This blog post was written by Erika Chenais, associate professor in infectious disease epidemiology at the National veterinary institute (SVA) and Klara Fischer, associate professor in rural development at the Department of Urban and Rural Development, SLU.
Participatory mapping with poverty ranking can be performed to assure that poorer people not are excluded from research in communities. Photo: Erika Chenais
Participatory epidemiology (PE) is a methodology initially developed in veterinary epidemiology research to collect epidemiological data in contexts where conventional quantitative data and statistics are unavailable. It has contributed to important new knowledge on animal disease in low-income countries, for example in the eradication of rinderpest* and the understanding of African swine fever transmission in the smallholder pig value chain.
PE has been praised for its ability to engage participants, visualise data and enable people with no or low levels of formal education to communicate their knowledge in ways that researchers can relate to and analyse. The veterinary application of PE stems from participatory methods and was first used in development cooperation to make projects better attuned to local needs and priorities and to investigate impacts of poverty. Historically PE has struggled with finding ways to simultaneously embrace the participation and knowledge of local livestock owners and applying methods and producing data that would be accepted and publishable in veterinary epidemiology journals. With increasing interdisciplinary engagement in recent years this has begun to change and there are now more and more studies that are guided by the participants own priorities and where suggested solutions are co-created according to these priorities and the local situation.
To stimulate this positive trend, and promote the furthering of PE as a participatory method we invited researchers from all disciplines interested in methodological development of PE to contribute to a special issue in Preventive Veterinary Medicine devoted entirely to this subject. The special issue is now published. The included articles stimulated methodological development and an academic debate about how power dynamics within communities and between participants and researchers as well as within the research community might impact information sharing and mutual understanding. Several of the published articles highlight the importance of that research embraces smallholdersâ own priorities of animal health constraints, and call for an increased acknowledgement in the research community about that these priorities might not correspond with researchersâ priorities. Articles in the special issue show how embracing smallholdersâ priorities can lead to more feasible and sustainable biosecurity measures, improved implementation of these, and in the end thus better disease control that can help smallholders improve animal health and escape poverty.
Individual interviews can be important for capturing perspectives of marginalised community members, such as herders. Photo: Erika Chenais
Moving forward, the articles indicate that the next step in the methodological development of PE, after successfully discussing participation, could be to call for greater interdisciplinarity. To be effective, interdisciplinarity needs to be present from project formulation and implementation to publication. Not only will this lead to methodological development, but more importantly to research outputs that are of greater local relevance and better scientific quality. The interest generated by these articles among social scientists and veterinarians interested in studying the societal aspects of animal diseases indicate that PE is developing in this direction.
You can read an introduction to the special issue here:
This blog post is written by Anudini Wijayarathna, Masterâs student in Rural Development & Natural Resource Management at SLU. It was first published at SIANI, Swedish Internaional Agricultural Initiative.
Photo:Â Plant Protection Drone by viva14 /Â Pixabay.
SIANI, SLU and Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) co-organised Food Systems for New Realities â Agri4D 2021 conference to explore the potential knowledge and constructive options that can be applied within the global food system to ensure food security. Having participated in the conference session âInnovation and Innovative Approachesâ, I contemplated different approaches towards reshaping food systems based on innovation.
Shaping higher education for innovation
Innovation certainly incorporates a wide range of stakeholders from various sectors, such as the sciences, technology, policy, finance and different institutions. Yet, it is usually initiated through academia, which includes colleges, universities, research groups and many other actors. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that this transformation starts from the grassroot level of innovation. At the Conference, Laurens Klerkx, Professor, Wageningen University, highlighted the importance of boosting mission-driven innovation. Most importantly, identifying the directionalities of food systems clearly is essential to have âimplicit and explicit food system transformation missionsâ at the academic level.
Besides, more panelists attached to the higher education sector in different regions of the world depicted some more innovative approaches of capacity building, multi-sectoral collaborations, teaching methods, and facilitation in the universities to stimulate food system transformations. Especially, challenge-driven education around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and student personal progress development methods, such as mentoring, is essential to encourage scholars towards research and innovation. In order to direct research-based innovation towards food system transformation, universities need to prioritise collaborating with other worldwide public and private stakeholders related to innovation and food systems. That will be crucial in creating opportunities for investments, future entrepreneurships, and global networks for innovation within academia to reshape food systems.
