Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

The meeting with Japan Agricultural Corporations Association (JACA) was held to exchange opinions related to SDGs and sustainable food systems. Please see the attached file for details of discussions.

The first national dialogue was focused on collecting broad public opinions for setting the direction of long term food policy and setting the direction for following national dialogues. Problems, importance and challenges related all UN Action Tracks were discussed considering the food system situation of Republic of Korea(ROK) and its role as a member of the international community.

As this is the first meeting to prepare for following national dialogues, Dr. David Nabarro, Senior Advisor on the Food Systems Summit, explained the background of the UN Food System Summit through pre-recorded video. MAFRA (the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs) announced plans how to proceed with the National Dialogues. The Special Commission on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Policies introduced Korea’s national food plan which is recently established. In addition, KREI (the Korea Rural Economic Research Institute) presented public survey results on food system awareness th... Read moreat was conducted on 234 producers, 1,109 consumers, and 152 experts. Following presentations, a discussion was took place among participants selected considering their demographics, working sectors and interests. As the result of the first national dialogue, it has been verified that the issue of “food security, sustainable food production and consumption, and food for all” is essential to improve Korea's food system. And, a need to keep the balance between the UN Action Track and domestic issues was raised. There was an opinion that it is necessary to identifies the nature of the food issues considering what is the role of the government and that of the market for practical discussion. Furthermore, a need was raised to include various food issues other than issues related to food production, and to include food industries more actively in next national dialogues. Also, it was suggested that various ministries need to participate in future national dialogues. Read less

The first national dialogue was focused on collecting broad public opinions for setting the direction of long term food policy and setting the direction for following national dialogues.

Impact of climate change in food secuirty Impact of COVID - 19 in food secuirty Mobilization of resources Reseilince building

The five tracks were presented and there are divergences, agreements and diversified opinion by the participants in the dialogue as follow;. Action Track 1: 'Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all' The participants agreed that there must be policies and legislations to adjust and control the safety measures as safety raised as an important issue to safe people from illnesses and malnutrition cases. There are many actors who should play a vital role to make it a reality as in Sudan there are a lot of challenges in this issue, which have to be addresses by different actors including g... Read moreovernment, private sector, UN agencies, community organizations, and others. Prices are the main factor for accessing nutritious food. Action Track 2: 'Shift to sustainable consumption patterns' Disagreement in the way that the problem is in cultural practices rather than in consumption gaps. The big volume of loss and waste deepen the gap. Poor cultural practices lead to poor consumption both in quantity and quality. Action Track 3: 'Boost nature-positive production' everyone agreed that it is better to have nature-positive production' but the road is very long and need support by different actors , with this climate changes and other hazards , the production need to be natural , lack of policies and legislations are one of the reasons behind the poor dealing with the agricultural and industrial production, besides poor metrological standards and follow up through the value chain..Big areas in Sudan have potentialities for organic farming , it need resources and know how. Participants agreed that both climate change and COVID – 19a are the main drivers of food insecurity. Action Track 4: 'Advance equitable livelihoods' In Sudan there is a wide range of livelihood systems , the participants disagree in the most dominant ones but at last the consensus put 6 as the dominant which are; agricultural zone, agropastural, pastoral, gum Arabic, flood retreat, rain fed and irrigated. All participants agreed on the importance of promoting a culture of justice and equality among all communities considering gender issue. Some of the participants thought of a sort of discriminations in the remote areas and this need strong justice to be achieved to reach a fair livelihood system.. Action Track 5:'Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress' Different shocks and vulnerabilities exist, agreement between the participants to address these shocks differently. Read less

