Ensuring safe, nutritious and sustainable food for all
Around the world, small-scale farmers are pushing our food systems to evolve. They’re the key to producing enough safe, nutritious food to feed the world sustainably.
In this episode, we explore how IFAD works hand in hand with rural communities to build a more nourishing future. Learn how innovative agroecology projects are driving economic growth and hear directly from IFAD’s President, Alvaro Lario, about how school meals are inextricably linked to resilient local food systems.
This episode continues our collaboration with the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development.
Find out more: Ensuring safe, nutritious and sustainable food for all - Episode 94
Transcript
This is Farms. Food. Future. – a podcast that’s Good for You, Good for the Planet, and Good for Farmers.
Brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
::Welcome to episode 94 - I'm Brian Thompson.
::And co-presenting this edition, I’m Michelle Tang.
::This year's World Food Day, we asked ourselves a big question: how can food systems deliver safe, nutritious and sustainable food for everyone?
::From smallholder farmers to global policymakers…
::From innovative agroecology projects to transformative school meal programmes…
::In this episode we’ll hear how communities and experts are taking action to tackle hunger, boost resilience, and protect our ecosystems.
::So, stay with us and don’t forget we want to hear from you – what you think about our stories and who you want us to be talking to – so please get in touch with us at podcast@ifad.org.
::You can also subscribe to this podcast via your favourite podcast platform and please don’t forget to rate us.
::Coming up, let's hear everything about how school meals are transforming lives.
::You’re listening to Farms. Food. Future. with me Brian Thomson, and Michelle Tang.
School meals are more than food on a plate, they’re a transformative solution.
::And progress is already underway.
::It certainly is - In the past four years, more than 80 million children have gained access to school meals, bringing the global total to 466 million
::That’s impressive!
And over the same period, global funding for school meal programmes has nearly doubled to 84 billion dollars, mostly from national budgets.
::IFAD President Álvaro Lario emphasized at the High-level Meeting of the School Meals Accelerator Founding Partners, hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation during UNGA80, that school meals are inextricably linked to resilient local food systems and investing in small holder farmers.
Let’s hear about it.
::It's about food systems transformation and I think the biggest challenge probably is that food systems transformation and local value chains are very complex. You need first of all to set up the foundations. That means the water infrastructure, the transport, the commercialization, the roads. Then you have the complexity of transforming.
The business model not providing only concessional lending but Co investing with the private sector think all institutions we need to start thinking in a different way and supporting governments in creating and capitalising their local private sector, because farmers are private.
But the most important message to me is that even these initiatives that we have, these investments are not enough. They need to be embedded into national development plans. And I think locally homegrown can create jobs and can transform economies.
::And that global commitment is already taking shape on the ground in countries like Brazil.
::So, a country often held up as a global model for linking school feeding to local farmers.
::That’s right Michelle. Because Brazil’s national school meals programme requires 45 percent of ingredients to be sourced locally, and at least 30 percent to be grown using agroecological methods.
And that policy has helped smallholder farmers boost their income by over 100 percent.
::At the upcoming School Meals Coalition Global Summit, IFAD’s Country Director for Brazil, Arnoud Hameleers, will be sharing how these policies are transforming lives and livelihoods.
::Our reporter Katie caught up with him ahead of the Summit to hear more about Brazil’s experience and IFAD’s role in advancing this agenda.
::Thank you so much for joining us today on farms food future.
::Thank you for inviting me and it's a very interesting subject. We're going to talk about.
::Absolutely.
Our first question for you today is, can you share a story or example of how IFAD is helping make healthy school meals a reality for children in Brazil?
::Yeah. Here in Brazil, we have a very special situation that we have a school feeding programme which already exists since 1940. Of course it has improved over the years, but that means that there is good policy in place and people have loads and loads of experience with that. As IFAD we support that as well, especially in the Northeast and especially in the areas where the public sector has difficulty to reach out, for example, one of our projects will semi-arid project which also recently won the sustainability award. Worked with 80 schools and working on school gardens to provide healthy inputs for the school meals and that reaches out then to 30,000 children. So, IFAD sees the school feeding programme from one side as a potential market, but also from the other side, it's an important element of their interventions.
::And how does IFAD integrate nutrition into its work with farmers and community?
::Various ways in certain projects we work, there's family production plans, so we help families to set up their own gardens to make sure they have access to diversified foods for their daily diet. We finance training for family.
