Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

La conclusiones más relevantes fueron: • Fomentar programas de apoyo directo a las familias con eje de cultivo. • Las tecnologías requieren de un plan a mediano y largo plazo, involucra a un mapa de actores muy completo. • Difundir acerca de alimentación saludable en medios de comunicación. • Educar a la comunidad en preparación manipulación de alimentos para aprovechar nutrientes. • Trabajo intersectorial y con enfoque territorial.

Se identificaron grandes consensos y no se registraron mayores áreas de divergencia.

En el Diálogo regional se abordó la temática de “Adopción de Modalidades de Consumo Sostenible”, donde destacados representantes del mundo académico, sociedad civil y de instituciones públicas regionales expusieron sobre este desafío de forma inclusiva y propicia para el debate.

Please see attachment

Please see attachment

Please see attachment

The dialogue highlighted Russian priorities, achievements and targets in the national food system. The dialogue focused on the important aspects including: Food Security Doctrine, School feeding, Food assistance, Support for agriculture in developing countries, Soil preservation. Participants recognized that many solutions are already in place on a local and regional levels. It highlighted that the government and all stakeholders support the outcomes of the dialogue in the Russian Federation.

• Building resilience in food systems Climate change has greatly impacted the already fragile ASAL region greatly derailing the progress of labour output and consistent farming cycles. Livelihoods and farm investments have also been impacted and the food security of the region jeopardized. Building the resilience of food systems in the SEKEB region requires the strengthening of data-led research on weather patterns, planning using evidence approach rather than traditional practices, and maximizing the use of water catchment areas and resources. Investments in innovation and technologies are ... Read morealso needed to further build the resilience of food systems in the region. These technologies include irrigation, use of digital agriculture tools in extension services, supporting market access and managing post-harvest losses through processing of produce. The three counties need to pull their resources together and leverage on each other’s strength thereby making the food systems more effective and efficient. • Enhancing partnerships Partnerships presents an opportunity for exchange of knowledge, resources, and information sharing which is key to behaviour change. Partnerships are required across the value chain and can be instrumental in enabling smallholders and other value chain actors access financing, training (e.g. on challenges such as post-harvest losses and waste management) and boost innovation. Through networking, partnerships have the potential to strengthen communities and help solve local issues faster, enable locals engage in new practices like research and make it easier for demonstration of new products or practices to a wider audience. Creating local partnerships builds ground root networks that create self-sufficiency and reduce dependency. Faith Based Organizations, Women Groups, Youth Groups etc bring together ready constituents who have a common good. • Strengthening inclusivity in food systems The participation of youth, women, and people with disabilities is critical to realizing food systems that are inclusive. The SEKEB has already existing opportunities that need to be leveraged and scaled to enhance the participation of these groups in food systems to realize food and nutrition security. These opportunities include the Kenya Youth in Agriculture Strategy that includes a robust measures and solutions to meaningfully engage young people in agriculture across SEKEB; presence of strong research institutions in agriculture, as well as Technical and Vocational Training (TVETs) institutions. The leadership in SEKEB is viewed as forward thinking which is deemed as a very important facet in ensuring the region could achieve agricultural transformation. The ASAL nature of the region is deemed as strategic advantage providing and opportunity for youth, women and people with disabilities to venture into profitable value chains. The proximity to the urban centers, particularly the country’s capital Nairobi, for the counties is deemed as a welcome opportunity to provide women and youth with stable markets. The SEKEB counties are also well resourced with water from the Athi and Tana rivers which provide opportunity for their successful exploitation through irrigation technology. The creation of the SEKEB Bank will be a great boost to young people interested in agri-business as it will enable access to much needed capital. SEKEB has also initiated successful agro-processing and value-addition that is an opportunity to enhance the capacity and skills of young people as well as provide meaningful employment for them. To leverage these opportunities and realize the active participation of young people, women and people with disabilities in food systems, it is critical to ensure that these groups have ownership rights and access to productive resources including land, finance, digital agriculture and technology solutions, training and access to research data and information. The full implementation of the Kenya Youth in Agriculture Strategy is critical. The SEKEB counties should accelerate the process of integration as this would provide an opportunity for connection of youth across the block therefore making it possible to achieve aggregation of produce and peer to peer learning and sharing of experiences. There is also need for friendlier business environments within SEKEB by lessening the stringent licensing requirements for agribusinesses. • Leveraging on enabling and coherent legal and policy framework The transformation of agriculture and food sectors in the SEKEB region need to be anchored and rooted in the law and aligned with the counties’ budgets, plans and policies. Major discrepancies exist between the national and county functions with agriculture being a devolved function while policy making still rests with the national government thereby making it difficult to deliver on much needed agricultural reforms specific to the SEKEB region. It is critical to ensure there is policy coherence and harmonization of overlapping roles and division of policy making responsibility between the two levels of government. Within the counties, there is lack of alignment in agriculture policies. Intergovernmental cooperation, institutional coordination, public participation and stakeholder involvement is required to ensure that policies in the SEKEB region are people driven, optimal and facilitated agricultural transformation leading to food and nutritional security. Read less

