The Global Alliance for the Future of Food, a group of philanthropic organizations, has published a guide for government action on improving food systems. 

https://futureoffood.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GA_SystemicSolutions-HealthyFoodSystems_GovtGuide_Oct2020.pdf

It's supported by a collection of case studies from around the globe:

https://futureoffood.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GA_SystemicSolutions-HealthyFoodSystems_CaseStudies_Oct2020.pdf

In the government guide the lenses through which issues are seen are those of health: human health, ecological health, animal health. Recommendations in this document are cross-referenced to insights from the stories in the case study document. A table documents which case studies reflect which recommendations. 

In the case study document little ikons show which of the recommendations are illustrated by each study. This strikes me as a very useful model for presenting information about food system change. Some people learn best from lists and tables, others need stories and visuals. Many reports would be improved by saying a little less but presenting in several forms and with differing approaches. 

Unlike in many international documents advocating for food system change, this one requires a bit of drill down to find the word agroecology. Also, none of the recommendations touch on access to land. 

Here's the short list of the recommendations:

1. Take an integrated and inclusive approach 
2. Set health-based goals and targets 
3. Implement mandatory health impact assessment on food policies
4. Use multiple, diverse policies 
5. Leverage agricultural subsidies 
6. Facilitate affordability of health-promoting foods 
7. Run health and food safety assessments of international trade agreements and policies
8. Support local and small entities 
9. Develop sustainable dietary guidelines (FBSDGs) and ensure public food procurement standards align with them
10. Foster ecological, food, and health literacy 
11. Invest in public health research and innovation  
12. Put the precautionary principle at the heart of the research and innovation agenda
13. Promote dialogue and collaboration
14. Support and commit to international action frameworks

W.K. Kellogg Foundation seems to be a central player in the Alliance. The other principle funder of this report was Fondazione Cariplo, associated with a commercial bank in Milan. 

I-wish-I'd-writtten-that department

Here's some straightforward writing about feeding 9 billion from Mark Bittman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/dont-ask-how-to-feed-the-9-billion.html?emc=edit_tnt_20141111&nlid=6760955&tntemail0=y&_r=1

It's not a production challenge, it's a challenge to address and end poverty.

There's a video of the talk Bittman mentions in the article here:
http://www.nytfoodfortomorrow.com/videos/opening-keynote-how-to-change-the-food-system-and-feed-the-nine-billion.aspx
I would have been happy to embed it - but it's on You Tube in bits and pieces - too tricky for me.
Besides, you can watch videos with other luminaries like Fred Kirschenmann and Michael Pollan on the conference site. The link above will take you there.

MESA

An alert from CropMobster just called my attention to this organization:
Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture or MESA
http://www.mesaprogram.org/
They are engaged in crowd funding for some new initiatives in food justice including farmer-to-farmer exchanges and developing an on-line curriculum in global agro-ecology and local food systems.
I'm often suspicious of crowd funding campaigns, but when I saw that Ecology Action and Bountiful Gardens are supporting this one, it was a no brainer.

Did You Know it's IYQ?

       

I just tumbled to the fact that it's the International Year of Quinoa.
http://www.fao.org/quinoa-2013/press-room/news/detail/en/

Because of it's nutritional value and adaptability to harsh climates (cold, sere, high altitudes), and because it is a traditional smallholder crop, quinoa is being promoted as a contributor to solving global hunger.  The indigenous people of the Andes are to be thanked for developing and maintaining so many strains of quinoa over the last 7000 years, and now for sharing their traditions with the world's peoples.

Quinoa is not, as some people refer to it, a grain, though it has similar uses.  It is a member of the family Amaranthaceae, genus Chenopodium.   A related common edible weed (lamb's quarters or pigweed) grows around here, and a few other relatives are grown in gardens as hot weather spinach substitutes.

If my culinary Spanish were only a little better, I'd be trying a few items from this traditional Andean cookbook:
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/aiq2013/res/es/recetarioandino.pdf
Just beautiful!

