Healthy and sustainable food systems and diets

Healthy and sustainable food systems and diets

Introduction[3]

The notion of food systems refers to the web of actors, processes, and interactions involved in the growing, processing, distribution, preparation, consumption, and disposal of foods,[4] as well as the social, economic and environmental outcomes these activities generate.[5]

A holistic food systems lens focuses on how the various processes interact with one another, and with the broader environmental, social, political and economic contexts,[6] whilst recognizing the particular role that power, gender, and generational relationships play. It also recognizes the complex interrelatedness of food systems with other systems – such as ecosystems, economic systems, social-cultural systems and health systems.[7]

Food systems affect the right to adequate food and nutrition (RtFN) in all its dimensions, from the availability and accessibility of food to its adequacy (e.g., cultural, safety, nutritional). Peasants’ rights to natural resources, workers’ rights to decent wages and social protection, and children’s rights to healthy diets, all are intrinsically linked to the food system.  The way food systems are shaped – from seed to plate – is hence critical for the realization of the right to food and nutrition, and interrelated rights.

The dominant global corporate food system and its agro-industrial mode of production – based on mono-cropping, high levels of chemical inputs, and commercial seeds – undermine the RtFN in multiple ways and play a central role in hunger and malnutrition[8]. Across the corporate food system, people, animals and nature are exploited to keep costs low and increase profits. The system drives the homogenization of diets and consumption of highly profitable ultra-processed food products (“junk food”), with detrimental effects on people’s health and our planet’s biodiversity. Local varieties of plants adjusted to local conditions, as well as knowledge how to grow and prepare these for optimal nutrition, are disappearing as a direct consequence. At the same time, climate change, eco-destruction and natural resource grabbing linked to the corporate food system are depriving communities of the ability to grow their own food and hence of their food sovereignty.

In recent years, there has been an increased recognition of the need to transform food systems to make them more healthy and sustainable. Unfortunately, this debate is often marked by a lack of human rights perspective and attention to the problems associated with the corporate food system. As a consequence, many solutions remain at the surface and, importantly, within the corporate food system rather than seeking a shift away from it. Ironically, the same corporations that are behind the exploitative practices that characterize the corporate food system, are increasingly invited to contribute to public policy debates on how to improve the system. This presents a major barrier to the meaningful transformation of food systems.

Meanwhile, small-scale food producers, who produce the majority of the world’s food while taking care of the planet, and other groups most affected by hunger and malnutrition have been largely excluded from public policy debates and their solutions ignored or side-lined[9]. This is particularly true for agroecology[10] which describes a wide range of practices that preserve the environment, protect and increase biodiversity, preserve traditional knowledge, foster resilience, and seek to change established power relations. While both in theory and practice recognized as key for transforming food systems, agroecology has received limited attention and is often portrayed as “one solution among many” rather than the pathway to follow to make food systems healthy, sustainable and just. In this sense, food systems governance – who has a say in shaping the system – is at the heart of food systems transformation.

 

States’ obligations

States have an obligation to shape food systems in a way that such contribute to – and do not undermine – the realization of the right to food and nutrition and related human rights. They must ensure that policies and programmes related to food systems – e.g., agricultural, environmental, food and nutritional, labour, and trade – are coherent and foster human rights in all their dimensions and throughout the food system. For example, a school meals programme should not be limited to nutritional and health objectives of pupils but at the same time seek to protect the environment and enhance livelihoods of small-scale food producers (e.g., procurement of sustainably produced food at fair prices from local small-scale food producers). Similarly, efforts to increase “consumers’” access to healthy food, should not simply rely on making such food cheaper as this may have detrimental impacts on peasants and workers who depend on fair prices and wages for realizing their own right to food and nutrition. Hence food systems interventions must take a holistic perspective that considers impacts across the food system. These interventions should be informed by the experiences of those most affected by hunger and malnutrition, and place their needs and rights at the centre. This includes workers (see module on Workers’ Rights), Indigenous Peoples and rural communities, including peasants and other small-scale food producers (see module on Food Sovereignty), women (see module on Women’s Rights), and children, adolescents and youth, among others.

