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Lack of adequate spaces in quantity and characteristics to sell local agricultural products, little political will to support markets for local products and their consumption, low prices for local products, lack of spaces that make local production visible and food dependency.

Lack of public policies on local agriculture or small producers, inappropriate policies to address local problems in food and nutrition and strengthening of local production, the broken, individualized and non-collective peasant social fabric and a generation gap and gender for access to land.

Lack of knowledge about the comprehensive and multifactorial vision of food systems, the lack of accessibility to holistic knowledge, the disconnection of education about food, the decontextualization of health and nutrition, generate public health problems (overweight, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, among others ), this overconsumption of unsustainable products also generates serious environmental damage.

Table 1: "Education on nutritious foods and health", ignorance about the comprehensive and multifactorial vision of food systems was identified as a central problem, which has three main causes: the first is crystallized information (that is, little diffused), that it does not reach all levels or contexts mainly due to problems of access, distribution, and infrastructure; the second cause is the stigmatization of food and dietary systems, caused by the bad habits from the psychological, practical and experience, and the third cause is the abandonment of farming practices or regional practices,... Read more caused mainly by the transformation of socioeconomic systems, a decontextualized nutritional education and the abandonment and ignorance of sustainable practices such as backyard production and family production systems, such as the cornfield. The greatest effects of this main problem are the lack of accessibility to holistic knowledge, disconnection, decontextualization and eating disorders and environmental deterioration. Table 2: "Peasants and food producers as a fundamental link in food systems", a structural problem of production and consumption systems was identified (production with an economic objective leaving aside the social objective), due to three main causes: the first is the invisibility and devaluation of the role of peasants in the value, production and education chains, the second is the existence of a broken, individualized and non-collective peasant social fabric and the third is low access to financing and technological innovation. The main effects of this problem are inappropriate current public policies on local agriculture or poor small producers as well as generational and gender gap for access to land. Table 3: “The supply, demand and distribution of local food”, the lack of adequate spaces in quantity and characteristics to sell local agricultural products was identified as the main problem, this is because globalization benefits large global supply chains and it excludes local food systems, also because there is little political will, in addition to unequal quota charges to sell and a few knowledge about food systems; therefore, the main effects of this problem are two, producers waste their local products, lack of spaces that make local production visible, which ending up in of a food dependency. Table 4: "Innovation processes in food production", it was identified as the main problem that innovation in food has an economic objective, so it is not proposed as an objective to meet the needs of the entire population, this is due to the following causes: lack of regulation in the production of food, a culture of production for profit in the preparation of food that leaves out other segments of the most vulnerable population; and finally lack of innovation adapted to the specific local needs of the towns and regions of Mexico, which translate into the absence of nutritious and quality local food and the increase in the consumption of ultra-processed products from global markets, this has the effect compared with than the general population, mainly those with the most limited resources, present problems of malnutrition (malnutrition, overweight and obesity) and food deserts in colonies and outskirts populations. And finally, in table 5 "Diversity and gender perspective in food systems", it was found that the problem is that commercial agricultural production is mainly male task and this conception is maintained despite the growing participation of women, we found five main causes: the first is that the contributions of women in production, food and nutrition are not properly recognized, the second is that the potential / capability of women to produce food is not recognized, the third reason is that women have much less access to land ownership than men, the fourth reason is that women do not have the same time as men to dedicate themselves to productive activities, and the last reason is that women are not empowered in a significant way. This problem has the following effects: The perpetuation of machismo, the exclusion of women in decision-making, the loss of opportunity to improve biodiversity, nutrition and resilience faced due to external factors, and the decline in the health of people and ecosystems. Read less

Our dialogue is called "Towards the sustainability of local Food Systems and the design of public policies in Mexico" and it is attempting to analyze how we can promote each of the five proposed courses of action. For this, our dialogue aims to discuss local food systems; What are the problems? What are the causes of these problems? And what effects do they have? In order to promote actions, mechanisms and public policies in Mexico that improve local food systems for the benefit of the most vulnerable population in our country. For this, we organize our dialogue in five round tables with theme... Read mores, which we believe are the most relevant for the local food systems in Mexico, expecting to make it healthy, inclusive, resilient, sustainable and sustainable. We are aiming to address and discuss these issues considering next topics. Education on health and nutritional food. Peasants and food producers as a fundamental link in food systems. The supply, demand and distribution of local food. Innovation processes in food production Diversity and gender perspective in food systems. Read less

