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4) Communication and advertisement - Racism and classism portray images that within food and health “fit”, and the word “profit” is still very constant. - Promote that mothers portray healthy products, even if manufactured, as more attractive, to transform the abstract of nutrition into something interesting, in advertisement, to bring people together, and tastes good. - Needs collective effort to burst out of an “aspirational bubble” and go into the wellness the parents seek with tremendous effort, and how that goes in line with food. - Focus communication towards mothers, access ... Read moreto land and organic farms, and have workshops there. - Labeling is key to warn and inform the consumer in capital and big letter: eg: high in sugar, fat, salt, etc… so as to promote greater repercussion, reflexing, and awareness. Work with colors to make it more inclusive. Ban the use of animals to get kits attention, too much visual pollution with ads. - To bring back the value of produce (in a 3-month methodology) and have worth-wile figure promote it. - Cook book with local produce, such as naturally grown superfood, such as Chaya. It is an ethical manner in which communication is driven, especially towards good, healthy food. - Since the traditional communication is so entrenched, difficult to change in 10 years. The future of communication should be representative, and not related being fit or something nutritious to only a certain group. - Having a city, village, marketplace without so abusive advertisement, and with a more attractive communication of nutritious products for children. - Production of greater products that use dry fruits or any other food from the vegetable kingdom (beets) and create these healthy public-private partnerships. - Having a communication in each language spoken in Guatemala. Read less

3) Social gastronomy - Local/national food has lost its value from the people who produce, and those who comprise its value chain. Also, the consumer in what we are eating. Losing our heritage, people are so disconnected that don’t recognize with what they are cooking, what they are eating, or don’t care the origin of the food they eat. - Globalization has played a major part in big industries to invade the markets (market place), and took advantage of the needs of the people to give food that does not nourish and only “feeds” quick and easy as the norm of food and eating habits. That ... Read moresowing the connects land, plate and human being was lost the moment the farm workers and agricultural workers got devalued (diminished), hence Guatemalan gastronomical and cultural heritage. - Bargaining to smallholder farmers is diminishing and devaluing. Education plays a big role, since value education in their works worth has not being taught, and also the lack of voicing the importance of their work. And also lack of education of how to maximize (use all parts) of the food. - We must bring awareness into our cultural and wealth in local gastronomy, to humanize the processes from - Social gastronomy is a responsibility of all, for an individual and collective awareness so that all can move forward. We are all channels of communication and education, and that message should be pure, prepared to de-learn and learn adequately the value of food and Guatemalan gastronomy. - Through community kitchens all that cultural heritage can be translated, building community is a key aspect of collective change, to bring workshops for that knowledge to be replicated. Teach mothers to empower them, to recuperate the gastronomical heritage to pass on through next generations. Gastronomy education must also be done at a very early age. It’s in our hands to transmit the information in the most adequate way and in clear formats. Read less

2) Health and consumption - Nutritional education must be contextualized / specific for the population, ideally easily understandable and accessible to all (schools, health centers, etc…) and for that laws need to be created, including laws to promote companies towards social benefits and cleaner products. - Little shops should sell healthier option and their vendors could be the agents of change, receiving themselves that nutritional education too. - False food concepts and ideas should be torn down and change mindsets, since there is a “food ignorance” that give way on bad consumption ... Read morehabits, related to non-communicable diseases. - Food industries/companies/businesses should seek their clients’ health and not just their profit. - Motherhood and breastfeeding needs improved education, understandable, and re-valued. - Advertisement focalized towards people’s passion, by being “cool”, the misconceptions about brands being better than their milk, beliefs difficult to breakdown. - Wages are a big topic, which limits in their decision making of food, and often being similar price with the healthy foods, they opt for junk food: education. - Guatemala’s economy does not support smallholder farmers and local economy, in Guatemala we have everything healthy but we don’t consume it, hence high overweight/obesity indexes, malnutrition. - Education and learning through the senses: teach what fruits taste without sugar and with no additives. Read less

1) Nutrition and Education: How do we improve food systems with nutrition and who should do so? - We must link food systems and water systems and the issues concerning both. - We can all engage better with food systems as we are part of it, open our minds and palate. - Smallholder farmers need accompaniment in the production of their produce. - Go back to ancestral plant tradition and everyone should have a home garden / orchard: learning by doing. - Teen and youth nutritional education is a must in order to have a second chance in improving their nutrition and future generations; if there is ... Read morea process of developing strategic nutritional education, malnutrition will be reduced. Education has the power the impact personal and family decisions on food. We can follow previous learnings from food and nutritional security. - Food systems were already fragile and were fractured even more during COVID. Food systems transformation is everyone’s duty, not only the government. Change must start from local participation and community decisions. What Government does have in full responsibility is to rescue the land / agrarian structure of the country. Food systems beyond being sustainable, equitable, and resilient, especially in a country with weak systems and vulnerable to natural disasters. Education is key to reach an adequate consumption of food: this should be the country’s priority. Read less

