Committee On World Food Security Research Articles

International Trade in the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition: A Missed Opportunity?

In February 2021, the members of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) endorsed the first-ever Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN) aimed at supporting countries in their efforts to eradicate all forms of hunger and malnutrition, while strengthening the process towards sustainable food systems. This article investigates whether and how the VGFSyN address international trade, whose role in the functioning of food systems is clearly highlighted in current global policy initiatives. The analysis examines the relationship between trade policies and food security and nutrition. It highlights the most important positions on the matter of the members of the CFS during the preparation of the guidelines. We argue that the CFS missed the opportunity to include trade and its profound effect on nutrition in the supposedly systemic approach adopted in the guidelines. We believe that the VGFSyN would have been an ideal opportunity to emphasize the relationship between trade and food and nutrition security, and to call attention to the importance of trade in the transition towards sustainable food systems. world food security, nutrition security, food systems, sustainable food systems, trade policies, Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN), WTO Agreement on Agriculture, non-trade concerns, agricultural trade liberalization, right to food

Reflections on the limited impact of the VGGT in sub saharan Africa and opportunities for its future with lessons from Nigeria and Sierra Leone

Despite the widely lauded and much needed adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT), along with numerous implementation guides, and complementary international, regional, and sector-specific instruments (e.g. the Framework and Guidelines for Land Policy in Africa, and, the Sustainable Development Goals), key outcomes like tenure security at scale have not been achieved. The literature documents some important impacts of the VGGT on reform processes and highlights illustrative or “one-off” results. Yet, too many individuals, families and communities in rural areas of African countries, for example, still do not have recognized or secure land rights. And where they do have rights recognized by law, too many have trouble defending and leveraging those rights for economic gain or to achieve food security. The reality that significant improvements in security of tenure at scale in rural Africa are still needed nearly a decade after the adoption of the VGGT suggests a need to explore its limitations and consider what it would take to realize its objectives. This paper contributes by considering three questions: (1) has the VGGT had a measurable impact on improving tenure at scale in Sub-Saharan Africa; (2) are there country-level cases of VGGT application that might be demonstrative of ways the VGGT could be used or revised to have desired impacts on tenure at scale; and (3) what lessons can be drawn from these cases contextualized with reflection on the development and negotiation of the VGGT, that could improve the VGGT and its application (or be applied to future UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) products)? For Sub Saharan Africa, noting the lack of evidence to rigorously estimate the impact (or lack thereof) of the VGGT on tenure security, we analyze the available quantitative and qualitative information. This supports our observation that there has been little change in the outcome of tenure security and a widely held view that tenure insecurity persists. We illustrate innovative approaches to using the VGGT with case studies from Nigeria and Sierra Leone. This learning feeds into broader reflection on the VGGT process and critical thinking about how the VGGT might be better used going forward throughout Africa; considerations for how future international instruments are developed also emerge. We conclude that what is needed is revision of the VGGT, development of a VGGT 2.0 or other actions to address challenges and replicate successes.

A reflection on the CFS (Committee on World Food Security) Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition in advance of the United Nations Food Security Summit

Established in 1974, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is a multi-stakeholder platform which promotes an integrated private and public partnership to address the urgent challengesfacing global food security and nutrition. While some improvements were made, the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were offset by increasing food insecurity and environmental regressions (UN, 2020). The Covid 19 pandemic has exacerbated global food shortages where as a result an estimated 2.37 billion people are now faced with moderate or severe food insecurity, an increase of 320 million people from the previous year (FAO, 2021). The widespread economic and social impact of the pandemic has also laid bare the vulnerability of global food systems, highlighting the urgent need for a more resilient and sustainable approach to ensure food and nutrition security for all. The aforementioned issues are presumably to be discussed at the United Nations Food Security Summit, scheduled to meet on September 23, 2021. In preparation for the summit, several reports on the state of global food security and food supply systems have been prepared and shared with member states. One of these, Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN), produced by the CFS, seek to promote “policy coherence, coordination and convergence” between stakeholders and to achieve healthy diets for all by encouraging actions towards more inclusive and sustainable food systems (CFS, 2021). At this time of rising global food insecurity and failing food systems, we are faced with global problems requiring a global solution. The VG may eventually become a vital tool for national policy makers, legislators, and advocacy agents in their work to transform food systems and nutrition in their respective countries. However, the damaging aspects of food systems are far reaching, especially for those that have environmental consequences, and voluntary guidelines will do little to curb these ever-growing trepidations. To achieve truly transformative food systems without violating the sovereignty of nation states, CFS should also robustly link the VG to existing international law so that member states as well as other stakeholders are held accountable where they fail to act on them. The VG need to be supplemented with rules regarding engagement with private sector to ensure conflict of interests are addressed. Finally, making financial and technical resources available to low-income countries should be prioritized to ensure that evidenced-based strategies are developed and implemented in diverse contexts, with the long-term goal of achieving the right to food for all