Sudan has abundant potentialities to secure its food and can build a concrete and sustainable food system but it needs some sort of technical and financial support. One of the successes is the existence of high level food security and nutrition set up. Need to strengthen the public- private partnership. Already a food security policy exists but the implementation of the action plan need mobilization of resources. Engage youth and women in agriculture to be well equipped by technologies. More opportunities in education for children in rural areas, awareness raising by good consumption practices... Read more. One of the main agreed upon points is to transform the country to feed adjacent countries within the period 2022 – 2030 by increasing investments in food system. Investment is highly needed in infrastructures both for agriculture and industries. Governance – Institutional arrangements, Strengthen information system, Peace building Enhance Social responsibility, Planning and mapping and monitoring and evaluation with spatial system (Gis- RS),Data entry and planning, Establishing new laws for natural resources, registration and protections of genetic resource. Sustainable management of Natural Resources. Extension, awareness, genetic bank. Finance of small producer (crops and animal), capacity building. Using modern technologies (save) infrastructure Read less

The main discussion issues were; Need to reactivate the existing policies and laws and conducting new laws in the area of concern e.g. agricultural and industrial laws, Food security law. Poor capacities and poor innovations in the food system lead to low yield. Traditional means of production, manufacturing, transportation and storage need to be addressed by actionable plans. Lack of standardized practices within the value chain increase the loss and waste and there is need to safe our food. Need for laws to protect both producers and consumers. Poor extension services. Participants discussed... Read more also the encouragement of youth and women to intervene by new technologies to enhance the production and manufacturing of agricultural production, direction to export manufactured products to earn hard currencies. Support the social networks to help vulnerable populations. There is an important need to revise food subsidies in line with the current economic, social and health circumstances. The importance of land use laws to have equality according to law. Need to expand the strategic reserves to store all strategic food for sustainable supply. Expand involvement of private sector in production to avail diversity of food products. Strategy to reduce losses and waste all through the value chain. Poor consumption patterns partially due to poor cultural practices. High malnutrition rates due to low diversity in consumption. Impact of climate change and mostly climate variations from season to season. The participants discussed the importance of comparative advantages, mainly in small scale farm. Long discussion on government support to the production discussing high production cost leading to high prices of food product, leading to difficulty in purchasing food for poor HHs. Participants discussed need for income generating activities to improve income and eliminate the inequality. Revisiting irrigation system to be well equipped and need for water harvesting techniques to make use of excessive water in flooding areas. Read less

The dialogue focused on the discussion of the five tracks in addition to some related issues which were discussed thoroully in the dialogue; these are; COVID -19 and its impact in food security, Impact of climate change in food security, resilience building and how to mobilize resources for sustainable development.

The Vision for Sustainable Food Systems for Cambodia and how to achieve that vision.

Points were raised to address all action tracks and these different tracks are well suited for organising the result into a roadmap. The ideas for developing the vision and the roadmap included points relating to each of the tracks. Access to safe and nutritious food for all Cambodians at all times was a key concern. The suggestions relating to production were strongly oriented around the protection of smallholders interests and local production, promoting consumption of local produced food with supporting argument that this food is of better quality and safety. It was recognised that more inf... Read moreormation and a supportive environment were need to guide production, processing and marketing to be profitable and sustainable in other dimensions both environmental and cultural. There was support for existing regulations, with suggestions that enforcement should be increased and that new legislation of regulations may be required to protect producers and consumers. Improved livelihoods for farmers and small enterprises are widely supported, with many responsibilities directed to government and for greater investment on the part of the private sector. It was recognised that the sustainable food system must be profitable for the private sector, or they will not find be supportive. Social protection was also recognised as an important tool in providing for the most vulnerable, especially in the context of the COVID Pandemic. Climate change is acknowledged as an ongoing threat to the food system, noting that farmers are not receptive to reduced returns or higher cost of climate smart technologies because they are living under short term pressures to survive. The participants widely supported multi-sectoral collaboration and the existence of multi-stakeholder platforms to unify the efforts of Government, Civil Society and other development partners. They were particularly concerned that these efforts must extend to the sub-national level where the implementation of policies and plans is most challenging. The participants were concerned that the funding of CSOs is becoming more challenging, whereas their role is more exacting and even more relevant under current conditions. Read less

