Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

This dialogue was approached in a spirit of partnership and inclusiveness, resulting in a united voice of farmers and consumers. Considerable discussion took place on how to reshape the food chain and make it more sustainable. In doing so, however, attention was paid to the needs of both parties, starting with their expectations and concerns. The key points that emerged relate to the need to redefine the food system and redesign the public policies that support it. While farmers and consumers are the main players and potential drivers of change, they are not the only ones upon whom change can ... Read moredepend. There is a very complex food system that is always evolving. The danger in this area is that food has so many different impacts at national level that often the policies and actions that are taken end up being very diluted, delaying the progress that is needed. A core area, which sounds very obvious, concerns the promotion of cross-cutting national food policies. Very few countries have actually adopted policies with common priorities at national level covering not only health, environment and agriculture, but also trade policy, economic growth, education, which -although seemingly unrelated- affect the food system. Aligned governmental guidelines are urgently required across countries, regarding effective parental nutrition labelling, regulation of misleading claims or marketing practices, where there is certainly a role for responsible businesses, but also the need for a governmental framework to support these efforts. We're dealing with global supply chains and global companies across many different jurisdictions. It's really crucial, therefore, to harmonize national laws. Another relevant issue concerns prices and access to affordable food, where the dilemma revolved around being able to produce sustainably at a price that is not prohibitive for consumers. In this respect, the role of technology and digital solutions is crucial. Thanks to blockchain and QR codes, farmers can ensure more transparent and traceable production and share data with consumers who will be able to make more informed choices, on price as well. Read less

The Dialogue at stake is the second in a three-dialogue series and is intended to revert to and expand on the topics discussed in the previous one. The structure included a morning and an afternoon session, where the same issues were addressed. Compared to the previous dialogue, the focus was on more specific questions, encouraging debate and the expression of possible differences on controversial points and dig into the issues that are at the heart of the transformation we want to see in the coming years. The aim, in fact, is to develop a vision for the evolution of food systems that takes in... Read moreto account the perspectives and priorities of both sides. One round of break up sessions was organized under the following themes: 1) Transforming consumption patterns 2) Delivering food security and nutrition 3) Sustainable production practices 4) Deconcentration of value in food chains Each discussion that took place in the various break-up sessions was reported back to the plenary by a representative from each of the two sides. At the end of this discussion, in the plenary session, strategies and visions were developed with respect to future steps that could be leveraged through the process. Read less

Breakout room 1: Benchmarks are useful structures to know what issues & questions we should be asking companies, even in countries like the UK where this is comparatively a lot of info from the countries themselves. There is a rise of interest in corporate responsibility, so investors need to understand the different trends. There are solid financial gains in health & nutrition for companies and benchmarks can ignite change especially where legislation is lacking. Firstly, when we create indicators how do we best define sustainability? What is the right balance of indictors in each con... Read moretext and how are they relevant for consumers, investors, regulators? How do we build indictors in a multistakeholder context? How do we know an index will be useful and create positive change? For instance, with economic sustainability we can look at leading or lagging indicators e.g. how many jobs are created – but is this the right indicator? Or is investment in sustainable finance better? How do we create change, how does it speak to our context and how is it globally relevant? Legislation doesn’t support the translation of the policy into practice. The concern in Bangladesh is the policy translation by governments so governments need support from other agencies to do this. In Egypt the market is full of snack for children that are high in fat, sugar, salt and obesity rates are soaring. The legislative framework and standards and norms for food safety is there, but the infrastructure for application is weak. This is shared in all low- and middle-income countries. I would like very much for Egypt and other African countries to make a survey of acceptability of a benchmarking system to see who would join it. We have working relations with some leading industry players and then the others will follow. The SUN initiative is integral entry point for benchmarking & improving nutrition in African countries. It is an established relationship of stakeholders committed to health and wellbeing of children, a captive committed community already. If you start with the food producers in Egypt say through the Chamber of Commerce or Food industry associations, you will find a lot of resistance. How to create greater harmonization? SDG indicators aren’t perfect – no animal welfare for instance – then you need to weigh up what the indicator is (in terms of data and whether it’s comparable). We don’t want to capture the status quo or mislead. It can be difficult to create indicators when we have to rely on industry best practice for guidance as there is no international standards, e.g. warning labels on foods in Mexico. Some countries oppose regulations or lobby against it but so far there has been some positive responses. Walmart you filter your shopping cart to take out those with warning labels. ATNI is using government endorsed nutrition portfolio ratings and change analysis in the scoring guidelines for individual companies rather than focusing on the league tables as the end result. Breakout room 2: Most of the participants in breakout room 2 represented global benchmarking initiatives. They spent their time synthesising the learning from global initiatives that could be translates into national frameworks: We need to create stronger links between national govt and benchmarks; We need to reach different stakeholders and there needs to be more sharing of successes and failures between different benchmarking initiatives; We need to create more demand for independent, verifiable data. Greater demand for independent data that isn’t just provided by companies who are self-reporting; We recommend a global benchmarking framework that could be adapted in different national contexts; Breakout room 3: Having a benchmark alone is not enough, it’s about driving change and we need a consistent way of measuring. General agreement that a broad framework would be helpful. Within LMICs there is a lack of understanding of what is happening at country level and a need to start benchmarking. We need a globally harmonised framework that records the global impact of farming mechanisms. These need to be measuring based on outcome Read less