Which leads me to say, I now know what inspired the incredibly bright colors of chullos (Andean earflap hats).  It's the colors of their local quinoa and potatoes!

And finally, why Mr. Google, do you not have "quinoa" in your spell checker?
I know I saw a recipe for it in your employee dining room cookbook.

Very sweet potatoes

It didn't take genetic engineering or charities doling out vitamin pills for children in Mozambique and Uganda to get more Vitamin A in their diets.   It just took introducing a tasty crop similar to one people already grew and ate - orange fleshed sweet potatoes as opposed to pale ones - and working the women's networks with a fun campaign (theatre and song) to promote it.  
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=158783117

The results are truly remarkable.  Two thirds of the households targeted adopted OFSP.
http://www.harvestplus.org/sites/default/files/HarvestPlus_OFSP_Infographic_web%28withlinks%29.pdf

It all made me think about my tree collard - another good source of Vitamin A that's easy to grow in mild climates and provides a continuous supply of greens under tough conditions.  

Golden rice was never necessary, except in the minds of some bio-engineers with messianic longings.   How often the best solution is the simplest and the closest.

Percentiles anyone?

I'm way behind in getting some things up on this blog, but here's a quick and fun way to get a picture of how you fit in globally - or perhaps how fit you are?

BMI has limited uses, I think, and can be misleading, but using this tool
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18770328
you can calculate yours and compare it with others of your sex and age in your country and around the world.

Some things were as I might have expected, in terms of which countries have the highest BMIs among women of a certain age.   Others were surprising.   Without disclosing any of the numbers, who knew that I would fit right in in Malta?  On the other hand, I've always said that if I were anything other than Northern European descent, I'd wannabe a Polynesian.

The status of rural women

Just now reading a spam blast from Episcopal Church world headquarters, I learned that this year's UN meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, from the end of February into March in NYC, will have the primary theme of empowerment of rural women. There'll be lots about agriculture and food security on the agenda.

The papers of the pre-conference can be accessed here:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw56/egm.htm

I have not had time to read them, so this is a note as much to myself as to my readers. About a third of the papers seem to be directly on agricultural topics and who knows how many indirectly. Several are on ecological topics.

Anglican women will be represented among the ngo's meeting at the same time as the UN conference in the center ring. One question I have, though, is why rural poverty in the US is seen by the Episcopal Church to be an issue primarily for indigenous peoples. True, there's no poverty like reservation poverty - but there's lots of rural poverty among other racial and cultural groups. But then, the Episcopal Church is not known for its rural consciousness - in fact, less and less so.

Thinking Ahead on World Food Production

Vacation brings its rewards, like lobster rolls, but finding time to think and write when visiting family is a bit difficult.

Before I left town, I wanted to post a link to this August 12 Science Friday podcast:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201108122
There's some excellent analysis about world food prices, relative costs of food, climate change and world water supplies in relationship to agriculture ("The competition [for water] is currently taking place in the global grain market." Lester Brown) There's also a reality check about what biotech and can do. And a critique of agro-fuels.

Another interesting note: is the increase in the number of hungry people, still going up, a sign that we will not reach 9 billion humans on the planet, because infant mortality and other hunger-related deaths will go up. Pretty grim.

But I do find it discouraging that Ira Flatow's initial question was posed in terms of biotech vs. charitable donations of synthetic nitrogen, with no consideration of a third alternative, working with nature to improve yields. Notice the way he directs the conversation with Gawain Kripke from Oxfam America toward the end of the conversation, back to N inputs as the biotech alternative. One of the key low tech solutions to global food security is improving storage of staple crops in the developing world, reducing loss to insects, rodents, and damp, something Kripke slides over and Flatow doesn't pick up on. Nobody talks about this much!

