Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

[WSU statement] Overall children were in agreement about the strengths and vulnerabilities of food systems, how to improve food sustainability, the issues that needed addressing, and the stakeholders that should be focused on. There were certainly different focal points. For example, some children focused on financial and educational support for farmers, while others focused on government legislation around food safety and food systems. But ultimately we see these as overlapping and supplementary, rather than divergent. To make food systems more sustainable and nutritious, a holistic approach ... Read morewill be needed involving a broad range of different actors and interventions. Read less

At the end of the workshop, the children engaged in a whole-group plenary discussion, where we asked them the key messages they wanted to convey to the UN. Overall, children felt the UN was responsible for ensuring food security, environmental preservation and ensuring equality. This was tied to understanding people’s difficulties, with special consideration for places and groups that experience greater insecurity and marginalization. The UN was also seen as an entity responsible for collaborating globally to bring about social change. Four key themes emerged from our workshops: 1. Education... Read more: the UN should teach people about climate change, environmental protection, recycling, food systems; it should raise awareness of food inequality and show people the benefits of nutritious and sustainable practices, like eating seasonally “further promote socialization about climate change, the food systems, and the 2030 SDGs, so that the world community is more aware of the condition of the earth” 2. Inclusion: the UN should listen to young people, create offline (e.g. forums) and online (e.g. platforms) spaces for them to share their views, collaborate with them, and involve them as government intermediaries “I hope UN continues to invite youths from various countries to participate in every activity because youths are the future leaders of nations. Let youths learn how to protect the world” 3. Regulation: the UN should regulate food production, establishing laws to tackle global warming, keeping food producers accountable, auditing programs to ensure compliance, addressing plastic and deforestation, and controlling chemicals/pesticides “UN intervention to countries must be more aggressive. For example, an international Environmental Impact Analysis seems to need to be agreed. Auditing food producers must be conducted from upstream to downstream.” 4. Support: the UN should support sustainable food production, strengthening infrastructure, enhancing distribution, and implementing programs that make food more affordable and accessible, especially for those most impacted by food poverty and climate change (e.g. indigenous communities) “support access to nutritious foods for low-income and vulnerable population”, “defend the rights of indigenous people”, “strengthen the supply chain of foods” Read less

Describe in under 5,600 characters including spaces Experiences of Food Children pointed out that food is fundamental for obtaining energy and sustaining life. Food is a primary need for survival, a basic requirement for growth and health. However many children also linked food with joyfulness and happiness. Food was delicious and to be enjoyed, sometimes with family. These responses suggest that food for children is a mix of the material and the aspirational. Children focused on taste, health, and affordability when talking about foods they liked and conversely aspects like bitterness, smell,... Read more and unhealthiness when talking about foods they disliked. When asked about foods they would like to eat but couldn’t, children often focused on price; these desirable foods were simply too expensive. Availability was also an issue, with foods not available in local markets, and health effects (too much fat/sugar) also a factor. Some children could choose the food they ate, but some could not, whether due to seasonal availability, price, or parents overseeing cooking. Food affordability was a key concern for children in Ghana, as it limited their ability to access food. ‘I like plantain but very expensive. The price keeps fluctuating every week. So we eat the food that is less expensive and same food everyday and that is not healthy’. Challenges to Food Systems One core activity in the consultations was food mapping. Children mapped a food system around them, visualizing how food moved from the farm to the plate. Overall children demonstrated a deep understanding of food production, especially when it was a local staple food or meal. Children then reflected on what the vulnerabilities or weak points in these systems were. The main vulnerability voiced by the children was poor availability of food. Poor availability was due to minimal stock in the markets, distance from the farming areas, and problems with food distribution. Access to food is also significantly affected by poverty and disruption to food production by season/natural disaster. Another predominant concern was the poor quality of food due to water pollution, use of artificial fertilisers, and unhygienic market conditions. These concerns highlight once again how interconnected food systems are, with economic (e.g. high food prices) and environmental (e.g. flooding, low crop yields) frequently overlapping. Strengthening Food Systems Children completed activities designed to provide concrete suggestions for change at different levels of society, from family to community, industry, and government. They also wrote a “postcard to the President,” outlining key changes that need to happen and how children could input into these shifts, with economic concerns about the high cost of living emerging as an important theme in Ghana. Many children saw potential in empowering communities to grow their own produce and learn more about sustainability. Farms and farming also emerged as a frequent theme, with children suggesting it should be promoted as a vocation and supported with financial incentives and training. Proximity of both food production and food consumption, as mentioned above, was a key concern. In response, children stressed that farms and markets should be local and accessible, moving from ‘far away to being close’. Many of the childrens’ suggestions strongly link food security with food autonomy: import less, regulate more, and invest seriously in local farms and infrastructure, producing enough cheap, nutritious food for all. ‘I would tell the president that the Economy is too bad, the prices are too high’. ‘The government should provide technologies and machines for farming to reduce the hard labor of farmers and also promote agriculture in Ghana’. Read less

