An increasing number of green buzzwords are being used to slow down rather than speed up the change of the food system at international summits on the environment, biodiversity, and food. The term “nature-based solutions” is currently being used by agri food corporations, international philanthropic organizations, and some governments to “hijack” the sustainability agenda for the food system, frequently in conjunction with dubious and unproven carbon farming and carbon offsetting schemes in collaboration with major conservation organizations.
This is one of the main points of a new policy brief released by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), a group of experts co-chaired by Maryam Rahmanian, an independent expert on agriculture and food systems, and Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
The briefing examines how the opposing ideas of “agroecology,” “nature-based solutions,” and “regenerative agriculture” were employed at recent international events. It was created following a thorough discussion between IPES-Food and academics from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). The future of food systems is the subject of an intellectual war.
In international summits, very ambiguous words like “nature-based solutions” are tossed about without any clear definitions, and they can be used to further any number of agendas. At worst, they serve as a cover for land grabs that violate people’s rights and endanger the resources and land they depend on, according to Melissa Leach, director of the IDS and an IPES-Food expert. She emphasized the need for extreme caution in the use of these imprecise terminologies and the rejection of undefined solutions as the UN climate summit in Egypt (COP27) draws near.
The need to improve food systems’ sustainability is widely acknowledged, but how to do so is up for contention, claims the brief “Smoke & Mirrors: Examining alternative framings of food system sustainability.” Recently, phrases like “regenerative agriculture” and “nature-based solutions” have become more common in the fields of international development, global governance, and agri-food enterprises. These terms, according to the authors, “additionally to a growing collection of concepts and ideas that are often used as bywords for sustainable development in discussing the future of food systems, including sustainable agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, nature-positive food production, sustainable intensification, conservation agriculture,” and so forth. The three concepts—agroecology, nature-based solutions, and regenerative agriculture—are the center of this essay, which examines their history, development, and application in discussions on the future of food systems.
The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), and the UN Biodiversity Conference were the three high-level summit events that the authors explicitly examined how these terms were utilized in the lead-up to, during, and after (CBD COP15). They also looked at how these phrases were used in different policy and funding contexts (e.g. corporate sustainability schemes and development initiatives).
The researchers discovered that a contentious concept known as “nature-based solutions” is gaining ground at international summits. The concept has acquired traction in the CBD, where it is being vigorously advocated by some parties and fiercely opposed by others in ongoing discussions towards the post2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. It was very visible during the UNFSS and was a point of contention in some COP26 debates.
Earlier stages of the UN Food Systems Summit preferred the phrase “nature-positive.” “Nature-based” and “nature-positive” were frequently used as generic prefixes with a variety of topics in summit literature, the authors write, “suggesting that the terms are being used in a loose and aspirational way and perhaps to mask the specific and highly-criticized approaches (e.g., carbon offsets) being promoted by some proponents of nature-based solutions.”
Examples from summit texts and procedures include “nature-positive food systems,” “nature-positive agriculture,” and “nature-positive concepts, methods, and solutions.” There are five activity tracks in the UNFSS, and track 3 is devoted to “nature positive production.” IPES-Food criticizes the usage of the term “nature-based” to support agribusiness as usual because it lacks a clear meaning and a transformational vision. It is a depoliticized idea that downplays the economic and power disparities that make food systems unsustainable. As a result, it falls short of the profound, structural, revolutionary change necessary to ensure that food systems are truly sustainable in terms of the ecological, social, and economic spheres. Additionally, the phrase is frequently associated with dubious carbon offsetting plans that consolidate the influence of large agriculture. Thus, the alteration of the food system is diluted as a result.
The second concept examined in the study, “agroecology,” on the other hand, is a term with a formal meaning provided through inclusive and democratic governance processes, supported by years of scholarly investigation and social movement credibility. Because it connects social and environmental aspects of sustainability, addresses the entire food system, is aware of power imbalances, and draws from a variety of knowledge, agroecology, according to the authors, offers a more inclusive and thorough pathway toward the transformation of the food system.
Only one of the three concepts, agroecology, has undergone a protracted process of inclusive and worldwide discourse to achieve conceptual clarity and maturity. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) outlined the “10 elements of agroecology” in 2018 after a 4-year consultation process.
This paradigm served as a turning point in the establishment of an all-encompassing agroecology that included social justice components. The High-Level Panel of Experts of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) turned these 10 aspects into a set of 13 operational principles to direct the transformation of the agroecological food system the following year, consolidating this conceptual maturity.
Agroecology was mentioned at the UNFSS under action track 3 as a category of the nature-based solution, emerging as a “game-changing solution” under this track. Agroecology is not utilized as an overarching framework in the three fora, the brief concludes. Hundreds of civil society organizations boycotted the UNFSS for a variety of reasons, and its results are still hotly contested. Among them was the lack of focus on agroecology and food sovereignty. Agroecology was largely absent from the major agenda of COP26 and was not addressed in the Kunming Declaration, which is the CBD’s primary outcome document to date.
The briefing note discovers that the third notion, “Regenerative agriculture,” is less prevalent in policy spaces. Actors in the sustainable food system utilize it to highlight replenishing natural resources. Leading agrifood companies, like Walmart, Pepsi, and Cargill, however, occasionally use the term “regenerative agriculture” in their corporate sustainability plans, frequently in conjunction with carbon offsetting plans that lack social justice components. “The phrase “regenerative agriculture” is in flux. Reclaiming regenerative agriculture from corporate co-optation and reinfusing it with conceptual clarity can be accomplished by highlighting the concepts it shares with agroecology, according to the authors.
The brief offers several recommendations for individuals working in global governance on issues related to food, climate, and the environment. IPES-Food urges people to reject ideas that aren’t defined, make use of ambiguity, and hide agribusiness as usual while assuring inclusive global procedures to consider options for a food system that is both socially and environmentally sustainable. The UNFSS’s call for continuing with business as usual and adopting nature-based solutions should be rejected at the upcoming climate summit in Egypt. Important decisions on agriculture must be made during COP27. If we are to stop global warming and avoid widespread crop failures, we must quickly switch to more robust and sustainable food systems, according to Molly Anderson, Middlebury College’s chair in food studies and an IPES-Food specialist. She emphasized that ambiguous phrases like “nature-based solutions” are being utilized to maintain the focus on nebulous ambitions and that this is simply another instance of greenwashing. Agroecology is the finest answer available today that satisfies this criterion, she continued. “True food system solutions arise through global, deliberative, democratic processes.