Two-sided financial aspects of innovation
On the other hand, Julia Compton, Head of Secretariat, Commission of Sustainable Agricultural Intensification, emphasised the dire need to expand investments in innovations related to agri-food systems in the Global South. Although 60 billion US dollars are spent on global innovations in agri-food systems yearly, it is just 4.5% of the total agricultural output. Particularly, most of the countries in the Global South have a critically low amount of investment in such innovations. Thus, it is urgent to acquire financial resources for that region through reconstructing policy structures, increasing incentives and identifying gaps between smallholder farmers and post-production processes through research while collaborating with all types of stakeholders affected by agri-food innovations.
Another significant aspect of innovation is its value-addition in the respective sectors, as innovation can play a major role in socio-economic development. The very same ideology was upheld by Tony K. Omwansa, CEO of Kenya National Innovation Agency, at the conference. To witness a profound change in food systems, it is required to transfer technological innovation and innovation ideas into market and entrepreneurship, through which a value-addition occurs. Furthermore, currently in a situation where food supply chain innovations are prioritised, it is also necessary to focus more on technological innovations around agri-food production.
From innovation to adoption
Apart from that, the scholarsâ various innovations and innovative ideas were mostly aimed at providing digital solutions to reshape agri-food systems, such as the digital mechanisation of tractor services, the real-time data generation on diet quantity and quality, the digital collaboration of farming cooperatives and markets etc. They addressed different global food system challenges such as malnutrition, shortage of agricultural mechanisation services, market irregularities, climate change, insufficient access to education to agri-business, etc. However, implementation of and familiarisation with these digital approaches in society is even more difficult. The most common challenges are lack of digital literacy, trust in digital devices as well as connectivity within rural agricultural communities.
Aside from these types of innovative approaches, individuals and organisations have to think about including psychological and social innovations, too. The ideal food system transformation emerges by transforming fundamentally unsustainable concepts, such as evaluating food system development solely on monetary profits and economic growth. It is also constructive to bring forward innovative ideologies and assessment tools like nutrition adequacy, happiness index, food affordability and availability, food waste and loss metrics, etc. to evaluate food system development.
Innovation as a driving factor towards sustainable food systems
The most striking feature of this Agri4D conference session for me was its multidimensional view towards innovation-based food systems transitions. The discussions and presentations unfolded a variety of innovations, which entailed technological, social and organisational aspects. It also encompassed several stakeholders across the globe within academia, entrepreneurs, governments and societies.
However, all these requirements to foster innovation-based food system transitions highlight the utter complexity of the concept. Nevertheless, I would say innovation is imperative for transitioning towards sustainable food systems. As a result of prevailing humanitarian and environmental crises along with the worldâs population growth, we desperately need more efficient and innovative changes to intensify global food production without wearing off ecological, social and financial resources. Thus, I believe no matter how complicated the process is, it is crucial to initiate and promote innovation to stabilise food systems and ensure food security.
Simultaneously, we need to understand that society needs time to familiarise itself with innovation and that outcomes do not lie in the immediate future. Hence, as much as we can be optimistic towards innovation, it is essential to have the patience to see a transformation in food systems. Moreover, it is also vital to make sure not to leave anyone in the global community behind within this transition process. Most importantly, this approach is not only about attaining sustainable food systems and food security, but also about reaching all SDGs. Therefore, I consider this discourse on food system transformations through innovation as a perfect platform for us to expand our vision beyond the conventional framework to create a better world now and for the future.
This blog post was written by Ingrid Wesström, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Soil and Environment; Agricultural water management and Abraham Joel, Researcher at the Department of Soil and Environment; Agricultural water management, SLU.
Agriculture systems need adaptation to stand change in climate (Rwanda). Photo: Abraham Joel
Knowledge transfer and building local capacity are key issues for resilient use of soil and water resources in agriculture production to cope with a changing climate. This to ensure food production and protect environment under threat.
The natural resource base continues to be very fragile and under threats from various pressures, such as unsustainable practices, increasing population and climate change. For that reason, old and new problems have to be addressed and solved simultaneously. Climate change involve temperature increment and changes in precipitation patterns. This creates a situation where drought, floods and erosion will become more frequent and with higher amplitude.
Soil degradation is still a major threat and land areas are taken out of production or have less productivity. Water erosion stands for almost 50% of the land degradation and more extreme weather situations in the future will make the situation worse. Therefore, better land use planning combined with local adapted soil and water conservation strategies has to be considered in the future use of soil resources.