Expectations for the UN Food Systems Summit

The United Nations Food Systems Summit is being convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in September 2021. The summit will hopefully facilitate the attainment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Might it also lead to marginalization of the traditional inter-governmental UN institutions like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS)?

FOOD SECURITY OF THE BLACK SEA LITTORAL AND FEATURES OF ITS DEVELOPMENT

A critical review of the definition of “food security” (FS) in the context of the views of economists was conducted. The main indicators were analysed that make it possible to determine the actual food security level of the country and the region. Justified the necessity of establishing food security as a priority goal of state policy. The food security of Ukraine was considered as a derivative of anthropogenic loading on the natural environment. The aim of the article. The purpose of this study is a critical review of scientific works on the problems of assessing the food security level, calculation of food security indicators with the established rational norms of food consumption in order to analyse the existing food security system of the Ukrainian Black Sea region and the peculiarities of its development. The subject of the study is theoretical bases, methodological approaches and practical recommendations for the definition of the existing system of indicators of food security and their thresholds for foreign values. Methodology. The methodological and theoretical foundations of the research are the scientific positions of economic theory, agro-food complex, planning and forecasting, scientific publications of domestic and foreign scientists in various spheres of economic science. In order to achieve the conceptual integrity of the work, general scientific and special methods were used: analysis and synthesis – for the comprehensive study of food safety processes; systematization – to identify the conditions, factors of providing food security; statistical – for generalization, systematization, and revealing of development tendencies of phenomena and processes connected with food safety of the region; graphic – for the visual display of the regularities of the change of food security indicators. Results. The conducted research indicates an improvement of the status of food safety indicators. The negative aspect is the ineffective state regulation of foreign trade, the conditions for the effective development of the food market are not created, and there are no favourable conditions for increasing the production volumes of the main agricultural products types. Value/originality. The methodology for determining the indicators for assessing the state of food security, which exist at present, requires new approaches and improvements. The conducted research allowed the authors to combine indicators into groups. The research has shown that for the sake of a comprehensive, complete analysis of the state of food security, it is necessary to take into account the indicators: socio-economic, which take into account such components as level and quality of life, solvency of the population, demographic factor; macroeconomic, such as gross aggregate product, gross domestic product, personal income, because the problem is systemic and related to the development of the country and its individual regions. From the author’s point of view, from the strategic perspective, Ukraine should make the transition to the food safety indicators proposed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). This will allow an assessment of the real state of food security, which was formed in the regions and in the country as a whole, and urgently take appropriate action to improve it.

Affectedness alliances: affected people at the centre of transnational advocacy

ABSTRACTTransnational civil society has risen to decrease the gap between citizens’ concerns and global policy-making. Yet, in many governance areas international NGOs (INGOs) have played preponderant roles. According to a common critique, these INGOs have often been too distant from affected populations. In global food security governance, however, we observe that members of affected populations themselves have been at the centre of transnational advocacy networks. This follows in large part from the struggle of agrarian movements, foremost La Vía Campesina, who have promoted the affectedness principle. This principle holds that advocacy should be conducted by affected persons themselves, usually through affected persons’ organisations (APOs). We argue that APOs and INGOs who have internalised this principle have formed ‘affectedness alliances’. Within these coalitions, APOs represent the concerns of affected populations while INGOs act as supporters. We demonstrate these coalitions at the global level with a particular focus on the UN’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and in the transnationalisation of a ‘land grabbing’ case from Sierra Leone. This shows how APOs can overcome participation obstacles, take a central role in advocacy networks and make their voices heard, thereby fostering their agency.

