. A commonly accepted framework would support business decision making. Incentive structures through financial mechanisms should be in place in order fund the transition to a more sustainable system and reward a value-based approach.... Read moreThe financial sector needs to be educated and provided with information on what a good investment looks like to support the transition. Private companies need to be made financially accountable for the impact on our food systems through accounting standards. For example, repurposing subsidies can create value for nature, people and society. Read less

While the “True Cost of Food” narrative has shown effectiveness in awareness raising and exemplifying a systems perspective, further steps are required to lead to policy change. The risk was voiced that the word ‘cost’ in many people’s mind relate to the costs that consumers pay (ie. price), as opposed to the value provided by nature and society to food systems. As such, this narrative may be wrongly interpreted as making food more expensive/less affordable and not the ongoing but unaccounted for costs to society (e.g diminished health) and the environment (e.g. pollution). To respon... Read mored to this, participants voiced the need to create a positive (value-based) decision-making narrative (ie. identifying, valuing and accounting for positive impacts) and to shift incentives to support and enhance these positive impacts. Concern was raised that True Cost Accounting could be linked to higher food prices, raising equity issues and excluding vulnerable populations. Participants suggested a ‘true value’ approach to True Cost Accounting, as well as focusing not only on pricing externalities (taxing the ‘bad’ instead of the ‘good’) but also on public investment and regulations. The core assertion was reiterated that prices have failed to reflect the true value of the natural world, and the economic systems that we are using are broken. It is therefore about addressing the economic invisibility of important things that we value. The important difference between price (the quantity of one thing that is exchanged in sale for another) and value (relative importance or worth) was highlighted in this context. Even though we may seek where possible to monetize changes in capital stocks, it was recognized that in some cases it is neither appropriate nor possible to do so. Overall, participants expressed optimism that together we have the tools and information necessary to put nature and people at the heart of food systems and achieve equitable economic prosperity throughout the agrifood value chain. While some emphasized the need for simplified tools and frameworks for the technical application of valuation, others iterated that this should not go against the need to showcase the complexity and variability of the system pertaining to different contexts and geographic locations. Different suggestions were made to improve the articulation of the business proposition around True Cost Accounting to different stakeholders. There was divergence in opinion about changing the narrative of ‘externalities’ towards ‘impacts’ with regards to illustrating a more holistic view of the value provided by nature, people and society in food systems. Read less

There has been growing recognition that a Food Systems transformation lays at the centre of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. If we are to succeed in addressing the interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequities and human health, we need to bring the value provided by nature, people and society to the forefront of decision-making to transform food systems. The dialogue focuses on how valuing nature and people in food systems can help us to deliver on many global and national priorities. The term ‘True Cost Accounting’ has emerged as a central prior... Read moreity in the UN Food Systems Summit preparatory discussions and is presented in a number of game-changers across Action Tracks. Specifically, the Action Track 1 ‘Cross Cutting Action Area’ Food Systems Pathways and Data features multiple True Cost Accounting propositions and on 1 June 2021 the UNFSS Scientific Group published a paper focusing on The True Cost and True Price of Food. True Cost Accounting (TCA) is an evolving holistic and systemic approach to measure and value the positive and negative environmental, social, health and economic costs and benefits to facilitate policy , business, farmer, investor and consumer decisions. This term True Cost Accounting is not exclusive - other actors use ‘impact assessment/management’ and ‘a capitals approach’ to mean the same. Indeed, the capitals – natural capital, social capital, human capital and produced capital – form the foundation of food systems. By understanding how food systems impact and depend on the capitals, policy-makers, civil society, consumers and businesses can make holistic decisions that redefine the value provided by nature, people and society. Participants had a discussion in facilitated break-out rooms about the following four guiding questions: (1) What actions are required for the value provided by nature and people to be consistently integrated into public and private decision-making processes for agriculture and food systems?; (2) What are barriers for uptake of a value-based decision-making in existing practice? How can these barriers be addressed?; (3) How can we strengthen the political support for comprehensive food systems evaluations (at the Food Systems Summit and beyond)?; (4) How can comprehensive food systems evaluations contribute to recognizing trade-offs? How can cross-pollination between sectors help to manage these trade-offs? In the following sections we will highlight the main findings and actions proposed as outcomes of these break-out room discussions. Read less