• Building resilience in food systems The resilience of food systems in the three counties in the SEKEB region can be strengthened by the counties pulling their resources together. There is need to reduce competition among the counties and grow as a bloc/region. This includes maintaining collective processing plants where farmers from all the three counties can access, e.g., Makueni has developed a processing plant, how can farmers from the other counties access it? Farmers must have free access to facilities across the three counties. There is also need to create linkages and have open mark... Read moreets to allow free interaction and access among agribusinesses. Governments should enable the private sector and ensure ease of doing business. Strengthening household resilience requires creating awareness among communities on the importance of dietary diversity, encouraging kitchen gardening and vertical farming for smallholders. The role of livestock should be acknowledged, and households encouraged to invest in livestock. Research is crucial in providing farmers with more accurate information on weather patterns and when to plant. Information trickling down to smallholders can further be strengthened and scaled up by engaging young people in extension service which will ensure each county has field extension officers in every ward. Use of digital technology to disseminate extension services is also crucial. Strengthening private sector can further contribute to developing sustainable food systems in SEKEB. This can be achieved by: developing and approving policies that promote local production; creating enabling environments that promote local ownership across the value chain; promoting new technologies by offering incentives to SMEs; making energy affordable; and maximizing the use of already existing infrastructure such as the Standard Gauge Railway and road networks that have improved the connectivity of the counties. • Enhancing partnerships Enhancing partnerships requires support from the county governments and existing networks. County administration support is required to reduce bureaucracy and administrative bottle-necks to reduce burden on businesses and smallholders. It is important that opportunities available at the county level are communicated to value chain actors, whether financial or training. All SMEs can, for example, be put in one group to support each other. There is need to mobilize farmers into cooperatives and groupings to grow crops which can be used to improve health and nutrition outcomes (e.g. pawpaw that can be fortified for porridge to be used in school feeding programs). Research on local needs is required so that partnerships are planned and build around these needs. Some local partnership needs include opportunities for educating and training local producers on value addition to diversify production, access to technology and innovations, market access (including pricing), creating awareness on forgotten crops etc. • Strengthening inclusivity in food systems Prioritization of youth involvement and meaningful engagement in the agri-food sector in SEKEB is critical. This prioritization should be accompanied by the right policies and investments in youth projects that address the barriers and that incentivize young people to engage in agriculture as a career and business. There should be means and avenues to make agriculture attractive to young people with such incentives as making ag technology solutions ubiquitous for the youth, including some climate-smart technologies such as irrigation. Technology and mechanization further provide additional benefits especially in reducing the labour burden of women farmers. Access to interest friendly capital is also crucial to attracting more youth, women and persons living with disabilities to participate in food systems to grow and scale their farms and agribusinesses. Taking a cue from the success of agro-processing and value addition in the SEKEB counties, more efforts should be made in enhancing the capacity and skills of young people in the counties on the subject as value addition and agro-processing is leading to economic gain for agri-food producers. Read less

