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There is a big capacity gap when getting into agriculture, especially across different value chain touchpoints and more importantly knowledge on policy. One of the actions stakeholders will take together is to deepen their engagement efforts with the farmers to ensure access to information about agricultural policies financial agencies and legal regulations is further deepened. The importance of forming new alliances among many organizations that work with farmers people to raise farmers voices and initiate collective action was further stressed. Below are key priority action areas we identifi... Read moreed: a) Set up networking opportunities that accommodate farmer’s needs (e.g., the timing of meetings) and be accessible in networks and rural settings their existing social networks, Create stronger farmer associations to be able to keep governments accountable, become aware of current legislation to be able to influence policies and regulations. c) Organizations running Agripreneurship programs have dedicated calls for farmers. This perspective boosts farmer's participation in project calls/applications, therefore, giving priority to them. d) Increase knowledge access of existing policies, the art of policymaking, and advocacy through translation to local languages. Read less

The focus of the Dialogue was on: (i) environmental and economic shocks on African Food Systems caused by global pandemic (ii) examining gaps and functionalities of African Food Systems. (iii) access to funding for farmers and innovative ideas. (iiii) opportunities in the food industry. The focus of the dialogue was to create dedicated venues for farmers, particularly rural people have their say, collectively set their agenda, and suggest their pathway towards more equitable and farmers-friendly food systems. The dialogue adopted a gender and inclusivity lens to address the specific needs and ... Read morepriorities of rural farmers. The dialogue achieved the following outcomes: 1. Community: Young Agrienterpreneurs, rural farmers networks, and farmers-serving organizations across Ghana were meaningfully engaged to share experiences, lessons learned, and solutions for youth farmers inclusion in agri-food systems. 2. Advocacy: Voices of farmers rural women and men raised, and visibility given to their transformative role in agri-food systems. 3 farmers-led policy agenda: Recommendations and priority actions identified to strengthen farmers agency as changemakers and builders of resilient and sustainable agri-food systems, with a focus on inclusivity and gender equality. The identified promising solutions/priority action areas and policy recommendations were on the following topics: 1. Networking and digital engagement 2. Access to finance and business support services 3. Gender equality and inclusivity 4. Accountability and political participation. Read less

There were no major areas of divergence among participants.

Regulatory and Administrative (Policy): Through the group discussion in the regulators group, the engagement of government has been identified in 4 specific areas – 1. Field level engagement of the government by involving the sanitary inspectors 2. If government can facilitate some investment on the infrastructure facilities 3. The school meals that are present in the government schools can include these smart snacks item in the existing menu 4. The traditional snacks can be prepared in a better, healthier way with local government support. In the policy level, the regulations on the adolesc... Read moreent’s snacks must ensure that those processed/unprocessed foods are with less sugar and less salt. Dr. Rudaba Khondker, Country Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), pointed out about “How can we bring this in the policy makers’ platform to make sure that there is a standard solution to reduce the sugar and salt from the contents of the food that the adolescents are consuming, whereas they are processed or homemade.” It is also mentioned that the target group should include adolescents from both urban and rural area of Bangladesh. The smart snacks examples can be set in the government school level, and then to spread in the private schools too. Not alone government, but together with adolescents themselves, parents, school management and private sector to work together and establish this smart snack program. On regard to this Ms. Saiqa Siraj, Country Director, Nutrition International summarized as, “In participation of parents, school management, government subsidies and private sector, it will be a sustainable program, otherwise only through government funding, providing midday meals to this huge number of schools will not be possible.” Read less

Food Entrepreneurs: As per the summary of the entrepreneurs’ discussion, a platform can be proposed where the nutritious snacks items can be listed ensuring good volume of customers, for better production and lesser cost. Ensuring good volume of customer of these smart snacks would lessen the cost and make it more affordable to everyone. One of the food entrepreneurs named Ms. Mehnaz Rahman Lira said, “Now all the parents and adolescents are very concerned about the nutritional value of the food.” According to their discussion, delivery system and food nutrition value assessment organiza... Read moretions should be connected with the platform to solve the delivery and nutrition value measurement challenges. Read less