But also then we work a lot with schools, from training of cooks to making school gardens to training of teachers to make sure that there is healthy food available in these schools and these communities, because schools very often, and especially in the areas where there is a lot of poverty. They're very often the only public entity which is available, so it's our platform to reach out also to small farm.
But also we work then with the farmer groups, associations or cooperatives so they can provide inputs to these school meals and in Brazil you have a very interesting policy environment which obliged the local public sector to buy at least 35% from small farmers. So that means they have to reach out to these small farmers to make sure to get the inputs into the schools. And that is also a business opportunity. But of course, school feeding is is very much part of a community effort to have healthy meals for children. So, a lot of parents are also involved in making sure that the right products are bought, that the right food is presented. And so I have experiences in Bolivia, where, really, it’s almost the parents and that these are all very often our small farmers are really running the school feeding programmes. And in Brazil, we have the luxury that we have a register of small farmers, and they then are allowed to provide inputs to the school meal system.
::And what have been some of the biggest challenges in making school meals nutritious and sustainable? And how has IFAD worked to overcome them?
::The biggest challenge is the first one is policy. You need to have a good policy in place and I've worked in in Bolivia and also now in Brazil. There you have a good policy environment, but then I also worked in Bangladesh that that is not in place and that makes them school feeding programmes, especially the involvement of small farmers very, very difficult.
The other one is public procurement systems. Public procurement systems are not set up for small farmers or for the use of small farmers, and very often, if the procurement policy is there, then especially local technicians and local public servants are afraid of engaging with associations or cooperatives of small farmers because of compliance issues. So, what we do is we train a lot of these people and being less afraid of engaging and buying from small farmers, because of course it's much easier to work with a professional company which can comply with all your forms and all your paperwork. Then with a small association of farmers. But what we try to do is make it a local effort and give public servants the confidence to buy from small farm.
Seasonality is also a problem. Schools are open normally only 10 months a year, so I can't switch the cow off for two months, and that sometimes causes some some restrictions. Quality and diversity. A lot of it depends on training within the schools, so they are aware of food diversity. But what also plays a role? And we have to be very honest with that is that children get exposed to very nice snacks from all over the world and they would like to eat that and not necessarily the same products from their region. So, there is a need also to work on making children and parents aware that they need to look for healthy and diversity in their school meals. Another one sometimes, especially in indigenous areas, is make sure that there is appropriate food because you need to make sure that they know the products and they know how to work with it. But there is also a double way in this. No. I remember in Bolivia what we did is we trained teachers, they educated the kids and then the kids took the message about production, for example, production techniques, agro ecology, back home to influence their parents in their production systems. So, there is an interaction between the schools and the production systems, and how you can influence them.
I think if you can get the school's meal system working in a way that you involve parents, generate consciousness about healthy eating and have the right policies and procurement systems in place, it's only a win, win situation for the kids, for the farmer and also for the environment.
So, it's something you can't deny. It's a reality, especially in the rural areas that school feeding has an enormous impact on society, but it is also an opportunity for small farmers to provide at the local level some of their produce.
::Thank you to Arnoud and Katie.
::Up next, we hear from two leaders transforming food systems through agroecology.
::You’re listening to episode 94 of Farms. Food. Future. with me Michelle Tang and Brian Thomson.
::For this special World Food Day episode, we spoke in the studio with two leaders in sustainable agriculture and food systems.
::That’s right. Our reporter, Hector Clack, caught up with Sheena Kapoor from ACCESS Development Services - she empowers rural enterprises to adopt climate-resilient, nutritious, and equitable farming practices.
::And IFAD’s Elisabeth Steinmayr, who works on integrated landscape management and natural resource governance in Asia, championing agroecology to strengthen food security and restore ecosystems.
::Let’s hear about how agroecology is transforming food systems to help ensure the right to safe, nutritious, and sustainable food for all.
::Welcome, Elisabeth and Sheena to the podcast. Can you share some examples of how agroecological practises have transformed farming methods and improve rural livelihoods in the regions that you visited?