On May 20, 100 participants from various stakeholder groups in the South Eastern Kenya Economic Blok (SEKEB) gathered in a virtual Dialogue as part of the Kenya United Nations Food Systems Dialogue series in preparation for the Food Systems Summit. Communities of interest were grouped around the following areas during the dialogue: • Building resilience in food systems • Enhancing partnerships • Strengthening inclusivity in food systems • Leveraging on enabling and coherent legal and policy framework Some challenges explored include: • Ensuring year-round availability, affordability,... Read more and consumption of diverse, safe, and nutritious foods and diets. • Strengthening the capacity of local producers to optimally and sustainably benefit from local production across the value chain. • Enhancing and incentivizing meaningful and beneficial participation of women, youth and people with disabilities in food systems. • Strengthening policy and legal frameworks to enable the region accrue optimal benefits from food systems. The key issues raised were: • Policies and regulatory frameworks: The transformation of agriculture and food sectors in the SEKEB region need to be anchored and rooted in the law and aligned with the counties’ budgets, plans and policies. A people-driven policy process is required to ensure policy developed is responsive to the specific needs of SEKEB. Policy coherence and harmonization between the county and national governments is crucial while the three counties need to also align their agricultural policies. • Partnerships and collaboration: No one actor can do it alone! Partnerships and collaborations are required in training and capacity building, financing, education and research to ensure a common vision is shared in realizing food and nutrition security in SEKEB. • Financing: For existing initiatives to be scaled up to the last mile, financing is crucial. Financing is not about pumping money into projects or giving handouts. Financing can range from organizing farmers into cooperatives and groupings to enable them pull their resources together, to the creation of the SEKEB bank to provide interest-free loans, to governments and private sector creating co-financing systems. • Climate change: SEKEB being an ASAL is vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and this is a key factor that needs to be considered when designing solutions to address the food systems challenges in the area. • Research and reliable data: Research and availability of reliable data is crucial to ensuring evidence-based planning, right from the national government level, to SEKEB, to the three counties and up to the smallholder level. Research and reliable data will ensure solutions meet the specific needs of SEKEB. • Innovation and technology: Harnessing agricultural innovations and technologies is critical to realizing efficiency of food systems in SEKEB and contribute to food and nutritional security in the region. Irrigation is a major agricultural technology that is guaranteed to make SEKEB a food and nutrition secure region. The use of digital tools can support the deployment of extension services, financial services, as well as enhance policy participatory processes. Read less

South Africa's dialogues explored three action tracks 1,2 and 5. An additional topic which focused on inclusive, sustainable and competitive values was also dealt with. This 4th topic explored the South African Food System which can be classified as a combination of highly diverse value chains with a wide spectrum of producers linking to a range of formalised and sophisticated markets on the one extreme and completely unregulated and informal markets to the other extreme. Hence, the transformation of the South African Food System requires a multi-dimensional approach to address the reality tha... Read moret approximately half of the South African population cannot afford a basic healthy diet. Read less