Topic 1: A VISION FOR SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS FOR CAMBODIA. • The vision for 2030 should consider all three main components of the food system, the food chain (processing, packaging, distribution, markets and recycling and composting), the food environment, and consumer behaviour. A multi-sectoral approach is needed. • By 2030, we should see an end to hunger and achieve food security. The system should provide food access year round for all people. • Promote sustainable food production, more diversified production and a smarter agriculture system should be more helping farmers to be res... Read moreilient to the climate change. • Supporting local production as local products don’t really compete with imported products. Food should be locally grown and people should have the capacity to grow these foods so it benefits their community. This also depends on geography and scale, so people need to know what’s feasible in their context, and how they can source things needed from nearby communities. Market systems need to be more connected (e.g. producer associations, active linkage of supply chain etc.). • Overall, ensure quality for consumers. Need to ensure the quality of products that are going to market and the population has access to safe food – they know what they are buying and they know it is safe. It also needs to be affordable. • Increase the nutritional value of foods and ensure consumers are more aware of its importance. Production of more sustainable and nutritious foods, we need more legumes/nuts so more people will eat them. Increase the diversity of foods locally produced and available (yams, nuts, legumes). Help to make all stakeholders aware of the importance of food systems for production and healthy diets. Education about food, why it is important to eat different types of food and how they can support local people. • Take into account the political economy, resource allocation decisions, implementation mechanisms and funding when shaping the food system. Food security and nutrition policy making should be matched by good practice. Need to talk about emerging problems – realize the current policies for changing diets, COVID-19 recovery and economic growth • Profits and affordability of the foods will drive the food system of the future. Education is important but if farmers do not profit by growing healthier foods, they won’t be grown. • Monitor the quality and safety of food exports and imports • Restore infrastructure to support food production and distribution including roads and irrigation systems. • Recycle food waste instead of lowering food prices or throwing food away • WASH is an important element of agriculture and food safety to protect food from contamination. • Nutrition is linked to so many topics, so partnership between organisations to cover the different thematic aspects of nutrition will continue to be an important aspect of food systems into the future. Read less

WHAT WORKS ABOUT OUR CURRENT FOOD SYSTEM? WHAT ASPECTS DO WE WANT TO KEEP? • Resources for land, forest, water are limited so we need to keep a focus on natural resource conservation. • 2nd National Strategy for Food Security and Nutrition – is good for the food system. Promotes food linkages and planning. Drivers include who’s linked in to implementation. • Current policy and strategy show twin tracks – strategy framework is cross cutting and multi-sectoral. • There are coordinators at the local and district level for market linkages who could be attached to existing cooperative... Read mores. They earn commission from their sales, so they are paid by the coop. It is a self-sustaining mechanism that could be considered for scale-up. • Social protection programming can help contribute to accessibility of nutritious foods. We can make social protection more nutrition-sensitive. There is good link between government and civil society for establishment of PWG-FSN and roll-out of the sub-national coordination platforms nationally. This will be good to improve FSN in Cambodia. • Local food systems should be protected. Family farms contributes to income across the country so this should be protected. Keep families and communities involved in the food system. Continue to support and strengthen local farmers first – diversify among local farmers first. • Current strength is engaged and strong civil society on the topic. There are two positives at the local level right now: 1) knowledge of people. When they go to the market they are looking and asking for local products. These products can be more expensive than imports but they are considered to be safe and organic. 2) the government creating more projects to boost food security at MAFF and MoC to boost food availability. • Forming agricultural cooperatives among local producers is a big positive. Agricultural cooperatives under MAFF are well organised and connected at the community level. If we could build the capacity of these and their connections to MFI it would build on what is existing and improve what is available. • Projects like ASPIRE and AIM (MAFF, MoC and IFAD) focused on markets linkages and smaller weekend markets to sell these products. Previous projects have been successful and it would be great to see more. • To strengthen, need to work with both buyers and producers, and link them together. If we can coordinate farming contracts it creates mutually beneficial supply partnership for necessary goods. Now we are working on matching buyers at local and provincial level to learn what buyers want to buy and the characteristics of it, then connect them to farmers. Agricultural cooperatives are useful for this. There are also informal groups in the community that can be engaged. Farming contracts would help people to know what they need to grow and guarantee a steady income. • Think about education levels – and the role of social media for education, even in low literacy places • There can be effective response to harmful marketing – example of breastmilk substitutes Read less