The workshop-based dialogues explored children’s and adolescents’ perceptions and lived experiences of their food systems, focusing on the issues of food poverty and climate change. Each country participating in the workshop-based dialogues conducted a minimum of two workshops with different participants; one workshop focused on food poverty and the other on climate change, enabling deep exploration of topics in the time available. Naturally, these topics and their discussions cut across all five Action Tracks. Workshop-based dialogues explored children’s perceptions of food poverty and ... Read moreclimate change through the following activities: Activity 1: This activity aims to surface what children think about food and what food means to them, this activity explores What children find appealing about food and what their aspirations are around eating to help inform aspects of food choice within their own food environments and systems. Children create a ‘food cloud’ by writing or typing foods they like and dislike. Activities 2 & 3: To explore their food systems, children drew a map of how food arrives on their plate, marking where their food is grown, how it is transported, and where it is bought and consumed. They then map the constraints in their food systems, as they relate to food poverty and climate change, and propose solutions to these constraints. Activity 4: This activity explores how children want to engage with these issues. Children were asked to explore what different people can do to help make sure that the foods we eat don’t negatively impact the environment. Using a series of different levels of circles from individual through to community and national levels of governance what actions can be taken in their food systems to create positive change? Activity 5: This activity generates children’s calls to action to address the impacts of food poverty and climate change on their food systems. Children write a leader to their leaders, outlining their call for change. Workshops concluded with a plenary discussion to draw our key insights. These workshops enabled children to contribute their insights and perspectives to the ongoing debates across all action tracks. They discussed challenges and proposed how to enhance their access to safe nutritious foods. They identified barriers to sustainable consumption patterns in their communities and suggested ways to shift behaviors. They identified that young people have a vital role to play in boosting positive production which, in turn, will contribute to more equitable livelihoods. And they called on governments to take concrete action to support vulnerable communities and to build the resilience and a brighter future for all children and adolescents around the world. Read less

It was discovered that very little attention is been paid to the food system in Kaduna. Instead, the focus has been on the production and processing of agricultural products. Stakeholders are looking up to governments to ease the burden and prefer recommendations in the food systems.

The focus of the dialogue was to advance equitable livelihoods. Across the value chain, there's a large disparity. Post-harvest loss has been by far one of the most challenging processes for the food systems.

This physical meeting came after months of virtual meetings where the focus was on what unites us and not what divides us in order to find a unified vision to implement. The result has been that for the first time there were no real areas of divergence between the participants, only different ideas on how to succeed in implementing the proposed projects and initiatives.

Revisited food economy Group 3 focused on « revisiting food economy » and had the task to work on responding to the demand for personalized diets by reorganizing food economy on the basis of diversity, proximity, and interconnectivity. The first session helped identify some critical notions related to this subject, such as the centrality of information, trust (transparency) and education. Issues such as greenwashing, holding stakeholders (incl. consumers) accountable, realising a human right approach, but also consumers’ behaviour were identified. Then a first brainstorming took place on i... Read moredeas of projects bringing to life this revisited economy. The group decided to focus on three main themes: one on education with one project in Switzerland bringing children to the farms and one in Egypt organising cooking classes between locals and refugees; one on trust with a platform that would bridge producers and consumers virtually and when possible physically, using a financial mechanism rewarding sustainable production and consumption; and one on transparent supply chain through the use of a positive ranking index for ranking the transparency of firms and through a “subsidies for dummies” project that would communicate to consumers and producers about the subsidies. In the following sessions, the group developed these projects further and began to find synergies with the projects from the other groups. Read less