1. The centrality of local communities in transforming food systems Broadening South African food base by reintroducing indigenous foods by doing more research (heat and drought tolerance and nutrition content) and improving marketing and packaging. Find champions and innovative opportunities to encourage the development, marketing and consumption of healthy indigenous foods. Strengthening local (community-based) centres of excellence by utilizing former Agric-colleges to cater for rural communities at affordable cost). Continuous research work on indigenous foods, benefits of organic agricult... Read moreure, evaluation of existing programmes, pro- Maintenance and development of infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, rail and ports) - Effective bio-security, including animal health, Product Standards Act, - Comprehensive farmer support services, including mentorship, extension services, agricultural colleges - Effective land reform and security of tenure together with rural safety Curriculum revision to include food systems, IKS, food security, food safety and nutrition in a range of programmes and to stimulate and conduct relevant research in these areas. Research and ensuring that smallholder and subsistence farmers play a role in the food value chain . 2. The need for coordination across government departments, with municipalities, non-government organizations, finance institutions and other formations of civil society A central coordination structure is required to coordinate and monitor all food systems elements to avoid duplication of programs aimed at fighting hunger. A need to revisit and evaluate food security programs with a view to up-scaled for them to be effective. Greater involvement of communities and academic institutions is necessary to enable a ground-up approach. The coordination needs to go beyond food security and nutrition to involve other players in the food system 3.Recognition of Informal markets and value chains as important components of the food system. Limited official information exists to provide a comprehensive insight of the real magnitude and growth of this sector in the economy, with estimates ranging around 30% of the country’s food and grocery sector. 4. Clear legislative and regulatory guidelines to ensure active participation of smallholders. Much fragmentation around enterprise supplier development programmes. Active mentorship and support from existing stakeholders required. Re-educate agricultural practitioners and agro-processing w.r.t. sustainable practices. Balance with food-safety legislation. 5. Create partnerships for hand-holding to creating an equal environment. Driving local participation/coordination to more Lower level/municipalities, extension services, electricity, water critical. Consider multipliers/socio-economic implications. Emphasise service delivery, partnerships etc. at lower level. • Support NGOs and community groups that promote value-adding at the household level such as processing (e.g. canning of fresh produce) 6. Policy considerations for digital agriculture through embracing of 4IR to expand smart farming practices using advanced technologies and big data. The early warning systems need more emphasis to manage these vulnerabilities before the South African food systems are weakened and rendered less effective in addressing food security and contribution to the economy. 4IR can assist municipalities by providing data about how much food is needed, prices and specific locations in rural areas as well as supply chain efficiencies . 4IR in the form of applications can also be used to distribute food among users, provide education about food waste and reduce food waste 7, Enhanced collaboration with neighbouring countries to ensure a harmonised approach, especially in the face of the recently ratified Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement. Read less

TOPIC 1: Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All (enabling all people to be well nourished and healthy, progressive realization of the right to food). South Africa identified the following challenges to food security: Accessibility which can be linked to: Unemployment: There is high unemployment rate (32.6%) in South Africa (youth unemployment currently 47%). Lack of income due to unemployment contributes to food insecurity and leads to social exclusion problems Access to arable land, especially for women farmers who want to grow and become commercial farmers, is a challenge. Load ... Read moreshedding: whilst escalating electricity prices make consumers poorer, Load shedding contributes to lack of food access as some markets close when there is no electricity and to food waste as food rots Urbanisation: migration of population from rural to urban areas result in increased influx putting pressure on resources, also exacerbate unemployment in cities of women and youth and nutritional deficiencies among children. Therefore, cities fundamental to food systems Climate change: The WWF has identified South Africa as one of the 30 driest country in the world. The effects of drought, floods as a result of extreme weather conditions caused by global warming have a negative effect on food production. This affect the smallholder/subsistence farmers as they depend on rain-fed agriculture. Access to markets: There is a challenge of subsistence and smallholder farmers unable to penetrate the food value chain. Distribution centres are only found in certain Provinces (Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and Western Cape) and this is a problem for local producers in other Provinces and in rural communities Food safety: Food safety is prioritised for food products that are imported and exported, while local food production by smallholder and subsistence farmers is neglected. Lack of integration in the government spheres: There is no integration between government spheres to fight hunger and malnutrition in the affected areas, each government sphere is working in silos Proposed solutions: Technology: use technology to address issues of climate change, preserving indigenous food through infused technology and tracking food insecure people at a community level. Establishment of the Department of food: that will play the supervisory and management across food system elements and stakeholders Integration and collaboration: Integration of policies (across sectors and including the NDP, IDPs etc), collaboration and alignment of National and Provincial Departments towards a sustainable food system. Indigenous food: Broadening South African food base by reintroducing indigenous foods by doing more research (heat and drought tolerance and nutrition content) and improving marketing and packaging Education: Food safety and nutrition should form part of Basic Education curriculum to educate children of the impact of food. Further empowering farmers with product Incorporating food security, food safety and food nutrition as part of curriculum in schools and at home will ensure that children grow up knowing the impact that food has on their overall health and future (school gardens and household backyard gardens)ion, Agro-processing and well as ensuring that extension officials have the relevant skills to offer support. Practice Organic Agriculture: The method regenerates the health of soils, ecosystem and people, unlike conventional agriculture that destroy soils which results in negative effects for the future resulting in food insecurities. Read less

