Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

Ultra-processed foods. Why do policies focus on nutrients and what can be done? The food system is ever pushing us to towards more packaged and processed food. They are hard to turn down for a whole host of reasons, including their affordability, the marketing that keeps us coming back for more and the fact they are so convenient. Dietary recommendations, meanwhile, tell us to eat more whole foods, fruits and vegetables, nuts and pulses. The entire food system needs to be realigned so healthier, more sustainable foods are the affordable, widely available option. Most policies to date have focu... Read moresed on the nutrients in foods rather than the foods themselves for a number of reasons. Changing food systems would require a big, coordinated effort. Food companies hold a lot of power. Reformulation, where nutrients are reduced or changed in a product is easier to gain political support for than policies which aim to fundamentally change the way we eat. Reformulation allows business as usual. Reformulation has its limits. It depends on which nutrient is being reduced and what it’s being replaced with. There is good evidence that salt reduction has worked well but ingredients such as sugar and fat are going to be much harder to remove because they often play a functional and structural role in addition to taste. Substitutes used may not be much healthier and could be more damaging to the environment as the switch to palm oil in a lot of products has shown. Stark dietary inequalities exist in countries like the UK. Those on lower incomes are more reliant on ultra-processed foods and consume significantly fewer whole foods like fruits and vegetables. This has important negative impacts on health but also provides some important motivation for system change. Research with focus groups talking about the unaffordability of healthy food resulted in calls for the food system to work better for everybody and for government and big companies to be more fair. Policies should be reframed away from nutrients and towards whole system change, with a tax on ultra-processed foods, labelling ultra-processed foods, ensuring investment in fruit and vegetable production and consumption and in community food systems and support for low income households. Read less

The approach to innovation (the how) sometimes affects outcome & impact to a greater extent than the innovation itself (the what). Thought For Food, a global food and agri-tech innovation non-profit, focuses on embracing six key attitudes often found in next-generation leaders to unlock potential game-changing ideas and create inclusive and resilient food systems: 1. Openness: Embracing new experiences and diverse ideas and connecting seemingly unexpected dots to create new ideas and breakthroughs. 2. Collaboration: Willingness to dive into the possibilities of digital technologies and bel... Read moreieve that anyone can collaborate on anything, anywhere, at any time. 3. Beginner’s Mindset (Curiosity): Holding on to playfulness and intrinsic curiosity. 4. Entrepreneurial Methods: Seeing opportunities in every challenge – in today’s world, it has never been cheaper or easier to take a risk in pursuit of a beneficial breakthrough. 5. Shared Purpose: Building emotional intelligence and resilience to unite among a cause. 6. Nurturing Communities: Emphasizing that relationships drive forward everything that we do – our support system revives and propels us forward during the hardest times. This Dialogue aims to bring together next-generation representatives from the public and private sectors together, alongside those from civil society organizations, to deep-dive into each of these attitudes facilitating game-changing innovation and to further iterate on the critical role of next-generation leadership in food systems transformation. Following the UN Food Systems Summit Pre-Summit in July and an initial Independent Dialogue in May between the European branch of Thought For Food and FoodDrinkEurope, an association representing the EU food and drink industry, this Dialogue further iterates on the critical role of next-generation leadership in food systems transformation. Discussion questions: - How does championing this attitude lead to innovation? - What potential impact can the widespread practice of this attitude unlock? - What are the limitations of enacting this attitude for our food systems – where does the approach not work? - How can we increase awareness of this attitude? - How can leaders in the UN FSS and beyond embrace this attitude to transform our food systems? Read less

Today’s young people – representing the largest youth population in human history – deserve a seat at the table when it comes to deciding on the future they will live in. Engaging youth isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. The next generations bring forward new ideas, new worldviews and new approaches that have the power to unleash a tidal wave of innovation and positive impact. The problem is that finding spaces to meaningfully engage with next generation innovators without tokenizing their insights and involvement is limited. The UN Food Systems Summit Dial... Read moreogues that have taken place in the lead up to the UN Food Systems Summit offer productive forums for discussions to happen, and their format is adapted to accommodate multi-stakeholder conversations. Meaningfully engaging with next-generation innovators is easy with the right mindset and tools. Here is what we can (and should) learn from next-gens – as covered in the forthcoming book, “The Changemakers Guide to Feeding the Planet”: 1. Seek nuance: This includes performing quick social media audits, being mindful of public-facing media, and encouraging new and underrepresented voices. 2. Flip dilemmas: Stand in another place – literally. Use a lense from another domain, explore scenarios and “what ifs?”, and change the pace of attention. 3. Build bridges: Be vulnerable, ask questions instead of providing answers, listen, swap shoes, and keep the bigger picture in mind. Read less