::So one really impressive project that we visited and and we are financing with our investment in agroecology value chains project in India, is in Rajasthan where a lot of their households, they do have biogas digesters, they have been provided by another investor who is using those, the biogas for carbon credit. On the project that IFAD is investing in and that Sheena is working on, we have invested in a project whereby the pharma cooperative in the area they built a processing plant to use this slurry. So the leftovers from the biogas to transform it into biofertilizer. So actually, they're reducing their waste. They are supporting the transition to organic fertiliser in the region and they're making money out of it, and it’s only women in this farmers’ cooperative that we're investing in. And so, it really it has so many positive outcomes on on so many levels. So, on the one hand, there is the whole part of that, they already have the the biogas for cooking, they're generating carbon credits than they are now earning money through the bio fertiliser and the reducing waste, so without actually any, you know, additional input other than the processing plant, they're able to increase their incomes and to have a positive impact on on the environment.
::Just to add a little context to that, these women are tribal women and they did not have access to cooking gas, so they used to travel about 3 to 4 kilometres every day to get firewood, you know for cooking. Which used to take a lot of time from their entire day to, you know, go out, get, would make sure that, you know, it's sufficient, it's not wet and they can use it for cooking. But because of this initiative, you know, they now have a little more free time, which they are now using and investing in the processing of the slurry which. They're calling it as phosphate rich organic manure, and they're also, you know, using these slurry waste to produce biochar, which again helps in improving the quality of soil.
::What challenges and successes have you seen in empowering women through agroecology and value chains?
::So overall you know equity and and social well-being, they're already part of the core elements of agroecology. So, it's also one of the if you want, one of the objectives to to have more participation, more equity in all parts of communities and value chains when it comes to challenges. I mean one of the very common things that is being cited when it comes to agroecology is that by introducing agroecological practises, sometimes the the manual labour can increase quite significantly. So, if you move from herbicides to manual weeding, of course you have to spend much more time doing that and very often this kind of labour comes on to women, so their labour time and their drudgery actually can increase. So, this is something that we need to be very mindful of. As practitioners, when we work with communities, when we invest in such kind of practises that this also does have an impact on on other parts of life. So, we can, you know think about accompanying this with some activities around gender equality, introducing more technology to reduce the drudgery. But we need to be very mindful of those kind of of challenges that come with it.
::Now that she's covered the challenges, I'll talk more about the success stories. So once the outputs are visible, it really improves the confidence amongst these tribal women, which is extremely crucial because these women never used to step out alone of the house, not not even going out till the market to fetch milk, I would say. But now they are so confident that they can move to any part of this of the country to even talk about their own project, you know, because they are. They feel empowered. They feel that, you know, they have achieved something in life. They have some purpose in life.
So, it gives them increased confidence. It gives them increased ownership with respect to their own project and it also gives them an increased decision-making power which earlier they did not have, whether it's at the household level or whether it is at their own cooperative or company level which is which is amazing.
::Elisabeth, how do agroecology-based value chains improve food security and income for smallholder farmers, and what challenges exist in scaling these value chains?
::So, with our project in India that is funded by by BMZ, we are aiming to address two big challenges. The one is to improve the incomes of small holder farmers and the other one is to transition to greater ecologically sustainable agricultural practises. What we are aiming to do is that we address those two challenges by leveraging markets for food system transformation. So, we are investing in private sector more particularly in SME's and and farmer cooperatives for them to work in turn with farmers to adopt agroecological practises. So, we provide financing, we provide capacity building, and we only invest in in really valuable businesses. So, you know where there is money in the end things will get done through this approach. We're able to help farmers increase their incomes because there is a a premium for for this kind of product, if if they enter the market or the example that we mentioned before with with the bio fertiliser where additional income is generated with something that already exists, so there is on the one hand the increase in income which can help to access better and more nutritious food on the other side also by adopting agroecological practises we increase biodiversity, we have crop diversification, we have better soil health. And so, all of this contributes to more nutritious food to have food with better nutritious values and one one example that we have in the project that she is working on is an SME that is processing millets. Millets have very high nutrition values and they are also a very traditional crop in India which has been abandoned for the use of of rice and wheat. But it's making a come back so by investing in this business and with the investment that has been provided through through our grant project, they're able to scale their production, they're producing like Millet cookies. So, on the one hand, you know, farmers are more and more producing millets, they have also millets for their own household consumption. On the other hand, those cookies enter the market, so there is overall a better awareness and accessibility of of this kind of of foods and also they have been included in school meals. So also children are now receiving this kind of more nutritious food when it comes to the challenges for sure it it's very much about policies. So, one thing that we're also trying to do through the project is to create a more enabling policy environment. So, we are also working with implementing partners with future Council and I firm international to work on policy road maps for for the Himalayan region, for India, Nepal and Bhutan to really create this ecosystem that will allow for a higher premium for more awareness among consumers and for overall a better, you know, facilitation of the value chains of these kind of products.