WHAT DOES NOT WORK WELL IN THE CURRENT FOOD SYSTEM? • Need to think about transportation and distribution of food. Farmers don’t always know where to share their products. Create an enabling environment for low cost transportation options to allow farmers to reach other provinces or districts. • Build on the current system and strategy and expand distribution and transportation linkages at local/subnational level. • Farmers often consider climate smart techniques to be more time and labour heavy. So they may turn to other options like improved seed. The success of different techniques ... Read morelike types of compost and fertilisers depended on the area and what the farmer had access to. • Agriculture techniques training is mainly focused on the national manual. For the indigenous people, there are local foods that need to be preserved/conserved. This is not included in any training manual. We should research this and consider the creation of a manual for indigenous foods. There isn’t enough documentation on how these foods are used for nutrition/dietary needs in indigenous communities either. • Tackle the problem of highly processed foods flooding the market. Cambodia is 10-15 years behind on this front, so it’s an opportunity to slow down that change. • Food production focuses on profit not nutrition or sustainability of it • How to educate farmers beyond what is trendy and to encourage diversified production • We need to Increase access to food – regardless of living in rural or urban area • Need systems to control the quality of the product, especially food safety and improve the market for chemical-free products Read less

WHAT WILL WE DO FOR FOOD SAFETY? • Need to strengthen enforcement of consumer protection laws, which are endorsed by the King. Build awareness what the consequences of not following the law would be. • The laws regulating breastmilk substitute supplies need to be enforced across the country • Looking into how to increase shelf life of processed foods without sacrificing nutrition. Need to also build education on safe packaging • Labelling is important • Improving agriculture production with quality and safety. Increasing awareness of rural people on nutrition and promoting vegetable ... Read moreand fruit production for household consumption to reduce migration and increase access to safe food. Ensuring all means to monitor local production and increasing education on health and safety food. • WASH education is a large part of food safety. Where to get water? How to clean produce before going to market? However there are not enough materials to advocate for this at the community level with farmers. Having these would be very helpful. • Food safety needs to be sensitized from national to sub-national levels. For example, unsafe food is still available and can be found at schools in rural areas. • Imported products need to be checked on quality. • Food safety needs to be considered to ensure safe food and good health of people and creating markets for agricultural products. • Providing training on food production and encouraging people to apply the techniques. • Raising awareness of food systems in Cambodia such as packaging and food processing. Involve youth in raising awareness on food systems. • Ensuring food hygiene such as washing hand before food preparation. • Effective promotion of healthy diets and food safety to youth. Read less