Adolescents & Youth Representatives: The ideal snack item that came up after the group discussion of the adolescents was contained of these four must attributes – 1. Tasty 2. Eye-catchy 3. Affordable and 4. Nutritious. They also mentioned how the individual behavior change is needed to choose the nutritious snacks. They want more nutritious snacks options to be available in the market. Also, they think the traditional snacks like shingara, fuchka, can be made in a better and healthier way. For example, using good oil, maintaining hygiene, etc. Regarding this an adolescent named Meher Afr... Read moreoz Tisha from Viqarunnisa Noon School & College said, “For our dream snacks like Shingara, fuchka, if we can tell the shopkeepers or who are making these, to use good oil and vegetable in making these, then it should be healthier for us.” Read less

Primary objective of the dialogue was to build a strategic framework and hear from the key stakeholders to stimulate and support “Smart Snacks” as an inclusive business model. The secondary objective was to understand the adolescent perspectives (demand), also, challenges, scopes of regulatory support & incentivise, private sector engagement (supply) perspectives. The adolescent population in Bangladesh is almost one third of total population which is around 33 million, and a large portion of these adolescents are school going who used to avail street foods on regular basis. In recent ... Read moredays, adolescents are tending to avail more street foods (Open and packaged) to meet their regular appetite when they need to eat something which are very much unhygienic, poor food quality (nutrition value) as well as unhealthy. These street foods are tasty and less expensive which lure adolescents to aim for those. Adolescents nutrition status is very critical in Bangladesh and need proper attention from all relevant stakeholders. An inclusive and sustainable business model engaging private sector to invest in adolescent friendly snacks may be introduced to offer as a commercial product. The government can facilitate support in the value chain to ensure the product is cost affordable for all the adolescents through different incentives & supports. These snack items will be manufactured under a standard guideline, quality and nutrient enriched for adolescents. As commercial product, these also has to be tasty, attractive in package and most importantly extensive communication i.e. advertisements. Read less

The dialogue started with the opening remarks by Dr. Rudaba Khondker, Country Director, GAIN. Mr. Mostafa Banna, Ministry of Food, shared his valuable remarks followed by Dr. Bulbul Islam, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. After the briefing and opening remarks, three categories of stakeholders were divided into three different breakout rooms as per below: Adolescents & Youth Representatives: This group of participants represented the demand side of the smart snacks. In this room the overall discussion took place focusing on the experience and expectation of the adolescents. The adole... Read morescents talked about their daily snack intake practices, what is available out there, what they are attracted to, the amount they prefer to spend on snacks, etc. The discussion ended with individual description of their dream snack item. Food Entrepreneurs: The group of the food entrepreneurs represented the supply side of the smart snacks. Present scenario of the healthy snacks’ availability, demand of it from the adolescents have been discussed in detail in this room. Also, the challenges they are facing in order to produce it, and required necessary support needed for producing nutritious food for adolescents have been discussed thoroughly by them. Regulatory and Administrative (Policy): The participants at the room of regulatory and administrative discussed on what supportive and regulatory measures are to be taken to promote safe and nutritious food for adolescents. Also, the different ways to engage government from local levels. Read less

Indeed, diners constantly seek for variety of options. All-you-can-eat buffets drives volume and footfall into the F&B establishment. While operators in buffet establishments are now offering cook-to-order buffet, we do not expect all the F&B establishments to transit to cook-to-order buffet as it requires high amount of manpower. Nevertheless, buffets that are served ala minute reduces the amount of food waste produced. However, there are still countries which offers the traditional buffet, where diners pick the food they want over the serving tray. It is difficult to remove the buffe... Read moret concept as there are sentimental value and consumers pays the price with an expectation. Operators can educate consumers not to overfill their plate and orders beyond what they can consume. For small operators, they can consider adopting the Food Waste Hierarchy, where reducing at source can help to resolve the bulk of the food waste issue. Read less

Panelists agree that partnership is the way moving forward. Both manufacturers and operators can work with charitable organizations, to utilize products that have a shorter shelf life and “moves” slower. In addition, Manufacturers should closely with operators and end consumer to study their actual product usage (servings) so that products can be of an “optimal” size to ensure the entire content can be depleted before it reaches its shelf life. Partnerships can also happen between competitors, where businesses work as a community to resolve the problem collectively. Organizations can a... Read morelso work with universities through internships to reach out the younger generations to learn about innovations that may resolve the issue on food loss and waste. Read less

