Food Security - From the Global to the Local Dimension

Abstract

Food security, environmental health and quality, and social well-being represent key outcomes of sustainable food systems. Achieving global food security is an important element of the UN Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals. The course will explore the contribution of Sustainable Food Systems to achieve food and nutrition security and achieving the SDGs.

Objective

This year, the focus of the course will be on the role of agroecology for improved nutrition in city ecosystems. We will link the topic to an ongoing research project, the NICE project. This project is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). It is implemented and co-financed by a public-private Swiss consortium comprising the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), ETH Zürich (Sustainable Agroecosystems Group & Laboratory of Sustainable Food Processing and World Food Systems Centre), Sight and Life, and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. We will explore how agroecology can improve food and nutrition security in cities. We study how famers (cooperatives), (social) business models or local governance system can potentially increase the production and demand for foods produced locally and based on agroecological principles to make food value chains more nutrition-focused and to contribute to better health. We want to discuss, explore, and learn how multi-stakeholder and multisectoral collaboration can bring city authorities, local businesses, and civil society together to create a dynamic network of city learning hubs for dissemination and scale up. The aim is to learn, discuss and reflect, both based on conceptual level as well using concrete city cases, about promising transformation pathways towards food and nutrition security. Students will learn from practical experiences and discuss in groups and with experts from FAO and other organizations, the complexity of sustainable food system and how possible pathways towards better and more sustainable local food systems could look like. The students should discover and explore approaches, tools, strategies, and policies which support the transition of food systems or specific elements of them at different scale: local, national, or even global. We want to address how the barriers to adopt them could be overcome.

Content

Core element of the course is a three days workshop at FAO in Rome (12.04.-14.04.2023) in which students will exchange with experts from FAO and other Rome based agencies on different topic linked to food security and sustainable food systems with a focus on city regions. The content of the course and the cases discussed and analyzed are linked to an ongoing research project the NICE project ( https://nice.ethz.ch ). The main outcomes of sustainable food systems are food and nutrition security, environmental quality and health, including the protection of natural resources and the mitigation of climate change impacts, decent livelihoods and social wellbeing. The concept of “Food systems” is key to understand the complex framework of actions to ensure food and nutrition security of present and future generations around the globe but also within local systems. Farmers and the related farming practices, food processors, logistics operators and retailers as well as the consumers themselves are among the key actors in any food system. Others are policy makers, public administration, research institutions, etc. Several methods and tools have been developed to assess sustainability and resilience of agriculture and food systems. Different approaches have been set-up and tested to facilitate the transition of food systems within their given local environment towards more sustainability. Availability, access, utilization and stability are generally recognized as the four dimensions of food security, combining (i) availability of food at a certain time and a certain place, (ii) individuals physical and monetary accessibility, (iii) appropriate use of the food to make sure it’s healthy and of high quality and (iv) stability of the food system, especially regarding the economic, political and environmental conditions. The High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee for Food Security (CFS) recommends in their last report released in 2020 to acknowledge two further dimensions: agency, as the capacity (of individuals or groups) to make their own decisions about food production, processing, distribution and consumption, and their ability to participate in processes which shape food system policies and governance. Eradicating hunger and ensuring food security for all at any time is one of the key challenges of our society. The specific issues related to “food systems” will be at focus of this course. In desk research, discussions and by listening to experts, students will critically reflect and analyze how at city level food security can be achieved, livelihoods improved and natural resources conserved. Based on case study analysis of examples used in the NICE project but also from FAO work and others, we will discuss promising pathways to address this global challenge. In the course students will discuss and explore following three main aspects: (i) Exploring concepts, approaches and tools leading to improved food and nutrition security in city region food systems, such as among others, sustainability assessment methods, agroecology, nutrition-sensitive value chain approach, responsible investments, circular economy, food waste management, safe food initiative, one-health concept, etc.; (ii) Reviewing and critical reflection of sustainable food system strategies developed in six different cities (case studies of the NICE project); (iii) Reflecting about the role of policy makers (both at national and local level), United-Nations Agencies like FAO, research institutions, and other players such as civil society, consumers or the private sector to support sustainable food system transformation.

Resources