• Challenges in data quality, data integration • Issues around the demand side are also important – progress requires also developing more absorptive demand for the capital that blending can mobilize among local financial institutions and investors. It also requires more capacity to absorb finance among agri-SMEs – who very often need a lot of TA investment not only to be bankable but also to deliver fully the positive food system impact they can potentially deliver- and more demand for nutritious foods. • Challenges in the incentive frameworks governing most blended vehicles and the... Read more time frame in which they typically operate, which does not encourage data generation, building local financial capacity, learning, or transparency in reporting. • Decisions about nutrition happen in complex environments at the household and individual level; we should not assume that fixing finance is going to solve that. • Local currency lending is another challenging area. • Market-level challenges affecting the capacity of nutritious foods that are not fully “up to standards” in terms of size or appearance to reach the markets where consumers who need these foods are located, with resulting losses in terms of nutrition but also of incomes for farmers/aggregators/transporters etc. • There are many different types of metrics -- metrics for donor-driven nutrition measurement -- anthropometry, mortality outcomes, height for age, development outcomes • There is a lag in terms of metrics that have evidence-based that have been invested in and where programs and projects have been defined to test those metrics • There is no silver bullet to incentivize or a single indicator to measure • We need enough data to make linkages between dietary quality and health outcomes - it then becomes easier to identify indicators for success • Healthy, unhealthy - green, yellow, red measurement systems are not effective because who defines this? • Determine whether investors are going to invest because of a positive impact on nutrition or because there is an economic incentive for investments to make a positive impact on nutrition -- if the latter, who makes decisions on incentives? • Reduce uncertainty around investments; build consumer value around food (what is nutritious); explore how ESG metrics were originally designed to manage risk and how they can be applied on a pathway to impact • SMEs providing nutritional, perishable food at low cost to communities are challenged to create economies of scale-need to create shared learnings around supply chain management. • Technology is critical to reducing costs, but adoption by businesses and by consumer base is challenging-need to create proof points around adoption/test hybrid solutions that respond to all levels of technological competency. • A lot of capital available in developing markets is restricted, time-bound, philanthropic aid – need to work with donors to create an understanding of the impact on business, provide funding in a way that enables SMEs to thrive while not undercutting traditional charitable efforts. • Perception of “social enterprises” among investors as less profitable than traditional for-profit counterparts need to create a set of metrics that privilege social impact, especially related to nutrition. • Access to data and data ownership (we need a global framework, maybe the FSS can provide guidance): how can we boost data collection and ensure data design with smallholders’ interest at heart? • More transparency and traceability in the value chain: by coalitions of corporates and connections between the key players in the agri value chain • Metrics / framework for real True Pricing and True Cost Accounting (via the Science Group of the FSS?) • Information asymmetry • Poor infrastructure • Risks – production, yield, weather • Market infrastructure • Internal SME issues: Financial controls, accounting etc. • Expectations of returns and duration of the financing • Micro-financing shows good repayments when based on proper support • Women secure good repayment track records • Connection between policymakers and SMEs is crucial  national FSD • Assume more risk with development programs and learn of the failures • Small tickets to overcome minimum amount for investment • Lack of collateral, missing land rights or ownership structures • Market dynamics require more flexible financing structures • Knowledge with financiers • Finance combined with capacity building – business case, how to deal with the market, how to work in a demand-driven way, how to deal with the public structure • If you’re not “the best”, you won’t get finance – you have to be the winner – especially also when age counts • Aid skewing the marketplace Read less

Discussion topic #6: Connecting ideas, capital, and place: Overcoming barriers for entrepreneurs to catalyze healthy, sustainable food access in economically disadvantaged communities. Game-changer solutions include: • Identifying and credentialing new metrics that privilege nutrition and purpose, alongside profit, to uplift social enterprises and entrepreneurs who are creating solutions specifically for poor communities. • Developing and funding financing vehicles focused on financial return and nutrition impact, specifically serving underserved people and communities. • Create networks... Read more to link SMEs to investors, including pathways for NGOs to support for-profit solutions, mitigate risk and develop effective proof of concepts. How will it be possible to tell if these actions are being successful? • Entrepreneurs will have an understanding of how to access multiple pathways to capital at all stages of the development process. • More models that create nutrition access in underserved communities will be piloted, evaluated, and scaled through traditional investment and NGO/SME partnerships. • The number of financing vehicles focused on financial return and nutrition impact will grow. Read less