Enabling Openness Openness is not inherent in the food and agriculture industry – there is a lot of inertia built into the system. Supply chains and procurement processes lack transparency, mistrust of certain food systems actors is commonplace, and the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of our food systems leading to doubling acute world hunger. Implementing openness, especially combatting perceived IP concerns, is not automatic, but can be worthwhile. A 2017 Boston Consulting Group Global Innovation Survey found that 77% of the best-rated innovators follow open innovation models, like... Read more Syngenta’s Open Data project or national trade openness. As well, allowing constructive openness in trusted environments ensures that our food remains safe to eat – openness and transparency are fundamental aspects of the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) framework. Embracing openness comes with the need to recognize and work through the differences of multi-stakeholder and cross-cultural environments like in our global food systems. We all represent different cultural, educational, and social experiences and different expertise. When we are open, we can do so much more. By understanding each other and recognizing other people’s values, we can design food systems solutions that are human-centered and implementable, creating much stronger, democratic, and healthier food systems. Read less

Leading to collaboration Implementing openness effectively cannot be done alone – collaboration is key, but we first need to learn how to collaborate. Taking inspiration from the multi-stakeholder mobilization around COVID-19, where researchers, governments, health care, and other essential workers tirelessly fought at the forefront of the crisis to minimize its effects on the general public, our current food systems to require a similar, urgent approach from the global community. Next-generation innovations find it difficult to understand why certain stakeholders are hesitant around collabo... Read moreration. Building restrictive barriers to entry for food systems involvement disincentivizes valuable perspectives, especially those from underrepresented groups like the next-generation, from getting involved – although they still do push for active engagement. It is on food systems actors as a whole to ensure the next-generation can freely express their positions – something we should celebrate and amplify. Especially since these innovators are our future food systems leaders, the ones for whom we build our future food systems. Read less

Openness, particularly in commercial innovation and solutions, may not marry well with the need to stay competitive (i.e. keep the innovation to yourself for a competitive edge). As well, truly inclusive collaboration is effortful and difficult to implement (finding solutions that cross the digital divide, engaging those in rural communities, respecting non-digital ways of working) and can impede progress and potentially limit impact - there is a trade-off between impact and inclusiveness.

Participants during the dialogue event held divergent views on the possibility of farming without the use of soil. In actual terms, it seemed impossible but all views were put to rest after the soilless farming session where the speaker took the session from his farm directly via zoom meetings.

1. A Comprehensive lecture on Backyard Farming: A backyard Farm is a homestead garden intended to utilize the space around a house to grow vegetables and limited food crops. It is a subsistence method of farming where there is competition for agricultural lands which has forced many to establish fields on marginal lands far from the house, also, due to the situation of no access to farmland by some households. Further details about this can be found in one of the attachments. Session by: Mr. Gbenga Adeleke 2. The basics of Organic Farming with a practical session on how to produce Organic Fert... Read moreiliser Using local resources like (i). Plastic Bowl, (ii). Saw Dust (iii). Sand (iii). Dry Plant stick and a measurable quantity of water. Session by: Mr. Moyegun Joseph 3. The Urgency of Transforming our Food Systems through Soilless Farming: This session was taken online via zoom as the guest couldn't make it to the venue. Session by: Farmer Samson Ogbole 4. Farmers Challenges towards delivering Sustainable Food Products with emphasis on Vegetables (Pumpkin Production). Session by Mr. Terhemen Aondoakaa 5. Access to Safe and Nutritious Food: Bringing Innovation into Agriculture and Achieving Food Security Using Thailand as Example of Innovation in Agriculture. Session by: Ms. Kanyanat Kongsamphan Read less

1. The need for the people to make informed choices about the type of food they eat which should be safe and nutritious and from a credible source. 2. The need for the people to embrace backyard Farming as an alternative and a sustainable means of raising crops and vegetables from the comfort of their homes thereby reducing cost of purchasing food items detrimental to their health and well-being. 3. The need for people to know how to produce what's safe and nutritious. 4. The fight against Food Insecurity is a fight for all and it starts with knowing what's safe and producing crops and vegetab... Read moreles using organic resources, this helps in making informed choices about Food. 5. Food Heroes should be at the fore front of all policies and laws governing production, processing and distribution of food. Read less

