Who said you shouldn’t compare apples and oranges? In discussions about climate and sustainable food systems where biodiversity is a critical solution, it seems like a necessary mix. This fall featured an abundance of forums on food and climate—NYC Climate Week, the Milano Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP), and the annual proceedings of the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The diverse conversations in these spaces offer insights into the horizon of possibilities.
As I pack my bags each year for New York, friends and family ask me what Climate Week it is about and how it helps address the climate crisis. Absorbing an enormous amount of resources, it’s an important question. Climate Week began in 2009 as a side event to the U.N. General Assembly’s (UNGA) annual meeting to deepen climate commitments. Today, the two events are largely separated with limited opportunities to influence the UNGA. Its organizers describe it as a “world-leading global climate event” of leaders “that have the means, the scale and the ideas to take bold action.” Although policies are not forged at Climate Week, relationships are. While the larger environmental NGOs tend to be well-represented, grassroots civil society movements are generally not, which left me concerned as to whether the bold actions hatched there will be sufficiently grounded in community leadership.
Nonetheless, the conversations offered inspiration. Traffic was predictably awful, black Suburbans ushering heads of state about. To arrive at venues from Columbia University to Tribeca, I weaved on a bicycle between taxis. In one midtown session, a slide tracked how, over the past decade, the links between climate and food systems have gained momentum in deliberations at the COPs. It was good to see a general trend I’ve observed—of growing interest in this link—confirmed by the data. At the Agroecology Fund, we’re convinced that there is no climate solution without a redesign of food systems along agroecology principles.
In a session on Indigenous-Led Climate Finance hosted by the Collective Action for Just Finance, NDN Collective and Oweesta, a speaker noted that an investment in Indigenous-led funds providing blended capital for alternative energy and traditional food systems isn’t “concessional” in the conventional sense—which can be unappealing to investors seeking higher returns—but rather offers a “restorative” return on a broken planet. A fund manager, Vanessa Roanhorse, said, “I’m not here to pass down debt, rather to pass down opportunity.”
Truly harrowing was a session organized by ClimateWorks and others on “A Philanthropic Path to Collective Action on Agrochemicals and Fossil Fuels.” There, we heard about the fossil fuel industry’s agile footwork. As fossil fuels decline as an energy source, companies double down on petroleum-based agrochemical inputs. Seeking a more resilient horizon, Tonya Allen, President of the McKnight Foundation, shared, “the more we farm with nature, the more we solve problems.” She cited examples of agroecological innovations in Tanzania, including non-fossil fuel bio-inputs that fortify soil health.
On the other side of the Atlantic, I joined the Milano Urban Food Policy Pact’s Global Forum. More than 300 municipalities worldwide have joined MUFPP to share experiences in strengthening sustainable and equitable food systems. I served on a jury to recognize cities’ outstanding food policy innovations; all tied to climate resilience. From Jericho’s use of treated wastewater to irrigate a greenbelt of dates to Choné’s reforestation with cacao trees which has generated employment along the value chain, it was a wealth of creativity and political commitment carried out in partnerships with civil society. In these moments of cruel and neglectful national politics, gestures to guarantee livelihoods and the most basic of rights—the right to food—seemed just the right medicine.
Further south in Rome, the Agroecology Coalition convened donors of diverse stripes—from multilateral development agencies to philanthropies—to explore how to deepen investments in agroecology. Development banks joined the conversation. Were they to finance principles-based agroecology, it would be a significant investment flow.
Immediately after the donor gathering, the Committee on World Food Security’s (CFS) annual meeting took place at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). CFS has a special place in my heart. It celebrates multilateralism amidst its generalized collapse, exacerbated by the U.S. retreat. The U.N. Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhiri, stated that “the U.N. died in Gaza” when food was used as a weapon and the U.N. stood by. Perhaps CFS can be a space for multilateral resurrection.
In a vivid representation of the links between the global and local, Anna Scavuzzo, Vice Mayor of Milano spoke at CFS and the CFS chair H.E. Nosipho Nausca-Jean Jezile spoke at the Milano forum. The next High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) report—a previous one articulated the 13 principles of agroecology—will be on Resilient Food Systems and present research findings on strategies to safeguard food security in a changing climate.
CFS’ governance is unique. In the reform of 2009, the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (CSIPM) was born a space in which many Agroecology Fund grantee partners participate. One has to admire the CFS as a forum in which the private sector and philanthropic foundations both have seats, the CSIPM delegation advocates for Indigenous land rights and in a plenary session, the U.S. asks to be dissociated from policy recommendations on Urban and Peri Urban Food Systems due to a series of “red lines” including climate change, equity, and diversity that are “not actionable given their lack of focus and expensive scope.”
Of course, CFS has plenty of problems, not least of which is that recommendations and guidelines are non-binding. The CSIPM advocates hard for these products to be taken up by governments. Some are rankled by CFS’ inclusive nature. Over recent years, a new forum has appeared, the World Food Forum, in which the food and agriculture industries have a heavier hand. It could siphon interest away from CFS.
A common thread tying together these diverse fora is that they are moments in time. While CFS stands out as the culmination of consultative processes from territories to parliaments, all three are primarily places to strengthen relationships, share knowledge, and pledge joint commitments. The hard work occurs both before and after, in communities across landscapes. In nearly every session I attended, grassroots actors were lifted up as essential landscape leaders, wonkily described as the secret sauce to scaling resilient food systems up and out. Their underfunding was noted. May action follow discourse. May funding for these community-driven food and climate solutions be abundant and may agroecological food systems grow like corn after a summer rain!
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Photo courtesy of Mahfuz Shaikh, Unsplash