A human rights-based approach to the governance of food systems implies that groups most affected by hunger and malnutrition have the space and means to participate meaningfully in public policy making and implementation. At the same time it requires effective safeguards to protect against the influence of the food industry and its lobby groups in public policy making. Public policies and regulations must place people and their rights at the centre, not corporate profits. Where multi-actor platforms are in place, such must clearly distinguish and ensure appropriate roles of the various actors participating (e.g., rights holders vs. groups with commercial interest), including by addressing power differentials. Strong accountability mechanisms are also key in order to uphold the public interest and ensure that public policies align with human rights. Food systems tend to be shaped by factors that transcend national borders, including international trade and investment rules, and climate change and environmental pollution. Hence the implementation of extraterritorial human rights obligations plays a critical role in ensuring human rights-based food systems. A key component in this is the regulation of transnational corporations.

List of key words

  • Local and territorial food systems
  • Industrial/corporate food system
  • Agro-industrial production model
  • Nutrition and health
  • Healthy and sustainable diets
  • Breastfeeding
  • Malnutrition in all its forms
  • Ultra-processed food products (“junk food”)
  • Meaningful participation of groups most affected by hunger and malnutrition
  • Industry interference, conflicts of interest
  • Agroecology
  • Participation, sovereignty, and self-determination
  • Food traditions and cultural heritage
  • Farmers’ markets
  • Biodiversity
  • Protection of the commons
  • Care work

Main instruments

Guiding Questions

Food systems governance

  • [12]

  • If there are no specific policies, the right to food can also be protected under the right to life framework. For example, the right to food is protected under the right to life guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

  • These institutions could be specific ministries or other sectorial organizations and could operate at national, regional and/or local levels.

    • Cross-sectoral collaboration and coherence: Do ministries and other parts of the public administration work together to address food systems- and nutrition-related issues? Are sectoral policies consistent with each other, or are there contradictions (e.g., between trade and agricultural policies)?

  • The most affected groups include peasants, small-scale fishers, pastoralists, workers, Indigenous Peoples, and women and girls. On this point, it may be helpful to critically look at the composition of social participation bodies (e.g., food policy councils) by asking the following questions: Who participates in these? Are the different interests and roles of these actors recognized and clearly distinguished? Do such spaces put a special emphasis on those most marginalized and affected by hunger and malnutrition? Are power imbalances addressed? How are disputes solved?

  • For example: Are public agencies and research institutions financially independent, or are they funded by companies, private foundations, or other donors promoting a private sector agenda? Does your state engage in partnerships with big food and beverage corporations? Are there effective rules to control “revolving doors” (e.g., former and current industry representatives holding public offices) and conflicts of interest within public officials?

    • Are there clear regulations and accountability frameworks to hold private actors, including corporations, accountable for actions that undermine human rights in food systems and nutrition, including extraterritorially?
    • Is food systems and nutrition governance transparent?

  • Do these allow for effective participation of rights holders / those affected by hunger and malnutrition?

Protection and regeneration of nature

  • (see also modules on Environmental Rights and Food Sovereignty)

    • Does your state respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities to their territories?
    • Does your state carry out agrarian reforms in order to facilitate broad and equitable access to land and other productive resources?

  • For example, are there incentives or credits, technical support, irrigation facilitation, and access to markets for small- scale food producers?

  • For example, does your state protect them from privatization? Does your state enable pastoral mobility, and facilitate responsible governance of common resources? Does your state respect, protect and fulfil the rights of small-scale fishing communities to traditional fishing grounds that form the basis of their livelihoods?

    • Are there incentives to protect the availability and access to wild foods, local medicinal species and varieties, and local agrobiodiversity in indigenous and peasant agrarian systems, including small-scale, artisanal fishing, and livestock/pastoralist systems?
    • Does your state respect, protect and fulfil peasants’ and other people’s working in rural areas rights to save, use, exchange, and sell their farm-saved seeds or propagating material?