The dialogue identified a set of common technical challenges around both national and global benchmarking initiatives. Challenges include how we develop standardised metrics and the importance of using metrics that drive change (for instance whether we build on what is already being measured or thinking about new metrics). How data is sourced (for instance independent versus company data) is another common challenge. Another common challenge was around engagement, who we should be engaging and how to do this in a way that drives change. Key stakeholders to engage are businesses, investors and ... Read moreSMEs. The media are another important stakeholder group. How we involve each of these stakeholder groups and engage with them will produce different outcomes. The difference between ‘naming and shaming’ and league tables was one example provided. The dialogue also identified the need and demand to create a global network to further explore the feasibility and practicality of developing a shared approach for monitoring and reporting food businesses nationally and globally. Global companies behave differently in different countries. Using the same benchmarking approaches in different countries would help to compare companies’ performance in different countries and, if there are discrepancies, use this as a way of driving change and subsequently levelling the playing fields between countries in developed and developing countries. Agreement that there may be a value in developing a set of standard tools that could be applied in different country settings. Individuals came forward in the dialogue to say they would be interested in being part of these discussions going forward. Read less

This dialogue was exploring the feasibility of developing a shared national accountability and reporting framework for the food industry. It seeked to answer the question: how can emerging initiatives that benchmark the food industry and engage with stakeholders such as government and investors be applied to countries outside of the traditional benchmarking regions of Europe and the USA?

The areas of divergence that emerged during the dialogue could be easily identified from the section outcomes from each discussion topic.

As said before, we divided all the stakeholders into three groups for FGD and fixed action tracks as a discussion topic for them. The group one discussed one action track- 01; group two discussed on action track- 02 & 03 and group three discussed on action track- 04 & 05. Now the outcomes of the breakout discussions are given below: Group One: • Establishment of a strong sustainable farmers’ platform in Bangladesh. • Allocation of subsidized inputs such as chemical fertilizers, irrigated water, tractor, high-producing & climate-adaptive varieties of seeds, pesticides, etc. �... Read more� Strengthening Agricultural cooperatives. • Seed bank establishment and controlled by the government and other responsible directly. • Raising crop production by vegetable garden at the homestead areas and the rooftop through conducting awareness campaigns using social media and small financial support. • Establishment of cold storage and production factory in those areas where production rate is high. It will be helpful to save perishable food items and to give more profit to the farmers. • Support to the farmers for ensuring direct market linkage to get the fair price of his/her produced food items. • Policy reformation focusing to encourage and involve women and youth in agriculture. Group Two: • From the government effective policy is required for market management and ensuring fair price of food crops of the farmer. Government will take responsibility to buy, sell and preserve food crops. • Ownership of seed is not in the hand of farmers. The seed bank is the solution of this problem. • The price of crops is fixed by the middle right holder and farmers have no power to fix it and farmers are hostage by this middle exploiting class who also make the artificial crisis in the market. • In the farmers’ community, there must have buying and selling center to ensure the legal price of food crops. • In the farmers' community, there is not sufficient opportunity to preserve surplus crops. To solve this problem in the community level cold storage required. The cooperative farmers' group can take initiative to solve this problem. Group Three: • Focus on the groups whose livelihoods (women, youth, indigenous peoples, the disabled, seasonal laborer’s, etc.) are most limited by current food systems practices, and the discriminatory practices and norms that limit equitable livelihoods. • Inclusion of pro-poor nature-based solutions and climate change and environment policies to improve the capacity of the poor to manage risks. • Research is needed in local level connecting the local people and farmers and those who are involved in the food system. • Mainstreaming Climate change, adaptation, resilience in national, sectoral and spatial development & humanitarian development program. • Develop Effective Country Investment Plan (CIP) for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition. Read less

Major findings: • Establishment of a strong sustainable farmers’ platform in Bangladesh. • Allocation of subsidized inputs such as chemical fertilizers, irrigated water, tractor, high-producing & climate-adaptive varieties of seeds, pesticides, etc. • Strengthening Agricultural cooperatives. • It is seen that there is a gap between the agricultural officer and farmers’ community so in maximum time farmers are unable to get government facility from them. • Information gaps about healthy diets and sustainably produced food. • Mainstreaming the climate impact- invest needed fo... Read morer new agricultural seeds that would be stress tolerance. • The price of crops is fixed by the middle right holder and farmers have no power to fix it and farmers are hostage by this middle exploiting class who also make the artificial crisis in the market. • Seed bank establishment and controlled by the government and other responsible directly. • Raising crop production by vegetable garden at the homestead areas and the rooftop through conducting awareness campaigns using social media and small financial support. • Establishment of cold storage and production factory in those areas where production rate is high. It will be helpful to save perishable food items and to give more profit to the farmers. • Support to the farmers for ensuring direct market linkage to get the fair price of his/her produced food items. • Promote climate adaptive technologies and techniques for sustainable food production • Focus efforts on making value chains inclusive through the generation of decent employment and improving resilience through social protection. • Emphasis on Agricultural diversification and rural employment generation and enhanced agro-based economic activities. • More research or scientific evidence is needed to better illustrate challenges and probable solutions. Read less

The National Independent Dialogue on Food Systems Summit has given a powerful opportunity for the participants to bring together a variety of stakeholders, including voices that are hardly ever heard, and provide a significant opportunity to engage directly in proposing pathways towards sustainable food systems, exploring new ways of working together and encouraging collaborative action. In addition from it has also created a chance for the participants to share their issues/ideas and thoughts which are both critical for reducing the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of food systems fro... Read morem local to the national level in a country and the Summit’s success. COAST organized this event to bring out and implement actions that can change the ways in which food systems operate in Bangladesh. The major focus was to identify the priority issues from the solution clusters of the action tracks which are suited for our country and to share any additional recommendation for the betterment of overall food system. Read less