Through the discussion, we better understand the difficulty of reducing food loss and waste from different perspectives, namely the operators, manufacturer, and solution provider. 1. Hospitality Industry (Operators): From the hospitality point of view, food loss and waste is not effectively measured and studied. Singapore government has provided several initiatives to promote the reduction of food loss and waste, in the form of grants for businesses to adopt sustainable practices. Even though Singapore has seen a reduction of food waste by about 10%, but recycling rate are comparative lower th... Read morean other countries. There are several factors that may have contribute to this problem. Firstly, there are generally a lack of awareness on the importance of reducing food loss and waste, and the detrimental effects if not well-managed. Secondly, it is a challenge to perform demand forecasting, especially in current times, where the pandemic causes government to execute restrictions within the country. This results to inaccurate procurement and production which is a contributor to food waste. Meanwhile, operators also have difficulties in capturing food loss and waste data, which is essential for businesses to react and adjust to the market situation. Measuring food waste is difficult to execute as there are different types of food waste. In a typical kitchen, there are about 8 different food categories, which may be compostable, recyclable, repurpose, etc. Hospitality industry is enforcing the reduction of food loss and waste through technology and employee training. One can choose to adopt the Food waste hierarchy (Reduce at source. Separate and measure. Donate to others. Other divergence of food waste. Landfill) to make better decisions when the business is expecting food waste. 2. Manufacturing Industry: Similarly, manufacturers face a volatility of demand of food products from downstream channels, especially during the pandemic where some countries are going on lockdowns. This makes forecasting a challenge. In addition, the supply of food products is also affected due to shortage of containers and the change in shipping routes during the pandemic. Moreover, the manufacturing process may have food waste such as dosing inaccuracy, leftovers in the piping, etc. As much as manufacturers wish to extend the shelf life of products to counter the unpredictability of demand and supply, they are faced with the challenge from the end consumers, who steer towards consuming “natural” products with low or no preservatives. There are several ways to reduce food loss and waste in the upstream channels. For instance, manufacturers can consider product giveaway on the line, increasing production line efficiency and reducing the complexity of each product. As for the downstream channels, manufacturers can consider reducing their aging inventory through product repurposing, channeling across borders, co-developing new recipe with operators and charity. 3. Solution provider: There are two different types of food waste, namely, post-consumer waste and pre-consumer waste. Post-consumer waste is within control, where businesses can use enzymes or biodigester to convert the food waste into compose or water. Alternatively, compressor can help to extract the water beneath the food waste so that the remaining materials contributes less to the landfill. However, pre-consumer waste can be generated between the manufacturer and the operator in the supply chain. This is often more difficult to control due to the constraints in demand and supply of food products. Read less

Food loss and waste happens throughout the entire food supply chain, both in upstream and downstream channels. 14% of the food were loss between harvest to retail while 17% of the global food production is wasted. In 2019 alone, there were a total of 931 million tons of food waste. Meanwhile, 2.73 billion people are facing moderate to severe food insecurity. There are lots of investments that goes into producing food and when food is loss or wasted, these resources such as water, land, energy, land and capital goes to waste. In addition, the disposal of food waste to landfills generates 8-10% ... Read moregreenhouse gases. If the condition continues to persist, we’re expecting the consumers to pay an increased price. The focus of this independent dialogue seeks to understand why food loss and waste happens and the challenges in reducing them. The dialogue attempts to also find out on the technologies available and the possible partnerships to resolve this issue. The discussion also seek to uncover the possibility of sustainable production while producing the reuse and recycling of food sources (Action track 2). Read less

There were no major areas of divergence among participants.