TOPIC 2: Shifting to Sustainable Consumption Patterns Food Wastage: over a third of food (worth over 1 trillion US dollars) produced annually is lost due to wastage. Persistence of food waste and spoilage at household level, supermarkets, all levels of production value chain, with each node needing to improve to reduce this problem. There seems to be no policy on food wastage which can guide how to curb this problem. Population Growth: Increase in population leading to increasing demand of sustainable and unsustainable food systems, Climate change: The phenomena of climate change seem to be ex... Read moreacerbating the problem, leading to increased frequencies of devastating weather shocks. This also seem to worsen incidences of pests and disease outbreak. Indigenous Knowledge and processing facilities: Disregard of indigenous knowledge systems or lack of small processing facilities and practices that could reduce food waste at household level. Continued lack of processing capacity and cold storage facilities near production areas. Infrastructure: Long distance to markets/town for households, prompting them to buy in bulk, leading to food waste. Consumer education: Asymmetric knowledge of food composition behaviours on traceability of the products and associated climate change effects e.g. buying local poultry vs imported poultry with less value because of brine content. Further usage of unsustainable production patterns that result in environmental degradation causing soil erosions and emissions of carbon dioxide. Proposed solutions Educating farmers about crop rotation and diversification: Support to smallholder farmers to engage in crop diversification and Crop rotation, thereby improve both production and soil fertility. Policy shift to encourage production of nutritionally sufficient quality wise food for the needs of the population. In terms of food wastage, educating producers how to prepare food thereby increase their nutritional value and also increase their shelf life. Further criminalize food waste by supermarkets and large-scale producers. Need for research institutions to provide scientific knowledge in the repurposing of spoilt food for other use such as animal feed. Government to provide leadership in healthy lifestyle: Government should be at the forefront of promoting healthier lifestyles through public awareness campaigns to educate consumers on quantity and quality of food to serve and their nutritional value. Impose strict regulations on imported food which tends to be less nutritious, together with monitoring and enforcement Academic institutions also have a role in promoting food security, such as conducting national dietary surveys to inform policy design/interventions, Establish agricultural hubs in or near rural areas. These localized markets will provide space to absorb smallholder farmers' produce as they struggle to be integrated into central markets. Further support NGOs and community groups that promote value-adding at the household level such as processing (e.g. canning of fresh produce). Encourage community-based organizations to establish food banks, Establish Department of Food: Establishment of a Food Department and adopting a holistic approach in addressing food and nutrition issues Re-Introduce traditional water management practices and food preservation methods to minimize food and water waste. Policy formulation to promote organic production and technologies that recognize ecological forms of production. Taking advantage of the 4IR: 4IR can assist municipalities by providing data about how much food is needed, prices and specific locations in rural areas as well as supply chain efficiencies. It can also be used to distribute food among users, provide education about food waste and reduce food waste Read less