This reminds me that I need to find a few papers on the promise of sustainable agriculture for increase in yields in the developing world. A backyard farmer in my congregation who does everything sustainably at home still clings to the fact that we need subsidized mono-crop production ag in the US to feed the rest of the world.

The Farm Bill, Global Hunger and local onions

In an attempt to raise awareness (and funds) American Jewish World Service has posted an interesting quiz. How much do you know about the impact of our Farm Bill on the hungry of the world? Are you ready for the 2012 Farm Bill campaign?

I thought I knew a lot, but only got 12 of 14. There's always something to learn.
http://ajws.org/hunger/ghs/quiz.html?autologin=true&utm_source=food_justice&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=quiz#

And this reminds me. I met a man on Sunday who does all the "right things" in his garden in the Sonoma Valley, but still asserts that we need American industrial agriculture to produce enough for the world. We had a great conversation about many things - this is a lifelong learner in the sense that every gardener is, but also in an openness to learn about global issues around agriculture and food.

Apparently Lowell has a tradition of every fall bringing pumpkins and winter squashes to church to sell. He brings them, and asks people to make a donation to the church for what they want. This year he had a bumper onion crop, and brought some lovely ones. I'm suggesting that he do it with every crop. (I sensed a certain weariness on the part of his wife with the tyranny of husband induced bumper crops and the need to can and freeze.) Anyway, I'm going to dig up and print out a few articles on the promise of ecological agriculture for the developing world for Lowell.

Episcopal Church's message to the G20 ag summit

I am pasting in here our Presiding Bishop's letter to Secretary Vilsack on the eve of the G20 ag ministers' summit.

I'm extremely disappointed that there is a lack of specificity about what kind of agricultural research should be funded. Nowhere does she mention that research in sustainable agriculture is a value.

This,perhaps is the answer to my question - did the materials I put together for last week's executive council meeting actually get on the agenda? Is anybody listening?

There are some good points, here, of course - it's just that this very key one is missing.


The Honorable Tom Vilsack
United States Secretary of Agriculture
Washington, DC 20560

Dear Secretary Vilsack,

As Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, I write in advance of this week’s meeting of the G20 agricultural ministers to urge consideration of the needs of people in developing countries most affected by food insecurity. The Episcopal Church is a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, most of whose 80 million members live in developing countries. This letter comes to you today as other leaders of Anglican and Episcopal churches around the world are writing to their own agricultural ministers to share this call, with a particular concern about the impact of high food prices on small-scale and subsistence farmers, many of whom are women.

The focus on food at this year’s G20 represents an important recognition by the world’s leaders that rising food prices present a potential crisis for areas of the world most affected by hunger and malnutrition, especially Africa and South and Southeast Asia . With my fellow Anglican leaders, I am particularly encouraged by the growing global consensus for reducing food prices through increased agricultural spending, research and development in agricultural productivity, and the easing of trade barriers. Moreover, as an American, I am particularly heartened by the President’s Feed the Future initiative, a recognition that food security holds an important key in eradicating global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

To build on these commitments and respond with agility to the looming crisis of rising food prices, I urge the G20 leaders to consider four new steps.

First, enhanced global support for small-scale and subsistence farmers would provide an important investment in those who produce approximately 80 percent of the food supply in developing countries, the majority of whom are women. Such support should include financial investment in training; expanded access to credit, including loan subsidies and guarantees; improved access to global markets; and the development of new measures to help farmers mitigate risk and improve small-scale crop storage. Additionally, world leaders should pledge to work to improve land tenure for women in all countries, and to promote women’s participation in national decision-making about agriculture, rural development, and resource management.

Second, it is crucial for G20 leaders to support the calls from agricultural ministers in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world for increased investment in agricultural research, better dissemination of research information among farmers in developing countries, international investment in agricultural insurance markets in poor countries, and the development of better farm infrastructure – particularly irrigation – in poor countries. It is also critical that industrialized countries reform their agricultural subsidy structure, a goal for which The Episcopal Church and many other faith communities worked during the last Farm Bill reauthorization and will continue to work in the upcoming renewal of the legislation.