The main findings from the dialogue is that, there is the need to connect with the grassroot women and youth smallholder farmers. Taking directly from the world of Phumsile Ngukuka, the retired UN Women Secretary General, she said and I quote "Women and girls are not intrinsically vulnerable but their social, economic and political conditions make them susceptible to risks and vulnerabilities." Women and girls need to be included in the resiliency of food sustainability. All the discussion was majorly centered on women and youth vulnerability. The action that stakeholders in the food value cha... Read morein needs to take together are for the stakeholders to come together with the urban women working with the grassroot women to improve their lives and find a landing ground to resolve the climate change issues that affect the rural women most. Such issues to be included in the discussions are; 1. Food Security Food security is a broad topic that covers the availability, accessibility, utilization and stability of food systems. Women farmers currently account for 36 to 90 per cent of all food production in developing countries, depending on the region. As a result of climate change, traditional food sources have become more unpredictable and scarce, leading to women’s loss of income and access to food. Women are also often excluded from decision–making processes regarding access to and the use of land and resources critical to their livelihoods. 2. Water Resources The increased frequency of floods and droughts has led to disruptions in freshwater supply, negatively affecting women and girls in particular, since they are often tasked with securing and managing water for daily domestic use. In developing countries, fetching water from distant sources is time-consuming, and the quantity retrieved is rarely enough to meet the needs of the household. Furthermore, since the water is not filtered, it can be contaminated and have adverse effects on the health and sanitation of women, girls and their families. 3. Health The effects of climate change on health include increased mortality and morbidity due to heat waves, floods, storms, fires and drought. The risk to women’s health in particular increases as a result of water scarcity and contamination. 4. Effects of Changes in Human Settlements and Migration Patten. The Grassroots women and youths' smallholder farmers are calling on world leaders to action: 1. To Provide them with equitable decent work and livelihoods. 2. Include them in equitable political, social, and economic considerations 3. The rate of disasters experience by grassroots women and youths farmers should be reduced by protecting lives, livelihoods, homes, assets, basic services and infrastructures. Capacities includes networks, infrastructures, knowledge, skills and resources. 4. To become resilience and feel included, the grassroots women and youths should be able to advance in development processes, social networks and institutional partnerships that help women recognize and build on existing efforts that reduce the impact of the disasters. 5. Grassroots women and youth organizations and smallholder farmers put a lot of efforts to their work but the only thing they receive is clap. The disconnect between grassroots women and youth and the federal state should be removed. 6. Grassroots women and youths should be included in emergency responsiveness and national programs. 7. Grassroots women and youth’s successes should be scaled up. 8. Women and youths should be made agent of change in the society. 9. Advocacy and community based work should be jointly done. 10. Hunger has no place where people work in solidarity. 11. Grassroots women and youths’ smallholder farmers should be able to access direct finance or under the leadership of strong leaders like dialogue conveners, action track leaders and commitment makers in the united Nation Food System Dialogue. 12. Livestock sector reforms should be put in place. 13. There’s no one that is allergic to training, herdsmen should be trained in nomadic literacy and older herdsmen should be given adult literacy programs whereby they will look after their herds from the dawn to noon and be at the literacy centers by evening. 14. Gender Equality should be given priority across its six thematic coalitions in Agriculture. 15. Innovations. A participant in the virtual platform based in Uganda, presented this as voices of grassroot women from Uganda. Hear from her mouth some actions that needs to be taken Based on the observation with grassroot women below are my key remarks; • Value addition in agriculture • The power of associations/cooperatives as a platform for knowledge sharing; capacity building in terms of skills; Capital mobilization. • Mentorship in order to build the the necessary skill set for work ethics • Role of technology and e-commerce • Creating an enabling policy environment for the women and youth to enable them actively engage in processing business registration of business; taxes; • Creation of youth business incubation centers women and youth in grassroot areas • Industrial Park policies should also be provide for women and youths . The representative of the youth and children also has this to say. The youth and children farmers entrepreneurs representative also called on the world leaders to come and provide the necessary enabling ground, environmental improvement, finance and technical assistance that will help us in the reduction of food waste. Many other voices also called the attention of the world at the dialogue below. Read less

