FSS Briefs by Partners of Scientific Group

Pathways to advance agroecology for a successful transformation to sustainable food systems

2021-08-17T09:07:47Z

Pathways to advance agroecology for a successful transformation to sustainable food systems Niggli, Urs; Sonnevelt, Martijn; Kummer, Susanne Agroecology is a powerful strategy that reduces the trade-offs between productivity and sustainability. It promotes the diversity of crops and livestock, fields, farms and landscapes that together are key to improve sustainability of food and farming systems in terms of long-term productivity, food actors' empowerment and inclusion and environmental health. Agroecology is a bundle of measures taken by farmers, which individually or combined, mobilize biodiversity and ecosystem services for productivity. Ideally, it leads to economically and ecologically resilient production systems that are high-yielding. It is not necessarily a predefined farming system and the shift from simplified by industrial standards to agroecological farms is gradual. The transformation and upscaling of agroecological practices require changes that affect not only the management of farms, or production and consumption patterns at the food system level, but also the institutional framework conditions and the way we measure the performance of agricultural and food systems. In our paper, we describe four domains of transformation - knowledge systems, markets, collaborations and policy coherence - each with enabling and constraining factors.

The Transition Steps Needed to Transform Our Food Systems

2021-08-17T08:32:36Z

The Transition Steps Needed to Transform Our Food Systems Webb, Patrick; Flynn, Derek J.; Kelly, Niamh M.; Thomas, Sandy M. Today’s food systems are asked to nourish the world’s growing population in ways that do no harm to either human or planetary health. However, the growing problems facing food systems now amount to a two-fold crisis. Developing such a plan, and implementing it effectively, presents massive challenges which must cut through the complexity of food systems and competing priorities. It will need to navigate a path through powerful forces and vested interests which might favour the status quo and impede policy change. It must also be affordable at a time when countries are still grappling with the economic catastrophe of COVID-19. The transition needs to be viewed with realism, rather than being an abstract ideal. Global leadership must, however, be supplemented with and supported by national, regional, and local level initiatives which bring together public, private, and civil society actors around the priorities that are most urgent, feasible, and essential for food system transformation.

There is No Single Challenge, Nor Single Solution, for Food Systems Transformations: Making plurality visible

2021-08-17T09:44:41Z

There is No Single Challenge, Nor Single Solution, for Food Systems Transformations: Making plurality visible Rivera-Ferre, Marta G.; Mottet, Anne; Pereira, Laura; Penker, Marianne; Candel, Jeroen; Davies, Anne; Jackson, Peter; Heinonen, Marina; McAllister, Tim; Termeer, Katrien; Hristov, Alexander Nikolov There is a growing call (and agreement) to transform food systems towards sustainable, just and healthy systems, understanding that transformation is about fundamental, system- wide changes, beyond piecemeal interventions (see Box 1 for the new FACCE-JPI approach to food systems). But, what does transformation look like? Is there a consensus about what we want to transform in food systems, who will do it and how? The objective of this policy brief is to call for fairer, more inclusive and eventually, more effective decisions on food systems transformations. For doing so, it focuses on decision-making under uncertainty, highlighting complexity and framings as two components of this: On one hand complexity requires us to avoid oversimplification of messages (see the livestock section) and on the other, framing calls for the integration of a plurality of values and worldviews (see the governance section). Thus, in the context of the UNFSS objective of transforming food systems, this brief aims to raise awareness of decision makers about the need of developing and using knowledge and tools that i) tackle the complexity of food systems as complex social-ecological systems, and ii) recognise the existence of different framing and values in a context of uncertainty. We also reflect on the role of science in this process. While our focus is global, we focus on Europe to exemplify our arguments. Yet, transformation cannot happen in one world region independently from the others. A global movement requires first adopters to start the process.

A Whole Earth Approach to Nature Positive Food: Biodiversity and Agriculture

2021-08-17T10:03:22Z

A Whole Earth Approach to Nature Positive Food: Biodiversity and Agriculture DeClerck, Fabrice A. J.; Koziell, Izabella; Benton, Tim; Garibaldi, Lucas A.; Kremen, Claire; Maron, Martine; Rumbaitis Del Rio, Cristina; Sidhu, Aman; Wirths, Jonathan; Clark, Michael; Dickens, Chris; Estrada Carmona, Natalia; Fremier, Alexander K.; Jones, Sarah K.; Khoury, Colin K.; Lal, Rattan; Obersteiner, Michael; Remans, Roseline; Rusch, Adrien; Schulte, Lisa A.; Simmonds, Jeremy; Stringer, Lindsay C.; Weber, Christopher; Winowiecki, Leigh Agriculture is the largest single source of environmental degradation, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 70% of freshwater use and 80% of land conversion: it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss (Foley et al. 2011, 2005; IPBES 2019; Willett et al. 2019). Agriculture also underpins poor human health, contributing to 11 million premature deaths annually. While too many still struggle from acute hunger, a growing number of individuals, including in low to middle-income countries (LMICs), struggle to access healthy foods. Greater consideration for, and integration of, biodiversity in agriculture is a key solution space for improving health, eliminating hunger and achieving nature-positive development objectives.
This rapid evidence review, documents the best available evidence of agriculture’s relationships with biodiversity, drawing on the contributions of leading biodiversity experts, and recommends actions that can be taken to move towards more biodiversity/nature-positive production through the delivery of integrated agricultural solutions on climate, biodiversity, nutrition and livelihoods. The analysis, which takes a whole-of-food- system approach, brings together a large body of evidence. It accounts for aspects not typically captured in a stand-alone primary piece of research and indicates where there are critical gaps.