Participants emphasized that systems thinking is required to embrace the Summit’s Principle ‘Recognizing Complexity’. Systems thinking, as part of comprehensive food systems evaluations, can illuminate how natural, human, social and produced capital linked to food systems are interconnected. Systems thinking requires that game changing solutions are not considered in isolation within their action tracks but that capital impacts and dependencies of solutions are assessed across all action tracks. It was noted that recent progress in establishing standardized rigorous ways of collecting st... Read moreatistics (eg. UN SEEA; business reporting standards) can enhance a broader recognition of holistic food systems evaluations, while at the same time making them more robust and credible. There is a need to be able to capture externalities and assign value in a way that is tangible and comparable. The TEEBAgriFood Evaluation Framework was highlighted as an internationally accepted harmonized framework for holistic food systems evaluations, which was developed by 150 scientists from 33 countries. The uptake of comprehensive food systems evaluations in the context of the Food Systems Summit process is needed. Participants stressed the importance of determining how comprehensive food systems evaluations can inform decision-making. Getting the right information to the right people was identified as a barrier, and therefore goes beyond ‘getting the metrics right’. Participants pointed at the role of inclusive stakeholder-driven processes creating positive change in food systems using a ‘capitals approach’. Various tools and databases were highlighted for food system decision makers to recognize, measure, manage and reward responsible stewardship of the capitals. The importance of effective framing and messaging to shift decision-making, with a focus on a positive (value-based) decision-making narrative was highlighted. For example, repurposing subsidies can create value for nature, people and society. Indeed, internalizing in policy and regulatory frameworks the natural, health and social costs that are currently unaccounted for, will facilitate upscaling of sustainable and healthy food production and consumption. Consumers are considered as drivers in their demand for more sustainable and healthy food. The need to highlight the importance of TCA in capturing the value of i) nutritious food, and ii) nature-positive agriculture. Emphasis was put on how TCA and associated approaches can support the creation of enabling environments for agroecology and regenerative approaches to flourish and benefit all, including local institutions, communities, smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and women. Participants referred to the power of TCA to inform policy decisions that allow markets to do a better job at rewarding responsible stewardship of the capitals, ie. rewarding sustainable, affordable and healthy food production and consumption. There is a need to enhance collaboration: comprehensive food systems evaluations take an integrated approach by design and can therefore enhance cross-sectoral collaboration between ministries (finance, agriculture, environment, health, spatial management/planning) and also between actors (government, civil society, private sector, academic community); Finance actors need to be brought on board, given their role in getting the market incentives right, support the transition and correcting market failures (ministries of finance). Private sector representatives highlighted that regulation is critical to create a commonly accepted framework to support business decision-making. Making trade-offs and synergies visible was highlighted as a crucial contribution of comprehensive food systems evaluations. Trade-offs between: Nature and people; Food for profitable crops versus food for healthy consumers; Choices that consumers/producers make, and the results in terms of consequences to human health, planetary heals, livelihoods and equity; Types of value and capital, between stakeholders and with different priorities and values; Countries; Mono-crop and multi-crop; agriculture and biodiversity; Increasing producer prices and keeping healthy food affordable for vulnerable populations globally. Synergies between: Health and environmental outcomes of just and sustainable production; And around agroecological practices and positive outcomes for environment, livelihood and the economy. While recognizing ground realities that science-based policy and decision-making advice is just one of the factors in a dynamic decision making process, participants identified a wide range of barriers and solutions for the uptake of value-based decision-making. This included: a lack of comprehensive data (or access to data) to accurately measure and compare impacts; a narrow concept of evidence; a gap between businesses and investors wanting to use TCA due to the lack of auditing and regulatory support and standards for TCA and the absence of TCA related metrics on P&L statements; short-termism of decision-makers limiting long-term recommendations to be taken-up; lack of guidance on how to assign risks and responsibility; not burdening consumers with higher prices; capacity and multidisciplinary expertise gaps, entrenched policies and lock-ins in which scientific policy advice is just one of the factors in a dynamic decision-making process. Read less

Urgent action required Participants voiced the need for urgent action for transforming our food system, based on approaches that measure and value the contributions of natural, social, human, and produced capital to food systems.