How can Gender Equality, Climate Change, Decent Work for All, Technology and Innovation contribute to the food system value Chain? Professor Nwosu Contribution: Critical Elements in the recent universal controversy regarding food system value chain Gender equality is a native and random topic on line. The negative norms hold about feminist gender had limit women from being a factor in the the food system value chain. People who still hold such perception should change their believe so women can progress in the food system value chain. Climate change is an uncontrollable variable. Therefore, fa... Read morermers should use old astrological systems to know when to farm aggressively ahead of changes. Decent work for all is more like a dream than reality. Different factors lead up to decent work. Infrastructure is one of them if not the most important factor. I think that a good food value chain and system is rather the element to contribute to decent work. Technology is simply the way we do things. We already have the technology to carry out food production. In he context of this discussion, technology would need to be improved. In other words, we can find ways and means to strengthen the processes we have and possibly make those systems better. We can make those processes better by also upgrading our farming tools and equipment. We can secure new and modern implements and deploy in food production. products, and outcomes. As a Gender Expert, I added this too. Successful stories of resilience and actions in favor of Gender Equality should be followed. 1. Grassroots women and youths should be included in emergency responsiveness and national programs. 2. Adequate best practices to support livelihood and improve s and youths' smallholder farmers business at the grassroot should be encouraged 3. The Technical and Technological good practices that led to cooperation and exchange of experiences between institutions should be encouraged. 4. Household Covid-19 loans should be given to feminist gender. 7. Grassroots women and youth’s successes should be scaled up. 8. Women and youths should be made agent of change in the society. 9. Advocacy and community based work should be jointly done. 10. Hunger has no place where people work in solidarity. 11. Grassroots women and youths’ smallholder farmers should be able to access direct finance or under the leadership of strong leaders like dialogue conveners, action track leaders and commitment makers in the united Nation Food System Dialogue. 12. Livestock sector reforms should be put in place. 13. There’s no one that is allergic to training, herdsmen should be trained in nomadic literacy and older herdsmen should be given adult literacy programs whereby they will look after their herds from the dawn to noon and be at the literacy centers by evening. 14. Gender Equality should be given priority across its six thematic coalitions in Agriculture. 15. Innovations. 16. Implication for literacy and educational best practices for women and youths at the grassroots should be enhanced 17. promoting empowerment of people in achieving poverty eradication should be replicated. 18. Youth and covid-19 response, recovery and implementation should be monitored. Read less