The UN Committee on World Food Security’s break from the agricultural productivity trap

ABSTRACTIn 2008, the price of grain spiked internationally, leading to a series of events commentators began to call the global food crisis. Although low agricultural productivity was not the cause of the crisis or the high rates of food insecurity that followed, intergovernmental agencies fell into old patterns and largely responded with policies geared towards increasing agricultural productivity. The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), however, has offered alternatives to this productivity trap, providing a space for dialogue on different approaches. In this paper, I review CFS policy recommendations from 2010 to 2017, and argue that by focusing on small-scale producer livelihood rather than productivity rates and the availability of food on markets, the CFS has contributed to the normative elaboration of alternative paradigms. I argue further, that the CFS’s reformed structure and the inclusion of civil society in policy-making facilitated space for the promotion of these alternatives.

Governing the Global Land Grab

AbstractFollowing the 2007–2008 world food price crisis, the value of developing world agricultural land shot up, raising concerns about a ‘land grab’, In response, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) promulgated the Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries (VGGT) in an effort to strengthen the land rights of customary users. How do we explain the VGGT's emergence? The argument I make is that the VGGT was largely due to the efforts of a group of non‐governmental organizations that effectively transformed debates over developing world agricultural land from an economic or consequentialist issue of increasing farm productivity and output into a moral or deontological one of protecting the human rights of those who worked the land through customary use. The article addresses the utility of the VGGT as an instrument for strengthening land rights along with its limits.

Deliberation in Multi-Stakeholder Participation: A Heuristic Framework Applied to the Committee on World Food Security

Multi-stakeholder participation (MSP) has become a central feature in several institutions and processes of global governance. Those who promote them trust that these arrangements can advance the deliberative quality of international institutions, and thereby improve the democratic quality, legitimacy and effectiveness of both the institutional landscape, as well as decisions made within it. This paper employs a heuristic framework to analyze the deliberative quality of MSP. Specifically, it applies Dryzek’s deliberative systems framework to the case of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The assessment shows that the CFS improves the deliberative quality of food security governance by including and facilitating the transmission of discourses from the public to the empowered spaces. However, the deliberative quality of CFS could be higher with stronger accountability mechanisms in place, more meta-deliberation and adoption of CFS outcomes at national and local levels. Reflecting on the limitations of using this heuristic framework to assess MSP, we conclude that the analysis would benefit from more explicit consideration of different forms of power that are part of the social relations between actors involved in such settings. By proposing this analytical approach, we expect to advance a heuristic framework for assessing deliberation in an international context of the growing importance of MSP in sustainability and global governance.

Why wait for the state? Using the CFS Tenure Guidelines to recalibrate political-legal struggles for democratic land control

In 2012, with the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (or TGs), the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) established a new international standard on natural resource governance. After adoption, the challenge is for these guidelines to be implemented and used. However, no law is self-interpreting or self-implementing, and so how states will interpret and implement these new guidelines cannot be taken for granted. This is especially true in the current global context of land grabbing driven, in many cases, by alliances of state and capital. Consequently, subaltern people, for whom rights in relation to the natural resources on which they depend remain out of reach, face the challenge and potential opportunity of making use of the TGs to recalibrate the political-legal terrain in favour of human rights and democratic control of land and other natural resources.

Digital Technologies and Sustainable Livestock Systems in Rural Communities

AbstractThe 43rd Committee on World Food Security (CFS) convention reiterated the importance of livestock towards eliminating food insecurity across the globe. Livestock provides extensive services and products which are critical in addressing the issues of hunger, malnutrition, health and diseases. However, despite such importance, livestock systems across the globe continue to face the challenge of sustainability. In this research article, using ethnographic research techniques, we examine the Beitbridge livestock systems to understand the vulnerabilities within the system and current efforts to overcome. The article identifies that the Beitbridge livestock system, similar to many others, faces numerous socio‐ecological and political economy challenges. Also, in the past engagement of the author and the community, it emerged that there was limited use of digital technologies within the community. Therefore, this study explore whether digital technologies can contribute towards sustainability of livestock and if so, how. The major findings of the study are that, DTs have affordances which can be exploited to contribute towards the sustainability of the livestock system. However, in order for this to happen, there is need for convergence of conditions e.g. presence of supporting institutions and improvement of digital infrastructure. These findings confirm the need for context based studies on DTs. The findings of the study provide practitioners and policy makers ‘something to think about’ in the development of DTs and supporting systems.