Discussion topic #5: The role of nutrition impact metrics as facilitators of alignment among investors, nutrition professionals, and agri-SMEs. We need: • Facilitated dialogues to create alignment -- we need to bring government, private sector, nonprofit, scientists, researchers, regulatory altogether and determine how to use the information we have to facilitate dialogue to figure out how to match gaps with solutions • Data infrastructure for metrics and standardized metrics, perhaps through the ESG lens, applying success from other sectors for a pathway to impact - we open ourselves to w... Read moreomen’s empowerment, access to healthy foods and nutritious foods, etc. • Agreement on standards we use for healthy/unhealthy diets and how to identify gaps • Consensus on healthy/non-healthy diets and what guidance is used; then determine is there a viable business opportunity for investments in stimulating certain productions of foods • A clear roadmap of products that investors can go to invest in • Global theory of change for investing in nutrition SMEs to identify pathways to impact: along the lines of Lancet series that sets out best practices/ pathways across contexts (which will require very rigorous pilot level M&E), which would then allow us to use more process level/ intermediary indicators for larger-scale ongoing investments that are made according to that evidence-based roadmap. What are the lighter touch ways we can get more of a sense of what works? • Pick a few investments to spend a lot of money on M&E We need a global theory of change for investing in nutrition SMEs to identify pathways to impact: along the lines of Lancet series that sets out best practices/ pathways across contexts (which will require very rigorous pilot level M&E), which would then allow us to use more process level/ intermediary indicators for larger-scale ongoing investments that are made according to that evidence-based roadmap. Read less

Discussion topic #4: Generating investable asset classes around nutritious foods, Investing in nutritional food must be one of the new investment themes for the next decade. The ageing population, increasing urbanization, excessive build-up debts, fiscal deficits, climate change commitments, and innovation all make a compelling case for governments globally to create a separate line asset class for Sovereign Wealth Funds and Development Funds. The aim must be not just an increase in life span but the quality-of-life span with a significant reduction in health costs and enhanced productivity. T... Read morehe following are the key game-changing ideas proposed for the UN Food Summit for creating nutritional food as an asset class: 1. Financing • Creating an asset class for ‘nutritional food’ will attract significant capital from institutional investors and funding agencies. • Investment in ‘nutritional food’ is likely to have a significant positive impact on government health spending globally. For instance, US federal spending on health is expected to be over 20% of the GDP. A study carried out by Cleveland Clinic suggests it can drop down to 7% with healthy habits and healthy eating. Some of the savings can be allocated to funding: o Research for alternative sources for protein in animal feed to reduce the feed cost. This will contribute towards affordability. a) Infrastructure for logistics and cold storage to reduce food wastage b) Subsidies for finance cost for SMEs o Campaign to create awareness and encouraging consumption of healthy food. This is likely to create demand and increase capacity utilization. o Tax exemption for foreign investments and capital investments on Education for SMEs on policies and how to deal with government bureaucracies. • Forestry and growing fruit and vegetables offer the cheapest & long-term option for earning carbon credits for fossil fuel and heavy energy-intensive industrial production. This is critical when globally CO2 emission will need to be reduced by 23 Gigatons by 2030 if the Paris Climate change aspirations are to be realized by 2050. This has a great potential to generate new and cheap capital for farmland. • Compared to conventional asset classes investing in farmland: o Has generated excess returns o is relatively less volatile o is uncorrelated o Is resilient to economic cycles o Represents a good hedge against inflation This is likely to encourage institutional investors to invest in farmland as a yielding asset. This should provide fresh capital for investing in nutritional food. 2. Building Good Credible Investment Pipelines Establishing and funding of independent platforms with the required industry-specific know-how, finance, legal, investment, and policy-specific expertise along the entire value chain of investing in the nutritional food asset class to identify, structure, and match attractive sustainable and scalable investment opportunities with potential investors. Read less