One of the dialogue that has an evident an data was the one presented by Mr. John Ugwu a retired banker and Financial Analyst and also a Co-convener in my dialogue. Hs words: When the Nigerian government provided seeds, water pumps, fertilizer and loans to farmers as a part of a national agriculture program, only few women, especially in the rural grassroot, were among the many beneficiaries. But women generally have capacity to manage and increase farm produce to reduce food shortage and take care of homes and families. The following two short stories will buttress this fact. Mama Segun, a wi... Read moredow, took over her husband’s cocoa farm in Ikare near Akure, Ondo State, after the death of her husband. Every year, she engages laborers to work on the farm and reap good harvest and money to take care of Segun and his siblings. Today, Segun is a graduate, with all his siblings, following the death of her husband, Ajuma Ajonye was farming her husband’s land in the Ugbugbu Akor, Orokam community in Benue State of Nigeria, where women do not usually inherit property or participate in decision making. She did not have access to weather information, but followed the advice of extension workers to practice crop rotation and secured critical resources from the agricultural program. Ajuma repaid her loan ahead of all the other farmers and doubled the amount of land she cultivated. As a result of the government’s services, Ajuma’s family’s nutrition improved significantly. In exchange for labor, she provided food to other women farmers who were not able to access land and government support. These stories demonstrate how support directed to women farmers can lead to positive ripple effects across households, communities and countries. Farmers like Mama Segun and Ajuma play a central role in reversing poverty and food insecurity, and building resilience in the face of climate change. Women smallholder producers are heavily engaged in domestic activities, which remain hidden economically. These dual roles in households and on farms mean that their empowerment can have a wider impact on communities and economies. Agriculture is more likely than any other sector to provide diverse opportunities for empowering women and reducing food shortage and climate vulnerability. However, women do not receive the same support as men farmers, who have more access to farming inputs such as land, fertilizer and technology; financial services such as loans and subsidiaries; and technical support such as weather information and training through extension services. These barriers result in women producing 20-30 percent less than men. Supporting women farmers is not simply about securing identical inputs for women and men, but ensuring that resources are line with women’s needs. Social norms and institutional constraints are significant barriers to many resources being effective for women. CHALLENGES/ DIFFICULTIES WOMEN SMALL GRASSROOT FARMERS FACE IN ACCESSING FINANCE/ INPUTS: Achieving the agriculture transformational change that Nigeria and of course Africa craves is one that can sustain the continent’s urgent food demands and the changing agricultural landscape will require clear understanding of the gender-gap blocking issues in the sector. Below is an account of the most pressing issues: a. Access to Productive Resources: It is widely known that grassroot smallholders women farmers tend to experience more constraints in accessing agricultural productive resources such as: - I. Access to Land: in most parts of Nigeria and Africa, women do not have inheritance rights to land. Unequal rights to land borne out of diverse statutes, religious, customary and local norms put women at a disadvantage poverty, and entrench gender inequality in Africa. Women represent less than 15% of agricultural landholders, livestock or other agricultural resources (that is, those who exercise management control over an agricultural holding as owners or tenants, or through customary rights). II. Access to Finance and Financial Services: Agricultural finance is among the most difficult type of finance to secure. Smallholders grassroot women farmers experience greater constraints than their male counter parts based on the following: • Perceived risk – That Agricultural loans to women are difficult to recover. Second, that there is usually no collateral security to fall back to, in case of default. And even if there are, the Forced Sales Value of such security will be worthless. Grassroot Smallholder women farmers operate in an environment particularly perceived as riskier than that found in other non African developing countries. Lack of Management capacities- African grassroot smallholder women farmers lacks the necessary Managerial capacity as rural dwellers with limited education to manage farms. Africa’s large population of rural dwellers with limited education has little or no access to financial services and is effectively unbanked. This segment of the population has had neither the opportunity for interaction with final institutions nor exposure necessary to develop skills for accessing formal credit. • Access to Banking Services. Location of Farm - Another adventitious explanation for prohibitive access to finance is the physical location of farms and distance from credit source. The distance between the borrower and the leader has an impact on the resulting borrower-bank relationship. Banks are reluctant to give loans to the grassroot smallholder farmers. The way forward and divergent views hold will be seen in later outcomes below. Read less

Grassroots Women And Youth's Inclusion During Covid-19 and Beyond on Building Food Resilience and How to Avoid Food Wastage in Nigeria The program will focus on grassroot women Food Resilience and how to mitigate waste. It will include the following issues and highlights, but others. 1. How strong is the food tank and food production at the grassroot by women and youth girls? Their challenges, awareness, finances, rate of inclusion, challenges faced by women grassroot’ smallholder farmers, the extent to which their voices are heard and how can it be heard. Hardship faced from herdsmen destru... Read morection etc. 2. Food Wastage in Nigeria generally and cases of food waste in other countries e.g. America. The causes of food waste, the effects, the vulnerable groups. How to mitigate it, importance, the resultant positive impact, and outcomes of the solutions. 3. How Covid-19 had lay bare or exacerbated the suffering of grassroot women, youths and women smallholder farmers at the rural communities and other areas. 4. Gender Equality and its priority in the tackling of women issues both at the grassroots and the urban environments. Read less