Third, G20 leaders should seek to incorporate food security measures into wider strategies for reducing global poverty and achieving the MDGs, as the United States has begun to do through the Feed the Future initiative. An important component of this, which has yet to receive adequate consideration in the United States , is halting global warming and accompanying climate change. Climate significantly affects agricultural productivity, rainfall patterns, drought, and crop yields. A comprehensive strategy for addressing food security as part of the fight against global poverty must include serious efforts to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change.

Finally, and most fundamentally, it is crucial that world leaders keep the promises they have made already in the area of food and hunger policy. In 2009, the world’s eight richest nations signed the Aquila Food Security Initiative, pledging to achieve clear targets for increased spending on agriculture. Thus far, these pledges have not been fulfilled, though a blueprint for the United States contribution has been set forth by President Obama through the Feed the Future initiative but has not yet been funded. I am mindful of the budget shortfalls presently faced by the United States and most of the world’s industrialized countries. Increasing investment in food security, however, will strengthen the entire global economy and ultimately lead to billions of dollars in savings for the United States and other industrialized countries. Investment in food security truly is investment in the future.

Thank you for your consideration of these important issues. Know that my prayers are with you and all who undertake the costly work of public service, and that I remain

Sincerely yours,

The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Anglican Advocacy toward G20

Anglican leaders press G20 ministers over food crisis
By ACNS staff, June 20, 2011

[ACNS] Anglican church leaders have written to G20 agriculture ministers to press for measures to combat high food prices ahead of their meeting next week.
Control of the speculation in commodity trading that has pushed up food prices for the poorest people in the world, and more support for women farmers who form the majority of subsistence farmers, are some of the measures that archbishops from G20 countries have urged their agriculture ministers to support.

The moves have come amidst mounting concern over the price spikes and food insecurity that have left 900 million people around the world hungry. French President Nicholas Sarkozy has put food on the agenda for the G20 meeting in November, and next week's agriculture ministers meeting will seek an agreement on the way forward.

Ahead of the meeting letters to G20 agriculture ministers have been sent by archbishops Phillip Aspinall of Australia, Fred Hiltz of Canada, Paul Kim of Korea, Thabo Makgoba of Southern Africa, Barry Morgan of Wales, and Moderator Purely Lyngdoh of North India.

Welcoming the emerging consensus on the need for global action to reduce food price volatility and increase security, they call for a package of measures including:

· More support for small farmers – most of whom are women who produce 60 to 80 percent of food in the poorest countries;
· More investment in agriculture, especially research and development;
· Measures to stop speculation in food commodities;
· Better training, access to credit and markets, and insurance schemes for small farmers;
· Backing for recommendations that have come from agriculture ministers in developing countries;
· G20 countries to keep the promises of the 2009 Aquila Food Security Initiative to achieve clear targets for higher spending on agriculture: Canada being the one country that has a record of meeting the goal.

Advocacy on the global food crisis is being coordinated by the Anglican Alliance for Development, Relief and Advocacy. The Alliance brings together the work of the Anglican family of churches worldwide. It grew from a decision taken by the Lambeth Conference in 2008 and started its formal operations in January this year. The decision on food advocacy came at its inaugural consultation meeting in Nairobi in April.

Just cutting and pasting a heads-up

Faith and Global Hunger Series
A 65th Anniversary media initiative of Day1 in partnership with the United Nations Millennium Campaign and others. In this series of Day1 broadcasts, airing June 13, 20, 27 and July 4, 2010, prominent leaders link faith to the challenge of global hunger, and advocate action via support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A special capstone broadcast on Sept. 12 featuring President Jimmy Carter will address the global Millennium Development Goals Review Summit Sept. 20-22 at the United Nations.

http://day1.org/1938-faith_and_world_hunger_series

Haitian Sustainability

What a good idea - a way to contribute to long term development in Haiti, and a positive way to counter the actions of Monsanto, which by some reports is using the current crisis to create a market for its GM seeds in Haiti.

http://seedsforhaiti.org/programs/seedbank/

What, exactly, do they think Haitians are going to use to pay Monsanto's prices?