Standardization and comparability needed A focus on standardization in terminology and practices, also to create transparency and comparability across the value chain (eg. integrated profit and loss statements). The private sector calls for the creation of a measurement matrix that values both positive steps but also targets negative interventions. This will allow different stakeholders to compare each of these diverse aspects and make decisions based on more ‘complete’ information, not just between businesses, but across the full value chain from farmer to consumer.

Grow coalition Participants highlighted that, in order to build political support throughout the Food Systems Process, there is a need to actively involve a growing coalition that is already supporting the measurement and valuation of often-neglected impacts and dependencies that food systems have on nature, people and society. To scale-up rapidly, participants highlighted the pivotal role of champions and the impact of demonstrations to inspire further action. Uptake of comprehensive food systems evaluations in the context of the Food Systems Summit process: the wide socialization of concepts... Read more and issues; ensure national and regional momentum and ownership; strengthening a growing coalition of practitioners and policy champions; and highlighting best-practice examples at different levels: policy, region, business, investment or product; engage with smallholder farmer groups to understand the diversity of what farmers and farmer workers value and possible lock-ins; Ensure a multi-value perspective in particular to the role of Indigenous and local knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services (including cultural values, knowledge on local varieties); develop a multi-stakeholder platform/coalition supported by strong data and information. Read less

Effective framing and messaging In relation to effective framing and messaging to shift decision-making the following actions were formulated: i) promote a focus on positive messages including long-term value in terms of the environmental and health benefits of food systems transformations, rather than focusing only on the negative impacts (identify and value/account for positive impacts); ii) communicate to stakeholders groups in a tailored and comprehensive way with solid scientific grounding; iii) improve the articulation of the business proposition on True Cost Accounting and value-based d... Read moreecision-making to stakeholder groups; iv) engage in a forward-looking approach, with a focus on future visions and opportunity pathways; v) the need for inspiring case studies; and vi) the need to translate numbers into concrete policy recommendations. Read less

Trade-offs and synergies In relation to trade-offs and synergies, participants expressed various key elements to take into account when conducting True Cost Accounting: i) the utility of TCA to reveal the web of interactions, allowing decision makers to reduce trade-offs and increase synergies , ii) the importance to consider and analyse distributional impacts of trade-offs between different stakeholders including smallholder farmers, iii) the need to consider spatial scales (e.g. beyond the farm gate) and temporal scales (e.g. short-term and long-term impacts), iv) the need to understand the ... Read morelocal context and role of local actors in negotiating the prioritization of trade-offs, for example in development planning processes, v) to illuminate the interconnectedness of SDGs and potential trade-offs and synergies between those, particularly linked to poverty reduction, climate action and food security, vi) and the dependence of trade-offs on national government priorities across the food systems value chains. Read less

The dialogue's main focus was on identifying and understanding the specific challenges faced in the aquatic food systems and proposing possible necessary actions or policy recommendations that would leverage the aquatic food systems capacity to contribute more to sustainable, equitable, resilient, safe aquatic foods and the attainment of SDGs by 2030 in Bangladesh. As entry points, the dialogue focussed on four thematic areas: i) enhancing aquatic food and nutrition security, and sustainable consumption; ii) promoting nature-positive production and increase resilience to vulnerabilities and sh... Read moreocks, iii) advancing equitable livelihoods in aquatic food systems; and iv) strengthening aquatic food systems' governance and policy dimensions. Read less