CRÍTICA AOS PRINCÍPIOS PARA INVESTIMENTO RESPONSÁVEL EM AGRICULTURA

ABSTRACT The CFS (Committee on World Food Security) principles provide a framework to help ensure that investment in agriculture is sustainable, and contributes to inclusive growth and poverty reduction. This paper analyzes the recent phenomenon known as land grabbing as an important topic for theoretical and empirical investigations. Initially, it focuses on discussions of the existing literature on the subject, building on empirical data from previous studies, and then addresses the impacts of land negotiations around the world. Subsequently, there is a systemic examination of the CSF principles. This critical analysis demonstrates that the protection against land grabbing is weak and there is an urgent need for clearer and more precise frameworks. Finally, this analysis shows that a deeper understanding of contemporary globalization is needed with respect to the governance aspects within the complex schemes of investment in foreign lands.

Balancing Power Relations for Food Security

First paragraphs: Opinions about how to better govern food systems to prevent food shortages and food price jumps have diverged since the food crisis of 2007–2008, with battle lines drawn between camps that have little common ground other than the shared understanding that hunger is a huge yet ultimately tractable problem. On one side are interests claiming that increased production is essential; on the other side are those who say increased control by hungry people of access to resources and markets are much more important, and increasing production will do little to solve hunger without concomitant sociopolitical changes. One of the consequences of the global failure to predict and protect vulnerable people from food price jumps was the reform of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2009. Understanding the CFS and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which hosts the CFS's annual meetings, is critical to understanding how decisions are playing out that affect whether millions of people have sufficient healthy food to eat, as well as control over how that food is produced, by whom, and for whose benefit. Imagine a knowledgeable guide to the CFS who accompanies you through the halls of the FAO — playing Virgil to your Dante — while explaining the background, history, and important actors who have shaped current issues. Nora McKeon is just such a guide: she brings an unparalleled perspective on the CFS, having worked as civil society liaison for the FAO for years and now regularly engaging in Rome with CFS activities and in Africa with grassroots food sovereignty activists. Food Security Governance: Empowering Communities, Regulating Corporations picks up the story and questions she introduced in her previous book, The United Nations and Civil Society: Legitimating Global Governance — Whose Voice? (Zed Books, 2009)....

PRF - The right to food and politics of knowledge

This article concerns a particular struggle over the right to food, as played out recently in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), within the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). As a relatively new participant in the CFS, the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM), representing land-using social movement organizations and progressive non-governmental organizations (NGOs), was successful in 2010 in convincing the CFS to reject investor-driven Principles of Responsible Agriculture Investment (PRAI)2formulated under World Bank leadership. Instead the CFS would consider a producer rights-driven reformulation of “responsible agricultural investment” (rai) (CFS, 2014). In its initial drafting, the rai was framed as a rights-based initiative through which all states could implement domestic forms of food security and nutrition. Over the two years of development of the rai principles, it became increasingly clear that the “right to food” concept informed quite different visions of how to stimulate “food security”.

PRF - The right to food: Many developments, more challenges

The right to food (RTF)1has enjoyed growing recognition in the last decade. It has achieved legitimacy and visibility in international governance debates, where it is increasingly perceived as a useful “policy guide” (DeSchutter, 2009). The realization of the right to food is recognized as a goal of the reformed UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), both in its mandate and in its Global Strategic Framework. The reports and interventions of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food have received a lot of attention in recent years. Despite these developments, the RTF is still actively resisted and rejected by some states (notably the U.S. and Canada) on the grounds that economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) are not justiciable and hence not “true” human rights (Anderson, 2008; Chilton, 2009). Yet in many countries, the justiciability of the RTF is firmly established, as demonstrated by some famous court cases in India (school meals program) and South Africa (fisheries) (Courtis, 2007; Golay, 2011).

Global food governance in an era of crisis

There have been multiple and significant changes in the global food landscape when it comes to governance. The 2008 Global Food Crisis heightened attention to and action for food security; this is reflected in the expanding food security agenda across the United Nations system, the World Bank and the Group of Eight (G8) and Group of Twenty (G20) clubs of states. Similarly, there has been expansion of new modes of governing the global food system, ranging from transnational certification schemes for agrofuels and food commodities to voluntary guidelines on land tenure. The two articles in this section provide timely analysis of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS), which is a global forum that has taken on greater centrality in the global governance of food and that features a diverse set of state and non-state actors involved in the agenda-setting, policy-making, and decision-making process.