Details are mentioned in the attached report

Details are in the attached report

Since this event mainly collected preliminary data on how consumers felt about the diversity and accessibility of produce in the Greater Ithaca area, it mainly was a reflection of consumers. There were varied views on how people felt about affordability and diversity. Many people agreed that this region has a diverse selection of products available but there were mixed opinions on its affordability and if people could find all the foods they wanted to consume. Only about half of the people were able to afford high-quality options of the foods they wanted to consume and about 25% of consumers s... Read moreurvey could not even find the foods they wanted to consume in the Greater Ithaca area. Read less

Overall I found that there is a need for accessible diverse produce within the Greater Ithaca area, New York State, and across the United States. At the community engagement portion of my dialogue, I was able to speak with consumers at the Ithaca Farmers market from the Ithaca area and beyond. There were several major findings I found. One finding what that there is not only a need for buying the product directly but also for buying seeds. Many people wanted to grow diverse produce in their home or community gardens but did not know of sources to purchase seeds for the crops they were looking ... Read moreto grow. Consumers were also looking for varieties that would do well where they lived that required few inputs, are open-pollinated so they could save seeds and are easy to grow in their backyards. Another finding was confusion in the common names of the produce. Many of these culturally important crops have multiple common names in several languages. This lead to some confusion on what crops people were looking for in their area. There seems to be a need to have more information available on common names of these crops from different countries and their corresponding scientific names for more clarity. There were also many consumers at the farmer market who were not familiar with the crops but interested in learning more or including them in their consumption patterns in the future. Read less

The major focus of the Dialogue was to reflect on the current diversity of produce in the greater Ithaca area including questions as: what produce are people looking for when they go to the grocery store, what produce are difficult to find or can community members not find, and are the foods community members want to buy affordable. This ties in with the United Nations Action Track 1 and 2. In relation to Action Track 1, the Dialogue focuses on ensuring access to produce that is appropriate for community members based on their cultural backgrounds and upbringings. Another focus is to bring mor... Read moree diverse produce into the diets of all community members, connecting to Action Track 2. Read less

Here we summarized the divergence opinions is as follows: Collaborative scientific advancement: The best way to improve sustainability is through collaborative scientific advancements that allow for less environmental damage while providing profitability from farmers to consumers. While at the same time, having common sense regulation prevents extreme cases of soil and water damage. Seed development falls under Innovation and tomorrow's challenges globally. The goals of any definition of sustainability used today are essential to long-term success but must complement and allow for seed innovat... Read moreion, food production, and food delivery to billions of people in an affordable manner. Any part of sustainability that hampers creates unsustainability of the system. Each grower deserves to have an opportunity to obtain and plant good quality, a reliable seed of the crop they wish to cultivate. As long as this criterion could be satisfied, varied development, conditioning, storage, transport, and distribution models could be of value. Government policies and management The seed system must be based on the mutual expertise and recognition of the expertise of others, based on science and enabled by sound government policies. Seed development, management, and distribution must be the government agenda, especially in developing countries. We should disagree with sharing the seed (seed without economic cost), because it must have a price (tangible), and someone with knowledge has to maintain the purity and the individuality of the variety/seed. This issue is extremely important. Therefore, the government, policymakers, and stakeholders should make an initiative towards seed accessibility, management, and distribution, helping the farmers and the whole agriculture sector. Furthermore, research and extension workers should aim for profitable, resilient, and sustainable agriculture through responsive, balanced, environmentally sound, and partnership-based research, development, and extension. Moreover, the effort should be as global as possible but managed more locally, based on the regional climate and needs. Distribution of seed needs to be done carefully- as pest organisms can often come with seed source. If adaptive varieties of sed are shared to different world regions with similar climate conditions, this needs to be done with much care and oversite. Maintaining genetic variability and distribution The development of variety developed so that it lasted longer and possible to incorporate many genes that are as good as possible. The distribution of variety must be fragmented into both hands, public and private, to avoid monopolies. Moreover, variability maintaining depends on the crop, for the crop that has been in cultivation for long we need to maintain variability, so need seed sharing. For those crops, which is just starting for cultivation, we need formal sed production to give good standards into seed varieties. Research areas that are perhaps neglected regarding genetic diversity. In addition, Epigenetic differences among varieties of crops need to be further studied and applied to our understanding of diversity among food crops and their ability to thrive in changing climatic conditions. Farmers participation with research institute and industries Farmer's participation is vital for seed development, management, conservation, and distribution to accomplish a sustainable food production system. Research institute and industries should develop in participation to growers, and their evaluation in the grower's field would be best approach for the development and management of seed. While private industry's role in developing high-yielding crop varieties to secure world food production is important, lack of access to such improved varieties to small and marginal farmers in developing and underdeveloped countries due to the high cost of seed does not help increase food production on this planet. Therefore, an intermediate and hybrid system of seed systems is needed to develop a sustainable food production system. Money invested in research for commercial seeds It appears that the most incredible advances in seed development occur when users pay for seed. That income fund fuels Innovation with the developer. This "pay for seed" system is sustainable if value is created. Money invested research is utilized in developed countries, but more fraction of income is spent on food in many countries. Part of the issue is that so many people's livelihoods in developing countries are based off small parcels of land. In those cases, they can not produce enough grain on such a small parcel to pull themselves out of poverty. Therefore, sustaining the growing population will acquire money invested in research for commercial seeds and improve the efficiency of small shareholder farming operations and their respective supply chain. In addition, value chain development with incentives to each end user. The open-source genetics is an important part of a sustainable agriculture system. However equally important is a system that incentivizes research and Innovation for business. To develop the Innovation, a return on investment needs to be a part of the seed system. Intellectual property protection To develop the future see varieties in sustainable way, intellectual property protection is essential. A strong intellectual property protection allows plant breeders or seed developers to be rewarded for their efforts. Ultimately, which promotes research and development to enhance crop production and resource conservation. Read less