  • For example, agricultural subsidies and technical assistance programmes to support a transition to agroecology?

    • Are there mechanisms to promote sustainable management and conservation of ecosystems for the continued availability of water and the conservation and restoring of agro-biodiversity?
    • Does your state take action for forest conservation, regeneration of native forests, and restoration of degraded forests? Does your state adopt participatory policies for the use and management of forests that enhance access to nutritionally important forest foods for Indigenous Peoples and local communities?
    • Does your state take effective measures to stop contamination and destruction of aquifers and water sources, overfishing, depletion of seas, deforestation, and animal suffering throughout food systems?
    • Does your state have effective regulations prohibiting or limiting the use of pesticides and other harmful substances throughout the production, preservation, processing, storage and distribution of food?

Health and well-being

  • Malnutrition in all its forms refers to undernutrition (wasting, stunting, micronutrient deficiencies, underweight), on the one hand, and overweight, obesity, and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), on the other hand. Diet-related NCDs include cardiovascular diseases (e.g., heart attacks), certain cancers and diabetes.[/lightweight-accordion

  • This can be done through policy, investment, research, education, regulations and subsidies. E.g. are nutritional profiles and food-based dietary guidelines established and used to adjust and inform food and nutrition policies to promote dietary diversity? Do policies, programs or regulatory frameworks recognize and promote the nutritional value and health benefits of food that is produced using peasant and Indigenous Peoples’ seeds and breeds as well as their production and management practices, in particular agroecology?

    • Do policy and/or legal frameworks recognize the importance of healthy ecosystems and their sustainable use for nutrition, health and well-being?

  • E.g., through public procurement policies (sourcing from local, small-scale food producers at fair prices) and through regulatory measures (e.g. regulation of promotion, marketing, and sale of ultra-processed food products in schools, provision of free drinking water).

    • Does your state promote traditional culinary cultures, as well as culinary education in schools and community centres, and take measures to prevent conflicts of interest in the selection of providers?

  • E.g., through regulation of corporations that seek to promote breastmilk-substitutes, maternity protection, parental leave, and working conditions that allow for breastfeeding?

    • Are regulatory measures in place regarding the production, advertising, marketing and consumption of ultra- processed food products, including breastmilk substitutes, through policy, price, and other interventions (e.g., taxes on sugar sweetened beverages)?
    • Has your state made progress in the formulation and implementation of unbiased interpretive front-of-pack labelling, which warns and informs people about the risks of consuming ultra-processed food products and their critical nutrient content?
    • Based on the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, has your state developed strategies with the participation of rights-holders to prevent and cope with future food (or other) crises?

  • For example, by protecting the right to water of peasants and other people working in rural areas for personal and domestic use, farming, fishing and livestock keeping, and securing other water-related livelihoods, as recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) Article 21.2.?

    • What is the approach taken by your state with regard to new technologies (e.g., biofortification, genetically modified seeds and organisms)? Does it use human rights criteria for assessing these, and does it implement the precautionary principle when risks are uncertain?
    • Does the government provide broadly accessible information on the health risks related to GMOs? Are regulations and mechanisms in place to control the presence of food (products) containing GMOs? Are products containing GMOs labelled?

  • • Does food safety consider the entire food system (e.g. health of workers, use of pesticides at production level) or does it only focus on consumption?

    • Does it promote natural and local foods free from chemicals or is there a narrow focus on hygiene (existence of microbes) that ultimately supports agro-industry / industrially produced / packaged foods?

    • Does it have an effective risk assessment, adjusted to the scale of enterprises, contexts, and modes of production?

    • Does your state internationally promote or export, including through food aid, food (products) that include substances prohibited in your state?

  • Does it strictly limit their usage to emergency situations while also taking measures to prevent negative side effects, including interference with local food cultures and markets?

  • For example that ultra- processed or food containing GMOs is not distributed and food is culturally adequate.