The role of knowledge in building food security resilience across food system domains

Food systems are social-ecological systems essential for human life. Many food systems are in parallel operation globally, differing in their practices, impacts, use of knowledge, and resilience. Those that are adapted to local constraints and assets and intentionally use and preserve ecosystem services result in lower environmental impacts and are less prone to lead to catastrophic environmental thresholds. Actors within food systems are constantly changing their practices to adapt to pressure and perturbations. Changing activities are correlated with changes in knowledge systems as well. Contributions to the resilience of social-ecological systems have been identified and evaluated, primarily based in ecosystem studies. Many of these attributes (e.g., memory, learning, self-organization) have to do with forms of knowledge. This paper suggests characteristics of “resilient knowledge” and links it with enabling power to make needed changes. How can this enabling power allow social organizations from the community to the international scale to build resilience to all kinds of perturbations into their food systems and create the knowledge systems that resilience requires? This paper compares knowledge generation, transmission, access, and use in four food system domains (global industrial, independent commercial, local and sustainable, and fair trade) discriminated on dimensions of globalization and multifunctionality. The objective of these comparisons is to understand connections among the resilience of food systems, food security, and knowledge systems. The paper concludes with a case study of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), hosted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The CFS embodies and facilitates many of the attributes of resilient knowledge generation and access; some of the tensions within the CFS reflect whether knowledge used by the Committee will have attributes of resilient knowledge. I argue that forms of knowledge generation, transmission, and access must be participatory, multi-actor, iterative, and transparent in order to build food security resilience. I also argue that knowledge at multiple scales must be resilient and interlocking in order to protect social organizations from food shortages and impaired food security.

Canada at the G8 and UN Committee on World Food Security: forum-shifting in global food security governance

Following the 2007–2008 Global Food Crisis, the Government of Canada doubled its aid spending on food security and made fighting world food insecurity a key foreign policy objective. The Government of Canada positioned itself for, and claims to enjoy, global leadership in global food security governance. This article examines the Government of Canada's behavior at two leading institutions for global food security governance, the Group of Eight (G8) and the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). I argue that the government has engaged in a forum-shifting strategy between these two institutions that has enhanced its reputation among a small group of peer states at the G8 but diminished its reputation and influence at the CFS. With the CFS emerging as a key institution for agenda-setting, norm-building and rule-making in global food security governance, Canada's marginal influence and peripheral status at this body undermines the government's claims of global leadership.

The Real Dirt on Responsible Agricultural Investments at Rio+20: Multilateralism versus Corporate Self-Regulation

This article uses a fine-grained anthropological and linguistic analysis to expose the routine negotiating practices and power games behind the conclusion of paragraph 115 on responsible agricultural investments during the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012. These negotiations are simultaneously a telling example for the quotidian stuff of international governance—an arena in which much larger forces are played out through small language-based tactics, and they are representative of an exceptional moment when global multilateral policy making in the frame of the United Nations was challenged by the legitimation of private authority and corporate self-regulation. Combining anthropological and linguistic methods, the article focused on language use, analyzing the ways in which people interact in a highly coded language, how they “perform,” by exploring, playing with, and twisting the grammatical structures of the spoken language. At issue is the large-scale appropriation of agricultural land all over the world by multinational corporations, investment funds, and foreign governments. 115. We reaffirm the important work and inclusive nature of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), including through its role in facilitating country-initiated assessments on sustainable food production and food security, and we encourage countries to give due consideration to implementing the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. We take note of the on-going discussions on responsible agricultural investment in the framework of the CFS, as well as the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (PRAI).

Towards food sovereignty: interrogating peasant voice in the United Nations Committee on World Food Security

The goal of the direct participation of food producer constituencies – and other citizens – is a key component of food sovereignty, the policy framework first launched by La Vía Campesina and engendering the much wider food sovereignty movement. In this paper, I outline the reasons why the reform of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) can be regarded as historically significant to this goal. Focusing upon the CFS's aspirations for inclusivity, I outline a framework for interrogating the experiences of social movement activists representing food producer constituencies seeking to convert their formal right to participate in the CFS into substantive participation. Going beyond the capturing of their experiences, the framework also reveals the different ways in which their challenges in attaining substantive participation can be overcome, with a particular emphasis upon adjustments within the arena itself. The paper concludes with an overview of the research agenda suggested by Raj Patel (2009), amongst others, and alluded to further in the content of this paper.