Topic 2: HOW TO ACHIEVE THE VISION? • Education and consumer awareness for improving eating habits, behaviour change and healthy eating. Awareness raising about healthy diets, eating a variety of vegetables and meat in moderation to strengthen the immune system in order to prevent non-communicable diseases as well as other diseases and maintain a healthy lifestyle. • People need to eat healthy diets but they also need to make sure it is safe • Promoting and supporting exclusive breastfeeding for babies in the first six months and complementary feeding for children aged from 6 months with... Read more continued breastfeeding up to 2 years or beyond. • Promote sustainable and effective food production chain. Include actions toward zero waste through reducing the use of plastic, recycle food waste (Reuse, reduce, recycle). Maintain good waste management through correct storage and disposal. • Expanded irrigation systems are needed for increasing food production. • Food production training and guidelines for farmers. • Building networks among producers, processors and retailers and providing technical guidelines (food processing, recycling foods, food hygiene are current gaps). • Food fortification should be highlighted. Foods should be fortified before being supplied to the community. • Looking at food supplies that go through the social protection system is important to make sure the ID Poor are adequately supplied and that children particularly aren’t slipping in malnutrition. In situations like COVID-19, the poor are among the first people affected • Expanded school feeding program, particularly among remote communities. MoEYS should integrate food safety and nutrition, healthy diets, BMI calculation and school wash program into the school curriculum. There should be hand washing station, gardens and kitchen at school. Enforce the guidelines from school health department, especially directive No 18 of MoEYS. • There should be investment in public awareness through media/advertising campaigns. • Need for strengthened healthcare and increased funding. There is prioritisation among Health Centres to only give RUTFs to SAM children, rather than MAM due to budget restrictions. • Drink clean drinking water, live cleanly and maintain good hygiene. Promote behaviour change to other stakeholders using top-down approach. Start from ourselves and become a good example in order to influence others • Public policy must have one shared goal and stakeholder advocacy is very crucial for financial support. Second NSFSN is the main strategy for doing this. We cannot apply implementation without NADP (mid-term review?) for sustainable implementation in Cambodia. Decentralization of the strategy is critical. • Need to continue coordination and focus on working together for implementation (subnational authority, various ministries, NGOs, INGOs, UN actors, private sector, etc.). Need to coordinate and look for resources (human and financial) to implement policies, strategies and action plans. Also need to look at political, cultural and economic aspects to ensure food availability at all times. Read less

WHAT KIND OF TOOLS CAN WE USE? GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE • Need to build a country road map. • Identify key stakeholders within the government. • CARD should coordinate among different ministries. • Need greater participation across the country and need to get the private sector included into these conversations early and productively. GOVERNANCE (laws and regulations, markets, social protection, community) • Multi-stakeholder commitments are required to achieve the vision. • Enforcing existing laws and making amendments to law to support the vision. • Supporting local products to m... Read moreotivate producers and reduce migration. • Ensuring genuine products with proper labels and food certificates. • Raising awareness of food safety directive to sellers before imposing penalty. • Developing mechanisms and strengthening food monitoring by officials. • Encouraging positive involvement from the private sector and all stakeholders to promote the food systems vision . • Institutionalising nutrition into national and sub-national planning and budgeting is important. Capacity building for commune councilors on food systems leadership. MoI is a key stakeholder. • Forming clusters of producers in the commune/sangkat ensure markets for agricultural products. • Civil society should work closely with the government on evidence-based advocacy. Evidence should be disaggregated by province/area, nutrition issue etc. and should address budget. Necessary to know current budget figures to advocate for increased spending. • Success in the community is mainly based on civil society interventions. As funding is scarce and interventions are becoming more limited, we should advocate to donors for more funds for civil society to continue our roles and responsibilities • Strengthening the effectiveness of Sub-decree 133 implementation for regulation of BMS. Can build on the experience with breastmilk substitutes and apply learnings to other products • Use a participatory guarantee system (PGS) based on trust between producers and consumers as an effective local quality control mechanism. • Examine ways to ensure communities and enterprises are benefiting from the one product/one village (OVOP) scheme. • Supporting social welfare to ensure everybody has access to food. FINANCE (taxes, subsidies, profits, incentives) • Incentives such as subsidies, low interest loans or market linkages to encourage farmers to grow nutritious foods • Make use of tax deductions to encourage processing and value adding • Need to shift the belief that private sector already has incentive through their profit motive. Discuss this more with private sector, particularly related to processing • Multisectoral collaboration to promote local products • Provide clear definitions for incentives. • A more protective policy for the domestic market would help to protect local products. There is also a need for increased food safety governance/verification on imported products. • Preventing food imports and reducing price of imported agricultural inputs. • Setting up export associations to ensure fair price for local products. • Savings groups work well, but there is a need for the commune to be involved to support the sustainability of these services. • There is a need for more research and investment. Stakeholders cooperating and sharing information is especially important. Read less