But by contributing to get locally appropriate open pollinated corn and bean seeds to Haitian farmers, you improve local food security this season, and support long term development of food sovereignty in Haiti.

I just wish this web site had more links that actually worked and more information. And I wonder why, if the Presbyterian Church is a partner in this effort, Episcopal Relief and Development is not?

Another audio opportunity

Let me also recommend the BBC 4 Food Programme. The report from the City Food Lecture on feeding nine billion is well worth the half hour of listening. Some challenging questions about using technology, lifestyle (diet) issues and cheap food.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3

a bummer of a news day

I didn't take an audio book in the car with me today for a trip to CDSP. Mistake. I got so bogged down listening to news that glorifies war and violence. Wasn't the original November 11 celebration a celebration of peace?

To top it all off, this item caught my attention:

The nominee for the head of US AID, Rajiv Shah, M.D., is a former Gates Foundation employee and skilled at "building public-private partnerships with major technology development firms" - like - you guessed it - ta da - Monsanto.

Obama's appointments make the White House vegetable garden look like the worst kind of gratuitous gesture.

See Shah's resume here: http://www.politico.com/static/PPM138_091110_shah.html

There is always something new to learn

The fact for today:

Half of the one billion hungry people in the world are small scale farmers living in developing countries.

I learned this from a story about international land grabs on this week's "Living On Earth", an interview with Olivier De Schutter of the UN Food Programme.

A few weeks ago I posted a comment about a story I heard on Weekend Edition - about Saudi Arabians' buying land to raise feed for milk cows. This is more about the trend.

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00029&segmentID=2

DeSchutter points out the three major problem areas in most of these deals:
access to land
food security for the nation whose land is used
and a lack of transparency in the deals - leading to corruption in how the funds gained are spent

Apparently many of the deals are spelled out in a few pages, with no provisions for worker justice, environmental health, etc., etc., etc....

The UN's 15 pages of guidelines are here:
http://www.loe.org/images/090717/principles.pdf

DeSchutter maintains that the deals don't have to be prime examples of neo-colonialism.

I wonder if they'll have time for Slow Food

at their meeting in Italy. The G8, that is.

I finally took a moment to read the articles John posted. I also read an article posted today by Anuradha Mittal on the "G8 Italian Gala". (Love the title.)

http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/512

And all of this against the backdrop of listening to the General Convention forum on the global economy, and the Diocese of Los Angeles lunchtime forum on economic empowerment.

I'm suffering a bit of mental indigestion - yet it seems like it's the same old story, too.

We need some radical changes in the way we consider economy, and a revival of moral values.

First, a comment on the article below by Prime Minister Aso (Japan). I appreciate his noble goal of eschewing "land grabs" in favor of "renovated agro-industries" - but wait - what's the key word there? "Industries" I would suggest - a word at war with the policies he suggests would be important, like respect for local land rights and local food security issues. I think there are way too many loopholes in his proposals - especially when one thinks about putting them into practice in countries of great poverty (and probably because of it great stress and great corruption). What starts as a noble effort to partner with folks in other countries, who have the land Japan does not, might well end up just another land grab. Think about the missionary movement of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Mittal reminds us that those 800 million or so hungry people that we intended to halve - the number, not the people - were 963 million by the end of 2008. Even with some amelioration in the staple food prices over the last six months or so, the number is now estimated by some to be rapidly approaching one billion, and by Mittal and her sources to be 1.02 billion.

If you think about those much touted millennium development goals -we have 6 years to reverse the trend by 600 million people. And if we want to look at sustainable hunger reduction 6 years probably is not possible without great will and a mobilizing of human effort and education on an unprecedented scale. Transforming industrial ag land to smaller scale diversified farms takes years.