Action track 4: Building inclusive, sustainable and competitive value chains. The South African Food System is highly diverse with wide spectrum of producers linked to a range of formalised and sophisticated markets on the one extreme and completely unregulated and informal markets to the other extreme. Therefore, the transformation of the South African Food System requires a multi-dimensional approach to address the reality that approximately half of the South African population cannot afford a basic healthy diet. Over the past two decades, the more formalised value chains have performed well... Read more despite a combination of adverse external factors like consecutive droughts and biosecurity breaches. In the case of informal markets and value chains, limited official information exists to provide a comprehensive insight of the real magnitude and growth of this sector in the economy, with estimates ranging around 30% of the country’s food and grocery sector. Proposed solutions: Farmer Register: the country need to collate and finalise the Farmer Register as matter of urgency. This will give proper commodity mapping for policy intervention purposes. Aggregator models: finalise Aggregator model through a PPP currently developed in the AAMP to unlock and scale these opportunities. Women Empowerment: Fast track growing number of women to participate in food system, access to land, and ensure implementation of commitments. Competition Act: Competition Act drives efficiency and competitiveness and therefore must fully be enforced to unlock billions worth of Exports and Jobs. Government also needs to step up on basic service delivery and ensure investment friendly environment. Otherwise competitiveness of the sector will remain under pressure and as a consequence increase the dualism of the industry even further since tighter margins will favour large-scale operations Value addition: Unpack opportunity of integrated value chain and value addition through import replacement and opening of export markets to expand demand for high-valued products. Review Act 36: the current act 36 is outdated and promoting a traditional food system that does not comply with latest requirements Capacity Building: Develop capacity to treat new producers as fully commercial to enter markets by partnering with private sector for targeted investments. Collaboration across stakeholders is needed. This would include sharing of data and databases to help identify bottlenecks within the value chain and assist in building a business case for their resolution. It will also promote Investment in research, learning and development. • Address the bottlenecks identified as a matter of urgency. • Using Agri-tourism markets as a leverage to transform food systems’ sustainability and market access. Agri-tourism presents opportunities for diverse and dynamic markets and also creates sustainable jobs. Investments into this sub-sector allows citizens to be in a better position to afford the cost of food. Good governance will ensure inclusivity and sustainability. Good governance will also reduce inefficiencies within the value system. Maintain diversity within the system. Some of the strengths of the current food systems was the multiple pathways of products from produce to consumption meaning that there are diverse mechanisms to get produce to the consumers. The diversity in the value chain should not be lost as it ensures inclusivity. Investment into supportive infrastructure is therefore necessary and critical. Areas of Convergence • Establishment of Department of Food • Policy regulation to curb or address the food wastage • Broaden food basket by also encouraging consumption of indigenous crops • Tap into indigenous knowledge for production, processing and preservation of food • Education in the context of food production, preparation and consumption • Need for an all-encompassing appreciation of the stakeholders involved in the agri-food sector. Read less

Action Track 3: Building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses There is a need to eliminate vulnerabilities and build resilience throughout the agriculture value chain. Eliminating vulnerabilities and building resilience require an understanding of challenges and the appropriate interventions that will build a sustainable and competitive agricultural sector. South Africa has made much progress in the policy space in addressing vulnerabilities and stresses in agricultural sector. These include the climate change sector plans and strategy. The challenge remains with implementation o... Read moref developed policies and plans to realise the intended benefits from such. There is a call for mobilization and prioritization of financial resources to support implementation of these efforts and plans. Proposed solutions Post-harvest losses: Endeavours to achieve sustainable food systems should include addressing postharvest losses and give this area more attention. Market Harmonisation: Animal improvement schemes need to be improved and market price intelligence and interventions to be developed to support farmers and ensure harmonization of certification nationally and regionally. Agro-processing: To make interventions to be broader than production we also need to cover other aspects such as processing (value-addition), distribution and retail, thus addressing the entire value chain. Taking some agro-processing activities closer to production areas in rural areas – thereby encouraging public private partnerships – this will also assist on the challenge of food loss. Enhanced Coordination: There is a need for enhanced coordination of the three spheres of government, research institutions, non-government and community based organisations and educational institutions. Indigenous knowledge: Indigenous knowledge systems were acknowledged as integral part of our food systems. There is a need to increase efforts to build capacity of smallholder farmers across the agricultural value chain Biosecurity measures: Food security depends on the successes of biosecurity across the food systems. We need to recognize the pests and diseases which attacks our food systems and ensure continuous efforts for control. Therefore we need to ensure diagnostic and surveillance programmes are implemented. Biodiversity: South Africa is one of the most biological resources diverse country in the world. We need to relook the animal production schemes. Need more inclusivity also covering indigenous breeds and the “forgotten” and neglected crops to broaden the food basket and mitigate food security risks through diversification. Honey bees are also to be considered as an integral part of the biodiversity and needs more attention and inclusion. Build the social infrastructure, relationships, and networks: Take note of the work that is being done by civil society during the pandemic to channel resources to the vulnerable communities. Strengthening inter-relationship between the formal and the informal parts of the food system chains to create resilience Balancing production and export on the one hand with basic food security on the other whilst producing an affordable nutritious food basket would strengthen the food system towards resilience. Read less