WHAT KIND OF TOOLS CAN WE USE? (DATA, CULTURE, INNOVATON, EMPOWERING WOMEN AND YOUTH) DATA (informed decision making, targets and indicators, M&E) • Need baseline data and indicators from country road map • Need a good management system • Data utilization and analysis, as well as dissemination of results, is an opportunity for growth. • Developing production plans to meet market demand. CULTURE (education, tradition, religion, festivals) • Culture needs to be considered more around these interventions, including culture around education, information-sharing etc. • There are big... Read more differences between different ethnic communities and this needs to be recognised, rather than a single approach to all communities. There needs to be more research to understand their food systems and approaches. • Develop technical guidelines for indigenous foods and techniques, creating a record of what is currently preserved through oral traditions and practices. INNOVATION (technology, new knowledge, new ways of working) • Water system needs to be included, not just the food system • New apps create linkages between farmers, suppliers and markets, as well as information on disease, best practices etc. Potential for model farmers to be supplied one smartphone for communities to be able to access this. • An app addressing adaptation to climate change is needed, video based, produced by farmers for farmers and shared on Facebook. • Social media is a hugely useful tool for sharing information and creating market linkages. • Knowledge and information management – a lot of information is available but sometimes specific linkages are hard to make within the food system • Lots of innovation coming out of agricultural schools – but they don’t have access to finance for scaling up. Expand programs that promote funding to nascent ideas. EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND YOUTH (equitable access to resources, knowledge and decision making, and ensuring the youth dividend). • Provide equal access to knowledge and training related to food security and nutrition especially for women and young people. • By intentionally addressing and involving women we see an increase in household income, women’s leadership, create best practices and have great progress with cooperatives. • Address gender inequity in access to knowledge and decision making in farming, whilst respecting cultural norms and minimizing conflict. • Youth don’t want to take over the family farm. This is a challenge. • Youth Nutrition Champions have had great results working on food systems and healthy diets. Youth are highly engaged and interested, and have many great ideas. They enjoy the topic and we should continue with this enthusiasm and continue to engage them, particularly at the decision-making level. Very important to have at sub national level too. • Organizing food system forums with the focus on youth. • Need to build training on traditional foods and cooking into nutrition education • Competitions are useful for encouraging youth to join and promote innovation • Keeping communication to change social and individual behaviors. Developing regular campaigns to raise awareness of the public on food systems via social media. Read less

These relate mostly to the discrepancy between the desire to promote local production by restricting import and the idea that Cambodian producers should have greater access to export markets. These ideas are in conflict with the economics of trade and regional agreements. The ideas can also conflict with consumer interests if the net result is domestic price increases. The objective is to promote local production and provide markets for local producers. Fears of food safety or lack of safety for imported foods are used as justification and are easily inflamed. Evidence is important for making ... Read moredecisions and we need to examine the national interest in terms of international relations and consumer demand. Read less

THE VISION FOR SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS FOR 2030 The vision should centre on ensuring sufficient safe and nutritious food for local needs of all Cambodians and a surplus for export. The farm to table approach should be promoted to manage food safety and quality. The food system should also be adapted to climate change and to reduced environmental impacts. Use local and indigenous crops and varieties to develop greater resilience in food systems and to promote nutrition. Maintain emergency reserves of seed and other supplies to assist farmers in the event of disasters. The food system should be... Read more independent and autonomous in food production and distribution and the management of waste. As much as possible the Cambodian food system should be independent of food from other countries. Promote local production. The promotion of local produce should also emphasize organic production methods. Read less