Too little water or too much water has historically been a challenge for farmers. Irrigation and drainage have been the techniques for managing soil water content in field, but the implementation is still problematic in terms of efficiency in the use of the water resources and environmental impact. Significant improvements in the use of water are possible even with the use of traditional surface irrigation systems. However, each field is unique and farmers need knowledge on how to irrigate under specific field conditions.
Mitigation of the impact of climate change can be possible, but it will require significant investments in capacity for bringing knowledge into practices but also for generating new knowledge. Still, generation of knowledge is not sufficient. We need to disseminate the knowledge to several actors such as decision makers and land users.
SLU has longtime experiences of cooperative research project and beside the specific research thematic; building local capacity has being a central issue. Examples of past projects are: Evaluation of soil erosion rates under different land uses in Nicaragua and Developing of water saving strategies for irrigation in Mozambique. Examples of ongoing and new projects are: Management of salt affected soils and GHG emission for rice production in Rwanda; Precipitation patterns in changing climate and the need for adaptation in terms of water supply and land use planning.
This blog post was written by Kimberly Spirito, intern at SLU Global. It was first published at SIANI, Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative.
Photo: Igrinz/Pizabay
We have all heard about the idea of creating circular systems and how they could create sustainable societies. But what would it take to transform our current linear systems into circular ones? This question was at the heart of one of the themed panel discussions at the Agri4D conference, which took place 28-30 September 2021.
The online conference brought together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and an insightful audience to discuss food systems for new realities. The platform Coeo, on which the conference was held, offered the possibility of interacting with people working with sustainable transformation of food systems from all over the world. Panel discussions and presentations of the latest research were held, and the conference moderators brought everything together beautifully through a livestream on stage. It was like we were physically present at a conference, while having the perk of saving CO2 emission from not having to travel. New knowledge was generated, and new connections were made despite the pandemic.
Six topics were discussed during the conference. This blogpost will highlight my experiences and key takeaways from the panel discussions regarding topic 4 on circular food systems.
Rethinking waste management
Today, waste is produced at every step of the process from farm to fork, Matthias Eriksson highlighted that we have come pretty far in reintegrating waste into production chains and recycling it into new products and services. However, we can go further in terms of closing the loop.
What we want and what we see now is that there are a lot of initiatives to make these loops smaller so we can recirculate the waste directly back to the food supply chains and make it more efficient. But the problem is that there is a risk that we might just circulate everything without actually gaining the whole purpose of food, that it should be eaten.â- Matthias Eriksson, SLUÂ
The second speakersâ presentation continued with addressing the risk that reintegrating food waste into a system might not lead to the generation of more food being eaten. Charity Mashegde and Isheanesu Murwira, two representatives from the organisation Knowledge Exchange Hub, spoke about how they adopt the philosophy of âfood is never wasteâ in their work. They proposed that using the food that could not be sold in markets to cultivate Black Soldier Fly larvae as protein for animal feed, but also as food for human consumption, could be a way of closing the loop and minimizing food waste. Black Soldier Fly larvae have lower environmental impact than other protein sources, and have high fat, protein and mineral content, more iron and zinc than lean meats, as well as more calcium than milk.
Another crucial topic discussed is that a lot of research and innovation in terms of waste management seems focused on the urban-to-urban or rural-to-urban loops. There is a shortage of interest in rural-to-rural circular systems, specifically within sanitation research. There is potential within this topic according to Linus Dagerskog, who presented a resource flow mapping tool for rapid assessment of rural recycling opportunities. It is a participatory tool where the community is involved in generating a waste management system that suits their needs best. This presentation showed the potential for the impact of research when conducted in close collaboration with the people who will benefit from it. A collective takeaway from the conference was that research needs to be conducted in collaboration with other actors and with the people who are to benefit from it.
Recirculating nutrients from waste
The potential of sanitation waste came up several times. PhD Student Aline Paiva Moreiraâs talk on Human urine as a fertilizer for sustainable food systems highlighted a lack of diverse research on the topic of linking energy, sanitation, and agriculture. Most research on the topic is conducted in Europe or by European scholars. Aline pointed out that the solutions that fit the European context are not universal. Linking energy, sanitation, and agriculture is a way to create a sustainable circular system, but it needs to be country and context specific for it to be sustainable.