The aquatic food systems is an important sector of the Bangladesh economy and its citizens’ livelihoods. The sector contributes about 4% of national GDP, 60% of animal protein, 2% of national exports and engages over 17.5 million people. The sector’s potential to contribute to the national economy, food and nutrition security, poverty reduction and other SDGs is higher, but faces a number of challenges which include: 1) Low consumption of fish by the poor and low income households, who usually, experience high malnutrition levels. Therefore, urgent actions have to be undertaken to increase... Read more sustainable production, ensure access of safe and nutritious aquatic foods, promotion of nutrition-sensitive aquaculture and fisheries policies, and measures to tackle malnutrition. 2) Increased degradation of fisheries resource natural habitats by among others, siltation, eutrophication, over-exploitation and illegal fishing. There is urgent need to enrich open waters with aquatic biodiversity restoration and improve ecosystems management. 3) Low climate resilience and limited capacity to withstand shocks. Actions are required to accelerate productivity and resilience through climate smart investment. There is urgent need to promote generation and adoption of climate resilient technologies in the aquatic food systems' value chain, generation of climate information, development of insurance products and safety nets to compensate fish farmers during disasters. 4) Huge inequalities leading to exclusion of poor fish farmers, especially women who have restricted opportunities to participate in aquatic food systems. There is urgent need to increase access of poor farmers including women, to public water bodies. Additionally, financial opportunities should be developed and accessible to small-scale fishers to enable their participation in the profitable aquatic food systems' value chain. 5) Need to strengthen governance and policy dimensions of aquatic food systems. Enforcing regulations to reduce unsustainable production oriented policy systems, to more sustainable production and equality oriented policy systems, promote data generation, technology development and uptake. Read less

Discussions under thematic area one: Enhancing aquatic food and nutrition security, and sustainable consumption. Discussion topic 1: Increasing aquatic food consumption in family diet. Actions are needed to improve consumption levels of fish in resource constrained and vulnerable families, and especially by women and children in both rural and urban areas. One way is to promote production and consumption of micronutrient-rich small indigenous fish. There is also need to increase nutrition awareness and improve understanding on consumption of aquatic foods to meet nutritional requirements at di... Read morefferent stages of the life cycle for people living in different social, economic, cultural and environmental context. Promotion of nutrition-sensitive aquaculture measures can help tackle the existing challenges of malnutrition. Nutrition education should build awareness and knowledge about processing, cooking and preparation of food mixed with nutrient rich fish for feeding minor children. Production and consumption of fish based products (fish powder and fish chutney) can help meet nutritional requirements of pregnant women, lactating mothers and minor children. Fish based products should also be included in school feeding programmes. The country should develop aquatic food based dietary guidelines and make it available to all people of Bangladesh. Discussion topic 2: Improving productivity and quality. Effective and efficient production and distribution systems are needed to ensure access by all, and especially the poor households. There is need to promote pond ownership at household level and to ensure access to public water bodies by resource restricted families, as fishers and most marginalised communities' livelihoods depend on common water resources. Aquatic food standards and regulations on safe aquatic foods without detrimental effects to health should be enforced along the entire value chain i.e. from production, processing, transportation and marketing. Discussion topic 3: Improving aquatic diversity. Diversity should be improved in terms of both production and intake of aquatic foods. This would address observed species diversity loss due to unsustainable practices that in turn affect fish species and production. There should be promotion of eco-nutrition that integrates environmental health, human nutrition and conservation of natural resources. Habitat restoration and community based management need to be promoted. Both government and other stakeholder may promote the establishment of adequate fish sanctuaries and sustainable management, along with awareness campaigns. Ensuring proper implementation of existing Fishing Regulation Act is very important to enhance fish biodiversity and sustainable production in the open waters. Read less