Habitats and Well-being Group 2 focused on “Habitats & Well-being” and had the task to support initiatives that aim at wellbeing for all forms of life. In terms of food systems, it implies assuring that the true value of food is accounted, encompassing personalized diets and social determinants of health, and re-transforming physical structures to ensure accessibility and avoid food deserts. It implies rethinking the way we produce, consume, urbanize, transform, and transport. The first session helped to identify the different perspectives of the group members and enabled successful co... Read moremmunications. Then a first brainstorming took place on ideas of projects where Bites of Transfoodmation acted as a common narrative framework as well as a social platform/movement, always letting participants concretize and value the uniqueness of their personal projects. This allows the projects to share a similar trajectory while maintaining their own specificities. The goal of reconnecting urban and rural areas, and to make cities and societies more auto sufficient in terms of food and water and more sustainable in terms of planning was central for most of the projects proposed by the groups such as "the circular pizzeria"; the "wellbeing hubs" (worldwide hubs at the neighbourhood scale, which physically embody a narrative, a set of ideas and focus on collective intelligence to promote dialogue and integenerational exchanges); the "water innovation hubs" (hubs where local habits and actions can be positively influenced, by educating people on how to have more practical, innovative and sustainable water management solutions); the "future agriculture hub" (a platform facilitating exchanges between producers and consumers) or the "pre-urban tracks" (trucks transporting and storing products but also displaying techniques such as vertical farming and hydroponics). Another crucial point stressed by the group was the accesibility to healthy food in refugee camps with the idea to set some areas dedicated to vertical farming. The aim of this project is to enable refugees to grow and sell their own food, not only focusing on microgreens but also fruits and vegetables. This would allow for more personalized diets as well as allowing refugees to benefit in economic terms, for the food produced in the camps would be then sold in a food market at its real price/true value. The group ended in thinking that the BoT could be the soil that allows individual projects to grow, where diversity such as nationalities, cultures, and realities are always taken into account reaching a sort of diverse community/global village with the common aim to transform the future food systems. Two major points have been raised by the group: how should the projects be showcased? And how could projects be funded? An idea that was proposed is to have a booklet collecting and showcasing the different projects and financing them through crowdfunding. Moreover funds could be received on investment or donation basis, depending on the will of the person lending or investing. In that case, people giving money should have the possibility of seeing/following where the money is going. Yet, empathy should be practiced on both sides. The idea would be that people on the receiving end should be able to decide whether they want to receive money in the form of charity or loans . As a final remark the group highlighted the importance of assessing and understanding the needs of the local contextes where the projects are being implemented, but even more to empower and include the local communities to ensure the long-term sustainability of these projects. Read less

Life Habits The group dealing with the topic “life habits”, bringing together two paragraphs of the Manifesto “Narratives and Advocacy” and “Renewed Traditions and Empowered Cultures”, worked on rethinking life habits in a more sustainable way. The idea was that through advocacy and incentives, new narratives could enable renewing traditions thanks to the development of intergenerational initiatives. The group highlighted the need to change our life habits in order to allow for a shift in consumption but also through the provision of information. The group started brainstorming by ... Read morepresenting projects that showed concretely how a change in habits could be reached. Some examples were the “keyhole garden” (a decentralized zero loss compost system), the “grocery helper” (guiding the consumer to choose healthy and environmental-friendly food), the “show me your fridge” (helping the consumer to use left-overs in the fridge by proposing some recipes). After discussions, the group agreed that the most important concept needed to shift our mindset was to improve food education. This includes making sure that people (children, teenagers, adults, and elderlies) understand where the food comes from, how it is produced, what its nutritional values are, in order to make informed decisions. During the Retreat the group developed a concept of “food education” (provision of information), introducing concepts of “intergenerational education” and “community-driven co-production” (activities). The group thought of different manners to make sure that food education was accessible to all age-ranges, considering circularity of food and zero-waste production, and ensuring social awareness and responsibility of choices. Read less