::Sheena what is the business case for agroecology? Can the private sector help drive the agro ecological transition?
::For me, I would say agroecology's business case would be it requires patience and persistence. Patience because the results are very slow. Initially, the farmer might even have to face reduction in the overall produce that he gets, but a few years down the line it can give you amazing results with increased productivity, reduced input costs and you know better pricing in the market. So, it has a lot to offer. It's just that the farmer needs to be patient to actually reap those benefits.
Talking about the private sector, I think they have a lot to do in this space because they are the ones who can help farmers get better, fair pricing. They can also help in getting, you know, better market linkages to the produce producer because one of the major issues that the smallholder farmers face is having access to the market. So, this is something that can be resolved with the support of private sector and one of our grantees is exactly doing that in the Northeastern region. It's a cooperative called Algara Hills working with cashew farmers who did not have access to market, even in the northeastern region of the country itself. But now it is also exporting to other countries. So, with this cooperative they were able to do proper branding, packaging and promote the entire produce, help those producers to go back to cashew cultivation which they had abandoned to reap better benefits. So that's that's just an example of how private sector can lead to better results.
::Based on your field work, what key insights could help scale agroecology efforts to other regions?
::So, first of all, agroecological is already happening around the globe, so we we already seen those those initiatives all over. One of the innovations that we're implementing in in India is really this investment in the private sector. So to leverage the private sector and particularly SME's to drive the other ecological transformation, because after all, if there is a business case, people will adopt those practises. If there is no money in it, they will very likely be abandoned after after the project ends, so it's, I would say really this potential of using the private sector and using markets to drive this agroecological transition can help to to scale up agroecology around the world.
::To add to that, I feel local adaptations need to be focused on. Integrating, you know the lost knowledge that we have the traditional knowledge like for even bio inputs using neem oil cow dung was something that was being done 20-30 years ago, but it was completely abandoned, abandoned after fertilisers, chemical fertilisers were introduced. But now again, with Agroecological practises being introduced, we are again going back to. On that road, which is amazing. The other thing that we can focus on is having participation, participation amongst the farmers to bring more ownership amongst themselves and to ensure that, you know, whatever is being practised is relevant for them, so that once the project is no more there to support them, they still continue to be sustainable for for the farmers to prey on those practises, and the third would be, you know, strengthening the market linkages as I mentioned, because that's crucial because the produce needs to go to the market. If a farmer knows that his produce has that market, he'll continue producing the the products and the leveraging technology I would say would be extremely important. Classic example of that would be using solar dryers instead of just doing traditional drying, which saves time which saves effort on the part of the farmers is something that can be taken.
::OK. Thank you both so much for your time.
::Thank you Elisabeth, Sheena and Hector.
And if you feel inspired after this conversation, we’ve got more episodes you’ll want to hear…
::Check out our latest!
In episode 91 we talked about what it takes to mobilise political will, strengthen citizen action and reimagine rural finance so that food security and rural communities remain high on the international agenda – that was all with the ONE Campaign and Global Citizen.
::Then in episode 92 for World Mental Health Day, we spoke about mental health and farming, from climate anxiety to healing through agroecology and traditional practices.
::And in episode 93, for Rural Women's Day, we spoke to women farmers and entrepreneurs reshaping our food future.
::Up next on our Global Donor Platform for Rural Development series, we’re talking to Corinna Hawkes Director of the Division of Agrifood Systems and Food Safety at FAO.
::You're listening to farms, food future with me, Brian Thompson and Michelle Tang.
Corinna has spent her career exploring how food systems can do more than just feed people. In fact, she tells us how they can create real impact around the world.
::Today she is here to share her insights on the challenges, the passion and the possibilities in Food and Agriculture.
::Corinna, welcome to Farms.Food.Future. So, what are the issues that keep you up at night?
::Well, there are many such things that can keep us up at night. I mean, we all work hard, I mean. And one of the things that's very noticeable about the community of people who work in Food and Agriculture is just how how much passion there is and how much education we all work really hard. And when you work hard. You wanna make sure that what you're doing has impact, it's effective and it's and it's efficient. And I worry in the wee hours sometimes, you know. Am I spending my day? In a way which is really going to make a difference, and I think we all worry about that. We all are concerned about that because our time is precious. You know, there are other elements to our lives and our personal lives, our families, so. I so I think a lot about how can we more be more effective and efficient as a community, how I can be more effective and efficient as an individual leader in this space.