Discussion under thematic area two: Promoting nature-positive production and increase resilience to vulnerabilities and shocks. This thematic area focussed on how to boost aquatic food production to meet the fundamental human right to healthy and nutritious food, whilst following sustainable production practices and building resilience to shocks including climate disasters. Discussion topic 1: Urgent need to curb the natural habitat degradation for fisheries resources and optimize resource use. Along with climate change, heavy pollution from agricultural land, over-exploitation, and unregulate... Read mored fishing are the key issues in the fishery habitat degradation. There is need to collectively strengthen awareness and promotion of nature based approach with the active engagement of relevant stakeholders to ensure social, economic and environmental benefits. Identification of highly degraded ecosystems should be undertaken and accordingly, upazila/sub-district or community level fishery ecosystem management plans should be developed and support should be provided to ensure their effective implementation. Discussion topic 2: High input cost and low aquatic food product prices, specifically during shocks. Cost of inputs such as seed and feed is observed to be usually high during times of disasters, however prices offered to to resource constrained fish farmers are low. Government should support, for instance the reduction of production cost by reducing electricity tarrifs and providing subsidies for feed and seed. Efforts to create and enhance online market platforms for fish products to improve farmers' returns should be strengthened. Insurance services and products that can easily be accessed and are affordable by vulnerable communities should be developed to provide compensation during loss and damage. Alternative off-farm livelihoods options should also be devised and promoted as emergency support measures during disaster. Discussion topic 3: Building resilience to climate change impacts. Currently the affected communities have limited capacity to plan and address climate change impacts. There is need to promote research and generation of technologies or adaptation practices. These may include ecosystem-specific climate resilient fish species that are tolerant to different climatic risks such as high temperatures and salinity levels, pond depth and aeration, fast growing species, integrated crop and aquatic farming practices, and promotion of cage culture. Discussion topic 4: Limited access to early warning systems. Specifically for the most vulnerable communities, there is need for community based early warning systems particularly for floods and cyclones. Additionally, different stakeholders may support climate risk vulnerability assessment to identify the different climate risks in the most vulnerable areas, communities or hotspots. This would improve community understanding of the specific risks and development of short and long-term participatory community adaptations plans to address and respond to the identified risks. There is also need to improve coordination among stakeholders that undertake or support climate risk assessment in different regions throughout the country, to share and create a common information database. The harmonised risk and vulnerability assessment database would improve knowledge generation and planning for disasters . Discussion topic 5: Deteriorating indigenous aquaculture production and biodiversity. The indigenous aquaculture production and bio-diversity (species, genetic, beels, haors, baors and estuarine ecosystem) is under threat. Preservation of indigenous genes, species and ecosystems is urgently required and should be promoted. There is need to sensitise communities on existing innovative approaches, ideas and adaptation measures especially indigenous adaptation processes. Deliberate efforts should be made to assess and tap voices and knowledge of farmers and fishers. Read less

Discussion under thematic area three: Advancing equitable livelihoods in aquatic food systems. This group discussed how aquatic food systems may contribute to equitable livelihoods through active participation and involvement in productive employment and decent work for all actors along the aquatic food systems' value chain. Issues highlighted, included how to reduce risks for the poorest; enable entrepreneurship and promote equitable access to resources and improve resilience through social protection to climate-vulnerable communities. Discussion topic 1: Access to finance and affordable cred... Read moreit services. Currently poor farmers have limited access to formal finance which forces them to seek loans from informal money lenders at exorbitant interest rates, that end up trapping poor families in a vicious cycle of poverty and oppression. Under current lending terms provided by the informal money lenders, poor farmers end up losing all their resources and properties to pay back the loans. Action is needed to end such exploitation of poor farmers by informal financial agencies. Fish farmer associations should be empowered to create and run own credit operations for fisher communities. Addition efforts can be made where loans at low or concessional interest rates may be provided. This would require capacity building and start-up funds with close monitoring and regulation by relevant government agencies. Discussion topic 2: Access to fishery resources. While there is policy provision that small-scale fishers should have access to government owned water bodies, the situation is often different, with large fishers having most access and small fishers having very limited access. There is need to ensure that there is equality in access to public water bodies. Co-management approach would be the best option to including the poor fishers and other resource users in accessing government owned public water bodies. Discussion topic 3: Limited opportunities to participate in aquatic food systems value chain. Most poor fish farmers and fishers sell fish at very low prices and are often unable to even recover production cost. Due to social barriers, female farmers especially, have less access to supply chain. Women farmer cooperatives should be established and more collection points or more women friendly fish markets should be created to enable women farmer participation and access to better markets. Discussion topic 4: Financial support to aquatic food systems input suppliers. Fish seed producing hatcheries do not get expected support as compared to other sectors in times of emergencies. The government support which is extended to other agricultural sector in times of emergencies such as Covid -19, should be extended to aquatic food systems input suppliers. This will also have positive multiplier effects along the value chain. Discussion topic 5: Promotion of alternative livelihood options. Livelihood options, especially during emergencies and fish ban periods, are limited to many poor households. There is need to create permanent livelihood options to complement the poor fisher families' income generation. Capacity building of the resource constrained fishers and alternative livelihood options are required to ensure alternative means of income generation. Read less