Alongside a human and ecological health crisis we confront an animal health crisis: Approximately 70 billion animals are farmed for food worldwide every year (60% of all mammals on Earth), the majority of which are produced under intensive livestock production systems with little, if any, animal welfare standards. These systems drive the increased use of antibiotics and are connected to the emergence of a range of zoonotic diseases, diminishing animal health, exacerbating the human health crisis, and contributing to the ecological health crisis. According to a 2021 Chatham House report, launch... Read moreed in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme and CIWF, the production of food is the primary cause of biodiversity loss globally – driven by the conversion of land for agriculture and the intensification of agriculture reducing the quality and quantity of available wildlife habitats. 'One Health' is often defined as ‘an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.’ Traditionally areas of work in which a One Health approach is relevant includes the control of Zoonotic diseases (Diseases and infections that are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and humans. A zoonotic agent may be a bacterium, a virus, a fungus and includes flu, rabies, rift valley fever, Ebola etc) and combatting antibiotic resistance (when bacteria change after being exposed to antibiotics and become more difficult to treat). One Health as a concept has gained significant traction in national and international settings and many actors highlight the opportunity it offers to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration and action. One Welfare extends the approach of (and partially overlaps) the One Health theme used for human and animal health. A One Welfare approach promotes the direct and indirect links of animal welfare to human welfare and environmentally friendly animal-keeping systems. It fosters interdisciplinary collaboration to improve human and animal welfare internationally. It helps to promote key global objectives such as supporting food security, sustainability, reducing human suffering and improving productivity within the farming sector through a better understanding of the value of high welfare standards. In this Dialogue, participants focussed on addressing a number of key questions: 1) What are the opportunities to drive forward and operationalise a ‘one health, one welfare’ agenda, linking animal, human and ecosystem health in a post pandemic world? 2) What are the main barriers to a One Health and One Welfare approach and how can they be overcome? 3) What would be your food system summit call to action? Dialogue Objectives: 1) Ensure better animal health and wellbeing outcomes are at the heart of the Food Systems Summit highlighting how animal health and welfare are intrinsically interlinked human and ecological health 2) Create support for an integrated, holistic approach to policy reform and coordinated action across food sectors, identifying food systems opportunities for better human, ecological and animal health 3) Using a couple of case studies from around the world, to demonstrate what ‘one health’ practice/policy reform is being practiced (would be good to identify a couple of case studies from the Global South for example). 4) Highlight opportunities presented by a ‘One Health, One Welfare approach and what this would look like in practice. Read less

The following is a list of the main findings with regards to the opportunities for taking forward a One Health One Welfare Approach: - Many participants welcomed a focus on and highlight significant opportunities and advantages to a One Health One Welfare approach - as governments invest in new solutions to build post Covid-19 economies, there is an opportunity to focus and build narratives around the interlinkages between animal welfare (health), ecosystem health and human health. Some fear governments may squander the opportunity. - In some countries there is increasing political will. E.g.,... Read more the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs launched PREZODE (PREventing ZOonotic Diseases Emergence), a new initiative to prevent future pandemics. - There is a need/opportunity to move One Health beyond a theoretical concept into something that is practical and tangible. There are lots of frameworks particularly at an international level, but these are often disconnected from the needs and realities of practitioners on the ground. - An opportunity to adapt One Health approach depending on the very different political contexts and priorities of a country. That it is important to develop tools for competent authorities to work together and that it is important to take the one health and one welfare idea to a broader public and to create a public pressure on industry and decision makers to influence the political agenda - There is an opportunity for a universally agreed definition of One Health, the principles that underpin it, and a framework, which can be adapted to meet the needs according to geography and culture. - Leveraging research and developing One Health strategies based on practical experience is key - There is a need for a One Health Systems approach that identifies those systemic interventions which address the root causes and underlying determinants which lead to better animal, human and ecosystem health outcomes. - There is a need to broaden the application of the One Health approach and encompass a broader range of ecologically mediated diseases, such as encompassing the agendas of AMR, malnutrition, epidemic preparedness, integrated surveillance systems, environmental health, food systems and food safety – which are all driven by and dependent on healthy ecosystems and both animal health and welfare. - Working in a multidisciplinary way will build bridges between individuals/organizations working on related issues and enable more impactful work - One Health presents an opportunity to understand how people value food, nature and a sense of place and avoid potentially damaging and polarising debates. There is often more that unites people across sectors, cultures etc. than divides them. - There is a need to incorporate environmental determinants in One Health policy and the links between One Health, Climate Change, and nature-based solutions. (Agroecological and regenerative forms of agricultural practice) - The need to strengthen national surveillance systems so they provide an early warning system for a range of human and animal diseases, including the underlying ecological conditions that drive disease emergence. - There is a need to invest in higher health systems with good animal welfare ensuring farmed animals enjoy a good quality of life. Some systems should be outlawed. We asked participants to highlight the main opportunities for ensuring a One Health One Welfare approach is taken forward within the Food Systems summit: - There is a need for policies that prevent and reduce antibiotic use in animal production. - Countries should commit to country level One Health action plans and collaborate internally on the implementation. - Farmers/producers/indigenous groups must be part of the story and we need greater levels of participation within the One health agenda. - The summit needs to focus on solutions that are more locally, culturally and geographically relevant - a one size fits all approach will not work. - To mainstream One Health, One welfare we need to reflect the true cost of food – out pricing systems and systems of agricultural needs to change to ensure high animal welfare standards subsidies supported by production systems that are regenerative - Online training is growing, it has the potential to support institutional training and education programmes to covering the one health one welfare concept. - There is a need to place more emphasis on trade and its importance in creating One health One welfare outcomes linked to trade standards and issues of fairness. - There needs to be better dissemination of science and ensure this is linked to meet the needs of different cultural contexts. One Health science is often driven by the Global North with little relevance to practitioners. - Putting animal welfare more central to the FSS is key to human health prevention and will be cost effective in the long term. - The need to link One health one welfare with the need to reduce meat consumption, particularly of animal-source foods from industrial/intensive livestock systems. - The need for greater recognition of one health- one welfare as guiding framework across all action tracks of the summit. - Food systems should consider all animals as sentient and critical to healthy and sustainable food systems. - One Health should be underpinned by a respect for life both human and animal, ideally through the UN and an animal welfare SDG. It was felt the post-pandemic era was fertile ground for this approach. Read less