Mode of production, employment and exchange

  • Does your state take action to support a transition to agroecology?”]For instance, through incentives/programs/action plans to transition towards agroecology? Does such support to agroecology include a gender equity lens? For instance, does it seek to construct egalitarian relationships from a gender perspective and enable female autonomy?[15] (See also module on Women’s Rights)

  • Examples include:

    • Implementing procurement programs for public institutions, including food assistance and school meals, whereby small-scale food producers are linked to organized demand for food and other agricultural products;
    • Developing or improving infrastructure that is suitable for small-scale food producers;
    • Limiting the expansion of large supermarkets;
    • Regulating the online purchase of food and discouraging the further strengthening of large-scale food distribution, whilst promoting decentralized small-scale food production, trading, and retailing, as well as decent working conditions;
    • Supporting direct selling schemes, including local and solidarity-based partnerships between producers and consumers (such as Community Supported Agriculture or food co-ops);
    • Supporting urban and peri-urban organic agriculture.

  • This includes phasing out pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, antimicrobial resistance, animal suffering, hormones in livestock, GMOs, metals, as well as plastic and other residual materials.

  • Working and living conditions of workers (see also module on Workers’ Rights):

    • Are measures in place to ensure decent working and living conditions of all agricultural and food workers, including migrant and seasonal workers? Does employment provide adequate living wages?[16]
    • Are measures in place to ensure safe and healthy working conditions and the right not to use or be exposed to hazardous substances or toxic chemicals?
    • Does your state recognize the crucial role played by peasants’ organizations and trade unions of agricultural and food system workers in maintaining workers’ health and wellbeing?
    • Do trade and investment rules protect local food production, markets, and public health?
    • Has your state advanced concrete actions for the participatory development of strategic food reserves?

Culture, social relations and knowledge

  • This refers especially to traditional collective knowledge (often orally transmitted), innovation, and practices of Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fishers, pastoralists, and local communities relevant to food production and preparation, nutrition, the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, and ecosystems.

    • Does the state recognize the importance of different forms of knowledge and support processes in which knowledge is shared and jointly built, instead of placing scientific knowledge above other forms of knowledge?

  • In this regard, is agroecology seen as an innovation that should be prioritized?

  • For instance, are children incentivized to think about, learn and share their opinions about the food they eat and how it is produced?

  • For example through support to school and community gardens and local farmers’ markets.

  • For example through local farmers’ markets or direct selling schemes?

    • Is there recognition of, and institutional support (e.g., maternity protection, parental leave, support structures) for care work, such as cooking, feeding, breastfeeding, taking care of elderly and people with special needs, the environment (seed work)? Are public measures in this area aimed at changing established gender roles and redistributing care work so that men and boys take responsibility for their due share? (See also Women’s Rights module)

Where to find answers to the questions

  • Ministry of Agriculture programs, subsidies, allocation of funds (support to large-scale industrial agriculture / food producers vs. support to small-scale producers, agroecology).
  • Food and nutrition policies, strategies, and programmes, both at national and sub-national level. What are the priorities? What are they doing in practice? How are funds allocated (short term / technical solutions vs solutions addressing structural causes of malnutrition / aimed at food systems transformation towards healthy, sustainable and just diets)?
  • Mechanisms in place to ensure inter-sectoral dialogue and policy coherence. Relevant policies: agricultural, food, nutrition, health, trade, public procurement, etc. Conflicts between health / nutrition objectives and agricultural objectives / support? Conflicts between trade and investment policies and public health / right to food objectives (e.g., promotion of local food systems / markets / small- scale food producers / healthy diets)?
  • Food policy councils and other mechanisms of public participation in food systems governance. Who participates and under what conditions / with what voice? In the case of mechanisms including the private sector: are there safeguards against conflicts of interest?
  • WHO country data on nutrition, diets, and non-communicable diseases.
  • FAO country data on agriculture, food security, etc.
  • Demographic and health surveys of countries.
  • Statistics on organic farming and fair trade.
  • Use of agrochemicals / bans, permissions.