::And I would like to ask you what actually inspired you to build a career in food policy?
::Is it really was personal for me. And as I said, I think it is for many of us, my late mother understood the importance of food and and I grew up in the north of England, in the in the 1970s and and 80s when nobody really cared about food and she could really understand the power of food. And she died when I was in a a teenager and she never had this satisfaction of seeing this global community grow, who understood the power of food, and in fact I think people just thought she was a bit mad and was all a bit crazy stuff. It was all a bit fringe. But she was right. And that's a big motivator for me to to take forward what my mother knew was right but nobody agreed with her at that point. And to really take that, to take that forward. And I just really believe that Food and Agriculture can help solve problems. I believe that I think the evidence is there. It's it's something that we can also get a lot of pleasure from. I think one of the great tragedies, of course, is that many people don't get pleasure from food either. Their diet is unhealthy because they live in unhealthy food environments and it means it makes them sick. Or they have enough food. And yet the potential of food to bring a little bit of enjoyment and a little bit of pleasure to every day is something that every single person in this world deserves. I believe that absolutely, passionately, and I'm very privileged to be in the situation that I'm in now to to try and do. Whatever I can do to to make that happen. So, it's a combination of personal circumstances in my, in my young life and and and just a a real belief that food can make a difference.
::Thank you, Corinne. And for sharing something so personal she definitely was way ahead of her time.
::The recently released FAO report transforming Food and Agriculture through a Systems Approach office of practical freeing work for joined up action. Karina. What makes this report particularly timely and why should the donor Community Act now?
::Thanks for the question, Michelle it's really timely because there's such unprecedented attention to our food systems right now. And really attention is really focusing much more on how agrifood systems can address so many of the world's most significant challenges. We know that agri-food systems are an engine to power economies, jobs, nature, climate change mitigation, healthy diets, gender equality and ultimately a more food secure world and we're seeing more and more national governments or local governments, the private sector, both small and large, civil society activists, communities and of course, donors and investors recognise and see this opportunity. And we've seen that all over the world. And but all of these different people who care deeply about the opportunities in agri-food systems are often focused on achieving different things or they work in different parts of the system and what transforming food and agriculture through the systems approach does it sets out the practical actions needed to maximise the opportunity of achieving all of these goals, whatever our entry point is in the system, in balance and in greater efficiency, rather than taking one action at the expense for another, we see a lot of action out there right now to leverage the opportunity, but also a lot of fragmentation leading to inefficiencies and unintended consequences. And if we want to collectively make the most of this moment, we can and should connect existing but fragmented efforts throughout agri-food systems to achieve and sustain these multiple interconnected goals at scale. And to do so, we need to ensure that the money is incentivizing this systems approach. That's why the donor community really needs to act now to make the most of this moment, to ensure that we shift from fragmentation to a more systems-oriented way of working.
::Thank you, Corinna.
Remember you can visit www.donorplatform.org for more information on the global donor platform for rural development. IFAD is both a board member and the host of the Donor Platform Secretariat.
::And that brings us to the end of this episode.
::Thanks as always to our producers and editor here in Rome, Rosa Gonzalez, Francesco Manetti, Francesca Prima Villa and to our reporters Katie White and Hector Clack.
::But most of all thanks to you for listening to this episode of Farms Food Future brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
::We'll be back in two weeks to explore what's at stake for food and farming at COP 30 from global climate negotiations to grassroots solutions.
::And on the last Monday in November, we continue our Life Stories series, this time cooking with cocoa all the way from Peru!
::Stay tuned!
::This is farms, food, future, a podcast that's good for you, good for the planet, and good for farmers brought to you by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. You can find out more about all of our stories at www.IFAD.org/podcast.
::Remember, we want to hear from you what you think about our stories and who you want us to be talking to. So please get in touch at podcasts at ifad.org. Send us your voice or text messages to this address and we'll be happy to play you out in the next show. Also, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast via your favourite podcast platform and please rate us and once again we'll be trying to be good for you. Good for the planet and good for the farmers. Until then from me, Brian Thomson and the team here at IFAD. Thanks for listening.