We found several different opinions for the significant discussion about the seed sharing practice and economic stability by farmers and industrial and future food sustainability. The primary discussion topic outcomes are summarized as follows. Role of research and extension Extension researchers should be at the forefront of the search for flexible and successful heirloom varieties, and the development of heirloom varieties (ones that create fertile vigorous seeds) should be fostered and encouraged region by region. Though seed sharing is viable for many smallholder and subsistence farmers, t... Read morehese two practices must co-exist because much of food security depends upon higher yields, which cost money to develop via research. The seed must be preserved, purified, and sold to farmers (quantity, quality). Participatory breeding approach and seed sharing Seed sharing is essential for the preservation of biodiversity and the economic wellbeing of small marginal farmers. There is a need for an integrated model where both farmers and private industry can benefit. The private industry should help form cooperatives to encourage participatory breeding efforts to develop high-yielding varieties suitable for their agroclimatic regions. Similarly, seed sharing can be good practice for species where Innovation is not essential. Where the Innovation is important, there needs to be an economic incentive for the developer to continue Innovation. Overall, Seed sharing helps in food sustainability by growing a same type seed in various geographical locations. Temperature, photo period requirements and genetic make of seeds might change over time. Therefore, seed sharing is a way for future food sustainability. Seed sharing approach with mutual benefit among farmers and industry Response: Sharing the seed of improved version of existing is beneficial from both sides. Farmers must share the improved varieties among themselves, and private industry needs to improve and demonstrate advanced version this create the competitive environment which is advantageous for both farmers and industries. To maximize the benefits of plant breeding, intellectual property protection is critical to encourage future investment in development of new cultivars. In addition, understanding that plant breeders are professional developers of new diversity and value, and farmers are professional users of this, to grow food, cooperation, and coordination between these two groups is essential. Seed sharing to preserve biodiversity and culture Seed sharing might be the one solution to what we currently see climate change cause erratic weather patterns, forcing crops to withstand extreme circumstances and new diseases. To combat this, we will need to continue providing better varieties designed to withstand heat, cold, drought, flooding, wind, and disease pressure. In this case, seed sharing as a net positive is in a similar gardening environment or specific heirloom crops. However, Seed sharing does not guarantee will help to make accessible quality seeds to the growers. One major component to increase yield is the quality seed. Incentivizing seed sharing among small farmers by big seed industries promotes biodiversity while also providing valuable germplasm to big companies which could be pivotal in frontier research. Therefore, seed sharing may help save the indigenous seeds to preserve diversity. Moreover, the commercial seed industry should be prioritized by the central sector of government rather than farmers. For example, in the Philippines, seed sharing between farmers makes seed accessibility sustainable, resulting in food sustainability. But most of the time, seed sharing is just a resilient practice whenever the seeds of variety that a farmer prefers are unavailable. For a long-term solution to seed access, the commercial seed industry should make their seeds readily accessible. Read less