 

Useful resources on the topic

Healthy and sustainable food systems and diets

Challenges to food systems governance: Conflicts of interest in multi-stakeholder initiatives – the example of SUN

Conflicts of interests (CoI) refer to a conflict within a person or a public institution resulting from “a conflict between the public duty and the private interest of a public official, in which the official’s private-capacity interest could improperly influence the performance of their official duties and responsibilities”.[17] Close collaboration between the private and public sector, for instance through public-private-partnerships or so-called multi-stakeholder initiatives, enhances the risk of CoI. Such initiatives therefore need to include effective safeguards against CoI, with the objective to protect independence, integrity and the trustworthiness of public actors and institutions.[18]

FIAN International, IBFAN and SID examined the specific case of Scaling up Nutrition (SUN)[19] – a multi-stakeholder initiative founded in 2010, whose stated mission is “to end malnutrition in all its forms”. Among the members of the SUN Business Network are companies such as Mars, PepsiCo, DSM, Ajinomoto, Kellogg’s, and Cargill, many of which are leading manufacturers of ultra-processed foods. The findings of the study suggest that rather than making meaningful changes to the lives of those most affected by hunger and malnutrition, SUN may actually worsen their situation of vulnerability and marginalization while undermining the efforts of those calling for effective conflicts of interest regulations.

Addressing earlier critique from civil society regarding their handling of CoI, SUN had developed a guidance for addressing CoI. The guidance is however very problematic as it fundamentally redefines the legal concept of conflicts of interest in a way that fits and legitimizes SUN’s multi-stakeholder governance structure. In this sense, the purpose of safeguards against CoI presented in SUN’s definition is the protection of the “objectives of the joint endeavour”, i.e., whatever has been agreed upon by all members of the initiative, including business. Moreover, the guidance suggests that conflicts of interest are ‘external’ and caused by disagreements and differences in opinions between actors that can be resolved. It thereby confuses CoI with diverging opinions and interests among different actors.

Unfortunately, SUN’s re-defined CoI concept has, despite strong criticism from CoI experts, also influenced WHO processes. This includes the development of the organization’s Framework for Engagement with Non- State Actors (FENSA) and its guidance on Safeguarding against possible conflicts of interest in nutrition programmes: Approach for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest in the policy development and implementation of nutrition programmes at country level[20].

Food systems transformation: lessons from Cuba

Cuba represents an example of agroecological transition. 60 % of vegetables, maize, beans, fruits and pork consumed in Cuba are estimated to be produced agroecologically. The importance of organic urban agriculture – the so called “organopónicos” – provide for up to 70 % of vegetables produced agroecologically in major cities (Altieri, 2016)[21].

The transition started after the Soviet collapse, which in conjunction with the pre-existing US embargo obliged farmers to substitute intensive industrial food production inputs with organic ones (IPES-Food, 2018). Over time, farmers started using a wide range of agroecological practices such as crop diversification or biological control of pests. Among the most important steps of Cuba’s transition, the following can be highlighted:

  • Decentralized farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchanges, based on a methodology of teaching and peer- mentoring (HLPE 2019)[22], which not only drove knowledge dissemination but helped to build solidarity among farmers (Rosset et al., 2011)[23];
  • Making farmers the experts in research and exchanges, while also institutionalizing agroecology in educational curricula;
  • Development of crop varieties and biological products that are adapted to local conditions (IPES-Food, 2018) [24];
  • Building institutional cooperation between different actors, such as research centers and advisory services for agroecology, demonstrating the importance of cooperation between state, social movements, and scientific research (HLPE, 2019) [25].

Initiatives were led by the National Association of Small Farmers (Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños, ANAP), which received state support once the potential for an agroecological transition became clear.

The Cuban experience therefore underlines the importance of supportive state policies, a highly organized peasantry, and the intentional and systematic use by a peasant organization of a methodology for social change. However, access to healthy and sustainable diets for the Cuban population in its entirety is yet to be achieved, and agroecology continues to coexist with competing priorities and paradigms (IPES-Food, 2018) [26].