During the retreat the participants were asked to focus on the topics assigned to their group and to think or develop projects and solutions in order to concretize the vision of the Manifesto. The challenging task asked to the participants was to approach their ideas in a systemic way. To this aim, a set of 7 concrete lines of Actions were developed and participants were asked to consider them for each of their projects or ideas. Lines of Action aiming at transforming food systems towards: 1. Well-being Supporting initiatives that aim at wellbeing for all forms of life. In terms of food system... Read mores, it implies assuring that the true value of food is accounted, encompassing personalized diets and social determinants of health. 2. Governance (all) An evolution of soft and hard norms (labelling, marketing, food safety, land tenure, labour rights etc.) towards accountable, right-based and equal food systems. This implies policy reforms, a change in power relations and an acknowledgement of the nature of food as a public good. 3. Habitat A re-transformation of the physical structures sustaining food systems to ensure accessibility and avoid food deserts. It implies rethinking the way we produce, consume, urbanize, transform, and transport. 4. Innovations Fostering innovations -understood in a broad sense- that pave the way towards a new circular and regenerative social economy, based on the true cost of food and social proximity. 5. Interconnectivity and knowledge An improved use of interconnectivity, data and information systems to form the glue of the new social economic realities through, among others, hubs, e-commerce, shared knowledge and new toolkits. 6. Education and knowhow A stronger focus on next generations and an alignment of education and knowhow to the realities of complex systems, allowing to understand food as a system, through among others the development of new curriculum and cross-sectoral careers, and the normalization of intergenerational exchanges. 7. Finance Addressing financial and other economical investments or incentives to initiatives, projects and businesses that lead the way to the renewed food social economy. Change should be incentivized through risk analysis, blended finance and ESG at impact funds for example. Besides, members of the BoT had the opportunity to witness the interventions and interact with four high-level speakers during the retreat: Michael Fakhri, UN Special rapporteur on the Right to Food; Gilbert Houngbo, President of IFAD; David Nabarro, Special envoy on Covid-19 and FSS Dialogues Senior Advisor, and; Christian Frutiger, Head of Global Cooperation at the Swiss Agency for Development. Michael Fakhri stressed the need to take the Right to Food as an entry point in adopting a food systems perspective. He explained that the right to food is about people having agency in their food system. Food sovereignty should be sought as people should be able to define their relationships with their territory, community, land and resources. Mr. Fakhri alerted the community that the implementation of their vision could result in some who gain and some who lose and raised a few concerns regarding the Manifesto, in particular regarding the use of digitalisation and technology and their embedment in existing power dynamics. Second, Gilbert Houngbo stated that transformation requires disruption. He mentioned that younger generations are in a particularly good position to question and disrupt, as they have the energy and capacity to challenge authorities and put in question the status quo. He incited the group to be proactive and not to wait for everything to be clear before taking actions. The President stated that according to him the added-value of the Manifesto is the fact that it is the vision of an independent group who is apolitical and yet politically aware and able to come up with a unifying vision. Third, David Nabarro delivered a motivational and emotional message to the community on how to build around a clear pathway, to be aware that change is a process, to stick to their values and to move forward with humility. Finally, Christian Frutiger highlighted the importance of considering some key topics such as the One Health approach and the true value of food -even though its complexity in implementation- and suggested to focus the energy of the group on collective actions. Read less

In the weeks preceding the retreat, the Bites of Transfoodmation team organized different consultative meetings with the participants of the retreat to assess their expectations regarding the event and more generally concerning the BoT community. Most participants' expectations were to create valuable connections and strong relationships between the members but also to find common ways in which the vision of the BoT Manifesto could be shared and implemented through various initiatives or projects. As in previous workshops, the focus of the retreat focused on the six paragraphs of the Manifesto... Read more which were combined for the occasion to create 3 groups as follow: • Life habits (Paragraphs 1 and 4): This group worked on rethinking more sustainable life habits through new narratives by advocacy and incentives that help develop renewed traditions thanks to intergenerational initiatives. • Habitats and well-being (Paragraphs 2 and 6): This group worked on reorganizing habitats and careers based on determinants of health and wellbeing, embedding the concept of true values of food and affordability. The group focused on norms and cities. • Food economy revisited (Paragraphs 3 and 5): This group worked on responding to the demand for personalized diets by reorganizing food economy on the basis of diversity, proximity, and interconnectivity. Read less