Discussion topic #3: Challenges, trends, and promising solutions in smallholder finance WB / FAO estimate 95% of farmers can be classified as smallholders (500 mln) producing 45% world’s food, 70% of the food deriving from Africa, SE Asia, and Latin America. Despite constraints (training, logistics, cheap imports, climate change effects), they obviously put food at tables worldwide. Still: 700 mln people are hungry, 3 bln people lack access to healthy food, particularly in developing countries, and due to scarce resources, food needs to be produced much more sustainably. So, there are opport... Read moreunities, but what’s hampering smallholders to take them? In this session, we moved into a natural flow by discussing: It’s not about smallholders only (self-subsistence or emerging or exporting), but it’s about the ECOSYSTEM with and around them, including SMEs, the mom and pop stores, producer organizations, and cooperatives. • The Profit we need with business models and business cases, and the need to address this ECOSYSTEM with technology, leapfrog smallholders to the innovation potential with digitization and new financial solutions such as carbon credits as the new currency • The Planet we need to have benefit from new nature impact solutions by connecting the smallholder ECOSYSTEM to agroforestry projects or nutritious production such as fruit trees or cold chain solutions in the ecosystem with less food loss & waste. How will it be possible to tell if these actions are being successful? • If smallholder farmers can organize themselves (more cooperatives, producer organizations): enables financing that is usually hardly possible -> increases rural livelihood enables cooperation to improve market position -> increases equitable livelihoods • If farmers have a voice themselves: where are they in the FSS dialogues? We hardly hear their voice. • If we see successful, scalable new and innovative business models: such as the project ACORN that was showcased as a Firestarter (see: https://channels.ft.com/foodrevolution/marketplace-for-change/) combining agroforestry with nutritious fruit trees, technical data and GPS monitoring (provided by Microsoft to smallholders) and carbon sequestration with new ways of income for smallholders. Integration of value chains to the smallholders’ benefit with the right technology: digitizing value chains, enabling digital wallets on smartphones, monitoring individual plots enabling farmers to access pre-harvest advances when the need for finance is at its peak. Creating more traceability/transparency throughout the value chain. Via Partnerships: such as the project Seed NL that was showcased (see annexed presentation): public-private money spent on seed and propagation materials as a catalyst for transformational change Blended Finance models: de-risking the new partnerships and innovative business models such as the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP). Read less

Discussion topic #2: The role of blended capital structures in de-risking and enhancing investments in the food and agri-SME space. What actions in next 3 years will have greatest impact on the Discussion topic? • Disaggregating the investors’ market and the areas of investment needs/recipients of finance in food systems and develop a clear mapping of what types of needs or investments are best suited to specific investors or types of capital. • Innovate in the product offering space, e.g. in designing and issuing large bonds that combine nutrition and other dimensions of sustainable foo... Read mored system impact. • Design blended structures with a deliberate agenda of data generation, financing innovation, learning, and informing policy, rather than just with an agenda of mobilizing capital on a time-bound basis. • Aligning metrics to make new investment products for food system capital (e.g. for nutrition and other areas of impact) both impact-meaningful and investor-meaningful, and not too complex. How will it be possible to tell if these actions are being successful? • Cost of capital for agri-SMEs and smallholder farmers should be less than it is today • More capacity to invest in this space among national and local financial institutions • Company-level impacts for agri-SMEs in particular Read less

Discussion topic #1: Key challenges and possible game-changers for access to finance for agri-SMEs operating within food value chains: Direct tools and finance instruments should include: • Digital innovation a.o. to reduce transaction costs, filter deals, and link them to finance • Bundling finance with inputs, knowledge, marketing partnerships • Risk management – how to change the equation • Micro-loans • Smallholder financing through coops • An “Uber” for farm implements and TA • Size and cost of the investment case • Small ticket financing – ready for SMEs • Eligi... Read morebility for incentives from governments • Nutrition-positive accelerator Other action improving finance for nutrition include: • Role of SME in improving nutrition – support, pilots, financing • Better define the benefits across all outcomes of investments in nutrition-sensitive agriculture – also environment, social, etc. • Clearer investment policies and tools – including subsidies • Link nutrition goal to poverty alleviation role • Poultry, eggs in SSA • Long term investment, due to pay-back time of investments • Grains industry is very competitive and political • Partnerships: who is going to join us? • Innovation at serving lower-income consumers – rather than just medium and higher-income consumers • Technical support to build our business plan – and help us to deal with bureaucracy • Have both women and men have access • Adapt technology developed in Western countries • Working through cities • Follow the Food Systems Dialogues at the national level and find country-owned solutions, including demand-driven research • Network formation, peer benchmarking, access to resources • Food Systems Leadership approach • Making staple crops more nutritious To tell if these actions are being successful: • Nutrition Key Performance Indicators • Income of farmers • Sustainability of the business (“are they still alive after 5 years?”) • Social returns: reduction of chronic diseases • Benefits for the entrepreneur • Benefits for the enterprise • Benefits on systems-level • Country-level metrics • Metrics on finance: o Cost of finance o Maturity available o Volume • Gender-equity • Need for “localized” metrics What contributions will our organizations make? • Nutrition Accelerator • Networks connecting SMEs • Developing metrics that measure the impact of investment in nutrition • Food Systems Innovation Hubs (also with WEF amongst others) • Digital Finance Service Innovations and Platforms Read less