The following areas were raised in the dialogues and will require further work to enhance the discourse on food systems and prioritization of actions and solutions: Framing the discussions around food systems is not inclusive nor does it address the issues around production and provision of food. There is lack of understanding and no knowledge dissemination in the entire food system. • Lack of information regarding the informal sector was noted as a threat to building resilience within the food system. There's not enough information about the role of the informal sector in the whole food sec... Read moreurity process. • Mandate - no one owns the food production/consumption mandate in South Africa. The system is fragmented. Different departments and at different levels of the governance system sit with part of a mandate to deliver on agricultural needs. There unfortunately is no coordination and alignment of services and a lot of information slips through the gaps. The inexplicit mandate that local government has in regards to food systems makes the allocation of financial and human resources difficult within municipalities Using the land for biodiversity. The Agro-ecological approach has not been optimized. While land needs to be made available for farming, people also need to be taught about using the land correctly as wrong production would create more problems and would be costly in the long run. Food waste and losses is very prevalent in the production cycle and during consumer use. This needs to be improved especially during the COVID pandemic. Availability of water, energy and infrastructure as some of the important drivers of food systems Read less

During the discussions, no areas of divergence emerged between the participants. The discussions about shaping local sustainable food systems emphasized the importance of food production of nutritious and safe food and promoting food processing businesses for a stable food supply and job creation. It may be due to the time constraints of the discussions that environmentally friendly production in the context of already perceived climate change and environmental concerns were not addressed. In addition, consideration about local governance, traditional food systems, consumer demand and preferen... Read moreces for healthy diets were not part of the discussion but are deemed crucial for shaping local food systems. Read less

1. Food production and market access Local production of nutritious food, such as vegetables, fruits and meat, is low. Especially, small family farms are not able to produce enough nutritious foods to supply the local markets. Communes rely on food imports for nutritious food. The usage of pesticides and fertilizers is high and not controlled, making consumers concerned about food safety when buying at local markets or vendors. Local producers face difficult access to markets and price volatility (prices drop) during harvest season and have difficulties to adjust to the seasonal market dynamic... Read mores. Proposed actions: - Promote household production of nutritious food for own consumption - The organization of farmers in producer groups or the development of large-scale farms for nutritious food production to increase nutritious food supply - Establishment of a commune market that can buy from local producers - Diversification of food production to mitigate seasonal price volatility - Encourage and build skills for the use of modern technology for agricultural production to increase yield and enable constant market supply - Capacity building of local plant and animal food producers for food safety - Use digital platforms and strengthen digital skills to broker business and communication between producers and distributors. Social media, such as YouTube and Facebook can serve as possible broker platforms but also for local producers/processors to create demand for their products. 2. Environmental and climate concerns Communes experience decreased yields caused by climate change, natural disaster and degraded soil. Water is a major concern for food producers. During the dry season, rainwater is not sufficient and costs of buying water too high to enable successful and profitable production of nutritious food. During rainy season, flooding is the biggest challenge for food producers. Communes experience an increased amount of plastic waste, affecting soil and water quality. Proposed solutions: - Investment in irrigation systems - Commune waste management: Installation of garbage bins, collect waste, recycling - Commune administration to encourage people to use less plastic and to use plant-based packaging such as banana or lotus leaves 3. Socio-economic concerns Many households in communes rely on remittances and indebtedness is high. Because of low income earning opportunities, people, especially young, are migrating to earn an income elsewhere, leaving mainly elderly people behind. The job migration but also the unattractiveness of the sector to young people, leaves only a limited labour force available for the agricultural sector. Possible solutions - Investments in food processing businesses to increase employment opportunities for rural population especially the young - Investments in modernized agriculture and large-scale production (horticulture and animal husbandry) to create jobs Read less

The dialogue aimed to engage different stakeholders from communes to share their views and experiences regarding local food systems. Options for sustainable local food systems were explored and solutions were identified to counteract experienced challenges within the local food systems. Different factors that shape local food systems were discussed such as environmental, infrastructure and technology, food governance, socio-economic and demographic factors.