With around 60% of attendance of those who registered on time before the closing time, we got a very diverse group of attendees, while also the facilitators experts in their fields (and also plenty more from the focus groups). Moreover, we got registration from various countries and within Guatemala from 16 departments. - Food Systems: the first findings we highlighted (also please see attached here) were the registration form answer of describing in two words the current food system in Guatemala. The majority was negative (with some exceptions). Also, most of them who answered are doing withi... Read moren their reach some improvements. - Education: it is present in all focus groups as the most pressing and needed push and new ways of educating. - Government: not doing nearly enough and let the population down. the need of strong and purposeful public policies and responsible leaders. - Women: major driver and leaders in improving individuals and communities - Identity: go back to basics from our grandfathers/mothers and our own foods, and cultural and heritage respect. - Support: financial support for smallholders and youth (funding and scholarships). - Communication: in all forms (ads, text, visuals) in all spoken languages in Guatemala and way for nutrition to be attractive. - Innovation: doing so having humanity at the core and bring up new skills into Guatemalan to advance forward in technology from food. - Economic realities: disparities on economic opportunities and aspirations. By popular demand, we will re-convene in the same groups, inviting more people after the Pre-Summit in July. This was a fantastic starting point to bring so many stakeholders and people within one single space and dialogue, over broad, overarching and intertwined topics. Read less

The major focus of the dialogue was to follow the main title of it: Improving our food by turning the tortilla around... (and us too) [Mejorando nuestra comida al darle vuelta a la tortilla... (y a nosotra/os)] - Improve: bettering our transformation [mejorando] - Food: a colloquial way to refer in Spanish [comida instead of alimentos] - Turning around: using the motto of UNGA "Turn it Around" - Tortilla: a stample food in Guatemala, the most common food from corn (but also subject to numerous diseases and modern slavery that have been normalized). - Turning the tortilla around: a saying in Sp... Read moreanish: [darle vuelta a la tortilla] to really flip the scenario - Our / us: to be part of the problem and the solution, and identify us and all in the food systems (and not just the same, therefore a real "People's Summit" as mentioned by Dr. Agnes Kalibata). The main prompt was to rethink or have in mind: - malnutrition: it's entire focus and not just one form of malnutrition, but their intertwinement (in Spanish not only speaking with the too-frequently used technical term "desnutrición crónica" but incorporate "malnutrición"). - transparent collaboration: there have been too many collaboration from corruption, big benefits for a very few decision-makers neglecting the service to the entire population. - systems thinking: to change system we need to go back to the roots of the issues, back to basics and prepare for perhaps needed uncomfortable moments and questioning to move forward better. The dialogue focused in all five action tracks altogether and by specific focus group. We used Zoom for the dialogue, and once finished, an optional interactive world we called Mejora-Topía (Better-Topia). Convened and Curated by Bibi la Luz Gonzalez (Eat Better Wa'ik - Come Mejor Wa'ik). Thank you for this opportunity, it was incredibly valuable, and hope our findings press into a real change within our country and its commitment to transform to improved food systems. Read less

There were several areas of divergence which emerged, for example: 1. Use of GMOs vs no use 2. Large-scale farming systems vs. family farming 3. Access to finance, markets: still a challenge

Latin America is a continent with many difference in access to resources, placing some groups at risk (indigenous communities, women farmers, youth). Structural changes promoted in the past have not yielded the expected results, new approaches are needed.

Production systems are complex in Latin America and new technologies offer solutions to increase productivity, but these technologies are not always accessible to all. Climate change risks are severe in areas like the dry corridor of Central America (Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador) and the Caribbean, for instance.

The interest for consumption of traceable agricultural products has opened opportunities for Latin American producers. However, the

Access to nutritious food in Latin America is a multi-dimensional issue which requires intervention in many levels

Latin America is an area of the world with great potential, but a deep transformation is needed to address some of the main challenges. Zamorano University trains professional who work all over Latin America on the issues raised in the 4 action tracks discussed. However, the next generations must think also about wider issues in food systems (such as climate change) to make agriculture and food systems more sustainable.

We focused on food systems in Latin America, from the perspective of education, primary production, processing, trade, consumption, market access for farmers, and also involved supporting isntitutions.