But I digress.

The main points in Mittal's report as I see it are
1) As long as the global food crisis is framed as simply a supply and demand problem, the need for more industrial ag, more chemical inputs, and more GMOs will be the go to solution. In my language - it's a triple bottom line concern. And it must be addressed systemically, with regard for social and environmental health, as well as provisioning food stuffs.

2) Free global trade in food only works for those who have money to buy it. For rural folk whose livelihoods and way of life have been destroyed by the colonizing effect of global agribusiness, there is no money and little food.

Here's a phrase I liked from Canterbury's presentation: "local level community regeneration".
Surely this is the goal, with restoring healthy and healthful food systems as part of it.

G8 shifts focus from food aid to farming (FT.com)

G8 shifts focus from food aid to farming

By Javier Blas in London

Published: July 6 2009 00:08


The G8 countries will this week announce a “food security initiative”, committing more than $12bn for agricultural development over the next three years, in a move that signals a further shift from food aid to long-term investments in farming in the developing world.

The US and Japan will provide the bulk of the funding, with $3bn-$4bn each, with the rest coming from Europe and Canada, according to United Nations officials and Group of Eight diplomats briefed on the “L’Aquila Food Security Initiative”. Officials said it would more than triple spending. ...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/60720902-6992-11de-bc9f-00144feabdc0.html

%^)

Taro Aso: The world must learn to live and farm sustainably (FT.com)

The world must learn to live and farm sustainably

By Taro Aso (Japan’s prime minister)

Published: July 5 2009 20:08

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d6e93cf6-6995-11de-bc9f-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Food security will be the highlight of the discussion when the heads of 27 countries and 11 organisations meet on Friday at the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila. I expect substantial progress to be made, particularly on aid to countries affected by the food crisis. I will also make a new proposal to promote responsible foreign investment in agriculture, in the face of so-called “land grabs” – the growing trend for large-scale investment in farmland across the developing world.

A year has passed since this phenomenon first gained attention, and new deals continue to hit the headlines. The United Nations special rapporteur called for a set of principles, and the African Union discussed the issue at its summit last week. What is needed now is for concerned parties to frame a co-ordinated global response.

Japan, as the world’s largest net food importer and a major donor in agricultural development, believes it has a role to play.

...


We believe non-binding principles would promote responsible investment and sustainable farmland management. They should include, among other things:

● International agricultural investments, particularly sovereign interventions, must be transparent and accountable. Investors should ensure that key stakeholders, including local communities, are properly informed. Agreements should be disclosed.

● Investors must respect the rights of local people affected by investments, in particular land rights. They should also ensure the benefits are shared with local communities in the form of employment, infrastructure, skills and technology transfer.

● Investment projects need to be integrated into recipient countries’ development strategies and environmental policies.

● Investors must take into account the food supply and demand situation in recipient countries. Foreign investment must not aggravate local food insecurity.

● Deals for land and products should adequately reflect market values. Trade arrangements must adhere to World Trade Organisation rules.

Japan will work with key partners to develop a global platform to agree on principles and compile good practices. We call on interested parties to meet in September. We need a grand coalition with a common vision, for our interests are all entwined.

%^)

A World of Contrasts

After a many-houred drive home from Bakersfield yesterday, along Highway 99 through what I want to think of as the trail mix belt - nut trees on one side of the road, grape vines on the other, and Selma, the raisin capital of the world - noting the billboards advertising herbicides, and others will pleas to support agricultural water - it was a nice suprise to hear this story about organic farming in the Punjab on NPR this morning:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104708731&ft=1&f=3

The online prose is less favorable to organic than the radio report - wonder why? - but still there is one well-placed ag commission official promoting 70% organic for India as a whole. Imagine!

Give Monsanto a kick in the pants!