Divergence aroused in the question of whether or not cooperative farming should be adapted to effectively tackle the outcomes of shocks, vulnerabilities, shocks. In this question, opposing opinions are observed. Some participants emphasized the revitalization of large-scale cooperative farming, and others had given importance on strengthen individual capacity. They remarked that this question needs to be explored further. In the question of shifting the diet consumption patterns, discussions were mainly on the health and nutrition issues. However, the chair of the session aroused the market ma... Read morenagement agenda remarking that the market system needed to be prioritized over the other agendas, as it is the cornerstone of the distribution channel. When it came to the financing for the activities to achieve the sustainable development goals, the participants stressed the mobilization of national resources, national regulation, and national capacity over international aid. In the questions of natural food production, the participants demand further exploration of this concept and methods for producing food in a nature positive way. Moreover, in-depth exploration was demanded on the health issues of the food system workers and the landless conditions due to mechanized agriculture. Finally, the participants contested capacity strengthening of the civil society organizations and community people for their more effective engagement in the food systems in Bangladesh. Read less

Session Five: Peoples’ Engagement for Tackling Vulnerabilities, Shocks, and Stress to Make the Food System Resilient • Importance should be given to community mobilization and capacity building of the civil society organizations to detect, adapt, and prevent the shocks, stresses, and vulnerabilities and transform the food systems of Bangladesh when required; • In the global forums, the Government of Bangladesh should raise climate change issues and their economic consequences and mobilize the international communities; • The people of Bangladesh should stop wasting their resources and ... Read moreuse them strategically; • Eco-friendly modes of production should be adopted to prevent more destruction to nature; • Cooperative farming can be restarted in vulnerable areas to make the food system resilient; • The expansion of the non-agriculture sector in the food systems, i.e., processed food, should be considered; • Agriculture insurance can be introduced to compensate for the economic loss due to shocks, stress, and vulnerabilities; • Economic empowerment initiatives should be taken to improve the financial condition of the vulnerable people of shock and stress-prone areas, i.e., haor, char, hill tracks, coastal regions in Bangladesh. Read less

Session Four: The Challenges and Chances for Decent Livelihood for the farmers and Other Food Workers in Bangladesh • The Bangladeshi food system workers' health and occupational hazards should be addressed seriously to ensure their safe and healthy lives; • The Bangladesh government, private sector, and civil society organizations should give special attention to the food system workers' knowledge and skill development; • A robust market system has to be developed which will be friendly to safe and nutritious food for the consumers and decent livelihood for the workers in Bangladesh; �... Read more� New innovative business ideas, like, rooftop gardening, smart farming, IoT in the food systems, should be adopted to make life easier for the food system workers; • The farmers should be strongly discouraged from selling their lands; instead, they should be linked to make partnerships with the industries for industrialized agriculture; • The livelihood of the food system workers should be linked with the minimum wage board; • Food system governance and legislation should be strengthened to provide adequate support and improved policies for improving the livelihoods of the food system workers; • Bangladeshi food system should consider entering the global markets in a more integrated manner with its unique products. Read less

Session Three: Natural Food Production in Twenty-first Century: Obstacles and Opportunities • Legal and governance systems should be introduced in the Bangladeshi food system to ensure the quality of the food products, both traditional and industrialized production, and in the storage, supply chain, and markets; • The food storage system should be modernized by fusing it with the traditional preservation system to make it efficient and eco-friendly; • Knowledge and skill development programs should be conducted among the farmers, retailers, supply chain actors, and young people to provid... Read moree them evidence-based knowledge about the appropriate process of applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides, adverse effects of inappropriate use, food contamination, land and water contamination, climate change et cetera; • Adequate research initiatives should be taken to innovate, adapt, and upgrade safe technologies for the food system; • The indigenous seeds and crops of Bangladesh should be preserved, and the extinct crops should be revitalized to ensure diversity in our food production; • Civil society organizations and journalist forums should play a key role in monitoring the food systems and the agriculture, food, and other relevant ministries. Read less