Topic #1 - What are the main Barriers and Limitations to One Health, One Welfare Approach? - There is not an agreed and commonly used definition of One Health. - One health does not address take a holistic approach and make the links between improved animal welfare standards/better husbandry and the links between AMR/Zoonosis/environmental contamination. - Insufficient attention is paid to the One Welfare concept that enhances One Health - One Health is commonly perceived as addressing human health (achieving human health outcomes or managing disease) through the lens of animal and ecosystem h... Read moreealth rather than as an opportunity to address the upstream determinants of human, animal, and ecological health together, exploring the interdependencies. Climate change for example is a threat to human health and this needs to be considered through the lens on One Health. - The need to broaden a One Health approach to include the triple burden of malnutrition and food security. - Plant Health is often missing from the One Health story but needs inclusion. - One health does not always recognise the connections between animal and human abuse and neglect. - Gaps in national public health surveillance systems pose a significant threat to health. Gaps in monitoring ecosystems, ecosystems services and wildlife/wildlife diseases were all highlighted (including the use of indigenous knowledge and social sciences). - Accessing national level data, across many dimensions (animal, ecological and human health) and across different farming systems can often be challenging. - Awareness and engagement of veterinary authorities in the field is often very low and needs to take place in many countries. There is still a weak connection between veterinary and human public health institutions. - The siloed approach between different government departments/ministries e.g. between health, agriculture, trade and environment. - A Siloed approach between One Health and One welfare – often it is either “health” or “welfare,” but these silos need to be broken down to work collaboratively and more impactfully. - One health research can be very theoretical – it needs to be done in a more practical way involving farmers, indigenous groups and local communities ( those with ‘Lived experiences’) so that it can be scaled up locally - Businesses can view One Health agenda as a threat rather then as an opportunity to align their own strategies to health, sustainability, nutrition, branding and marketing etc. Need to move from short term profit to long term value creation. - There is a need for more collaboration between NGOs, governments and projects on the agenda as there is a lot of reinventing the wheel. Multi-disciplinary projects are harder to implement but produce better results and hence the importance of getting the One Health framework right from the start. - There is a perceived false categorisation of humans as distinct from other animals. Ideally there should be addressing this binary classification. - It was felt that there was a lack of transparency on the realities of intensive livestock production systems in society with a rosy-view being perpetuated in marketing and education settings Read less

