Extension of deadline to 1st December!
HLPE Electronic Consultation on the scope of the Report: Agroecological approaches and other innovations for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition
Please note that in parallel to this scoping consultation, the HLPE is calling for interested experts to candidate to the Project Team for this report. The Project Team will be selected by the end of 2017 and will work until June 2019. The call for candidature is open until 15 November 2017; visit the HLPE website www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe for more details
Proposed draft Scope of the HLPE Report
by the HLPE Steering Committee
Innovation has been a major engine for agriculture transformation in the past decades and will be pivotal to address the needs of a rapidly growing population and the increased pressure over natural resources (including biodiversity, land and water) in a context of climate change. Agroecology and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies can play a critical role to strengthen sustainable agriculture and food systems in order to successfully combat hunger, malnutrition and poverty and contribute to the advancement of the 2030 Agenda.
Building sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition (FSN) will require not only to develop new knowledge and technologies but also: to fill the technology gaps; to facilitate the effective access and use of existing technologies; and to develop context-specific solutions, adapted to local food systems and local ecosystems.
Beyond technical issues, this report will assess the importance of bottom-up and people-centered approaches, building on different forms of knowledge, as well as the role of good governance and strong institutions. It will explore the enabling conditions needed to foster scientific, technical, financial, political and institutional innovations for enhanced FSN.
Agroecology, described simultaneously as a science, a set of practices and a social movement, will be studied in this report, as an example of such holistic innovative approaches combining science and traditional knowledge systems, technologies and ecological processes, and involving all the relevant stakeholders in inclusive, participative and innovative governance mechanisms.
This report will also examine the limitations and potential risks of innovative approaches for FSN, human health, livelihoods and the environment. Confronted by major environmental, economic and social challenges, policy-makers need to understand how to optimize and scale-up the contributions of agroecological and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies, while harnessing these potential associated risks.
The HLPE report shall address the following questions:
- To what extent can agroecological and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies improve resource efficiency, minimize ecological footprint, strengthen resilience, secure social equity and responsibility, and create decent jobs, in particular for youth, in agriculture and food systems?
- What are the controversies and uncertainties related to innovative technologies and practices? What are their associated risks? What are the barriers to the adoption of agroecology and other innovative approaches, technologies and practices and how to address them? What are their impacts on FSN in its four dimensions (availability, access, utilization and stability), human health and well-being, and the environment?
- What regulations and standards, what instruments, processes and governance mechanisms are needed to create an enabling environment for the development and implementation of agroecology and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies that enhance food security and nutrition? What are the impacts of trade rules, and intellectual property rights on the development and implementation of such practices and technologies?
- How to assess and monitor the potential impacts on FSN, whether positive or negative, of agroecology and other innovative approaches, practices and technologies? Which criteria, indicators, statistics and metrics are needed?