Topic #2 - What are the main Governance Challenges to One Health One Welfare? - A siloed approach to One health is still commonplace, particularly within governments, meaning One Health is often focussed on AMR/Zoonosis with the responsibility of health ministries rather than as a cross departmental issue. - Whilst more governments are looking at One health approach not all governments are – there is a need for greater civil society mobilisation around the One Health agenda. - There is not always much unity of approach at national and national levels when exploring One Health interventions. ... Read more- There is a need for leadership from politicians and governments and businesses to ensure human, animal and ecosystem health are at the heart of policy. - As more One Health initiatives emerge, we need to be careful that systemic interventions are really being identified and therefore due diligence is required to ensure a systems diagnosis remains at the heart of a One Health approach. - Engaging people and organisations from the human health side (dealing with triple burden of malnutrition for example) is often weak within governance structures. - Many people working on One Health are experts in disease and health and do not necessarily include professionals covering wellbeing. - Scope of One Health – Many governance systems at national and international levels often define One Health around AMR and Zoonosis and therefore programmes can be limited in scope. - Governance mechanisms do not always focus on systemic drivers and shy away from sensitive issues – e.g., dealing with industrial farming systems and excessive meat consumption that drives antibiotic use. - There is often a disconnect between the theory and frameworks provided at international levels and the tools needed by local and/or national practitioners. - There is a need to bring the science on One Health together with participatory processes that identify the needs and challenges of local populations. The risks and benefits of One Health need to be defined by culture and geography and cant be mediated at an international level. - There is a need to understand local power dynamics when assessing local One Health dimensions and careful consideration needs to be given to the process of local engagement, so it is participatory and is based on the views and values of local actors. - There is need to engage actors beyond the clinical field (doctors and vets) engaging indigenous groups and citizen science, complimenting quantitative data with more qualitative data from the field. - There is a need to focus on a bottom-up approach and ensure any tools developed internationally are to be relevant locally to national and local level decision makers. One Health needs to be framed by practitioners themselves. - Sovereignty of national governments is paramount and there needs to be an effective formulation for governance structures across international and national scales. Read less

Topic #3 Systemic Food Systems Interventions for One Health One Welfare There is a significant opportunity to ensure a One Health approach and principles are embedded within the Food System Summit process and beyond. Food lies at the heart of human, ecosystem, and animal health and well-being. Participants agreed that our health and well-being are being impacted by our food systems - the way we grow, harvest, process, transport, market, consume, and dispose of food, through multiple and inter-related pathways. Today our industrial food systems are making us ill, are driving climate change and ... Read moreundermining the health and wellbeing of animals and of ecosystems and the essential services on which our own health and well-being depends. Two-thirds of farmed animals are reared in industrial systems that deprive them of the opportunity of a good quality of life and that do not respect them as sentient beings. This requires changes to our food production systems – from systems focussed on a producitvist, ‘feed the world’ minfdset which favours the production of homogenous nutrient rich foods to ones that produce a diversity of nutrient rich crops, using nature positive solutions such as those provided by regenerative or agroecological forms of agriculture. It also requires us to change our consumption habits, ensuring healthy, sustainable and culturally appropriate diets remain the norm. The issue of meat consumption and what we eat was also highlighted during the discussions – the need to eat less but better meats with significant reductions in meat consumption required in counties particularly in the global North/West. There was also lots of feedback on the need to focus on more plant-based proteins within diets with a focus on nutrient rich rather than energy dense foods. The need to transition from industrial farming systems to more regenerative and agroecological systems were considered to be key to transforming food systems. There was general agreement that 2021 offers a unique opportunity to build forward a more compassionate, resilient, fairer, healthier, and sustainable food systems, that will also engender and promote better animal welfare outcomes- with better human, ecological and animal health outcomes central to economic stimulus packages and policies that governments put in place to support post Covid economic recovery. A source of both past and future pandemics is industrial animal agriculture or factory farming. Keeping thousands of animals crammed and confined creates the perfect breeding ground for disease. Industrial agriculture is also a major driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss, a consumer of more than two-thirds of the world’s antibiotics, and the biggest source of food waste. Participants agreed on the need for a new food systems paradigm and a shift of narrative putting the health of animals, people and the planet and the heart of food systems transformation. Read less

A few concerns were flagged during the discussions including: - Some discussion on the role of businesses in One Health and how to use corporate power and influence for good than commercial interests, which prioritize profits over health and nutrition or those in businesses that weaken regulation for foods with high animal welfare/ environmental standards. - How broad should One Health be? There was general agreement on the need to expand to include dimensions of planetary health and to place animal welfare at the heart of the One Health agenda, but some concerns that if it is made too broad i... Read moret could make it a bit meaningless and that planetary health should provide the umbrella. Read less

Outcomes for each discussion topic were: "Sustainable value chains in food systems" - The Need to develop a marketing framework in support of bee culture, mushroom, etc. - Technical support of soil testing and cultivation knowledge for edible mushroom growing. - The need for bakery training for some village members using locally baked items. "Rural entrepreneurship" - Self-employment through rural entrepreneurship was supported by the participants since Tourism revenue was impacted by COVID-19. - Training and guidance support for interested entrepreneurs. - Identifying the type of local busine... Read moress suitable for local village residents. - Technical knowledge to improve product value of locally derived products. Read less