Researcher Chea Eliyan also spoke about the potential for nutrients and energy retrieval from faecal sludge specifically in the case of Phnom Penh. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and energy could be recovered from it. The talks by Aline and Chea highlighted the need for more sustainable sanitation systems and the real potential it could have for closing the loop when combined with agriculture and energy.
More effective use of animal waste within aquaculture was also discussed. According to Da Chau Ti, who spoke about a research project conducted in Vietnam, pond sediments from seafood production could be used as organic fertilizer for vegetable cultivation. Farmers could produce both fish and vegetables, generating food and income security by having multiple sources of income/food sources. There can also be less environmental impact and soil health can be improved over the years when pond sediments are incorporated as a fertilizer.
Circular system initiatives
Food insecurity is a real threat in our reality of climate change. Finding efficient and sustainable ways of producing food will ensure availability of food. Horticulture, hydroponics, and aquaponics present solutions for sustainable circular food production. Researchers Karl Johan Bergstrand and Sammar Khalil from SLU spoke about indoor food production and energy production from food waste and human waste after itâs been through biological treatment. Their research has revealed that bioremediation with fungi, nitrification, and dilution makes it possible to separate nutrients from harmful or unwanted substances within food waste and human waste in a safe way. High contents of Sodium, Chlorine, Ammonium, heavy metals, and micropollutants such as pesticides can be removed with these methods. The nutrients from the waste can then be used in hydroponics, aquaponics, and horticulture.
Another way of creating circular systems, besides recirculating waste into production, is to harness renewable energy. Yasmina Ganse presented how the company Spowdi works with enabling smallholder farmers to transition from fossil fuel to solar-powered irrigation pumps with no running costs. Spowdi is short for âsolar-powered water distributionâ and their technology is called Spowdi Mobile Pro. The technology helps farmers produce more food with less energy use and less water and thus helps to reduce the CO2 emissions and water consumption.
Many initiatives are trying to transform our current linear systems into circular ones, many targeting food systems. However, they face real challenges. The last speaker Jennifer McConville presented her ideas of how to best overcome these challenges, saying that it is important from the start to have a good understanding of the socio-technical landscape/regime before initiating projects for transformation. The systems we have today are based on linear process design. Implementing circular niches within current linear systems requires involvement from several actors, such as end users, service providers, users of products, politicians and regulators, and other sectors such as the building sector, energy sector and food sector.
If we want niche innovations to lead to circular solutions that work, we need to understand how we can play around with functions such as current functionality of technology, socio-cultural norms, legal and regulatory frameworks, existing skills and capacity, financial arrangements, and institutional arrangements within socio-technical landscapes. It is not enough to only consider the potential utility of a technology.
Food for thought
For me, as a student of Global Studies, the topic of nutrient and energy recovery from waste is not something I have thought about when thinking of circular systems. Hearing about the benefits of linking energy, sanitation, and agriculture was an eyeopener to the potential of food systems and sanitation systems to contribute to sustainability.
Following the panel discussions about circular systems within food systems has really given me food for thought. There are several things I take away from it, but the thoughts I take to heart are âfood is never wasteâ and that implementing circular innovations where linear systems exist requires a comprehensive understanding of the bigger picture. To me, they encompass everything else said during the panel discussions and broadly answer the question of what it would take to transform our linear systems into circular.
To summarise, I quote Sara GrÀslund, head of SLU Global,
âIt is important to work from farm to fork, but just as important to work from fork back to farm.â
This blog post is written by Masterâs student; Anudini Wijayarathna, Rural Development & Natural Resource Management, SLU and Camilla Lindberg, MSc Environmental Science, SLU. The content is based on their experience in participating in the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021,âThe Peopleâs Plenary â Accelerating Action for the Future We Wantâ.
Women working within agriculture in Asia.
In a phase where the COVID-19 pandemic has destructively affected global food systems and food security, the much-needed global discourse on transformation of food systems was conducted by the UN Food Systems Summit 2021.
The aim of the summit was to create a platform in bringing all-inclusive, diverse and effective strategies to transform today’s food systems, through which the world can achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 – and we have listened to some of it and are happy to share some of our thoughts.
The session, âThe Peopleâs Plenary â Accelerating Action for the Future We Wantâ brought attention to various efforts that the global community have initiated for this transformation through worldwide pre-summit dialogues. We were excited to listen in on this particular part of the summit to see what the national dialogues, that we also had taken part in, had generated in terms of collective action. During this session one thing that stood out to us was the multitude of coalitions that have been created around different food system issues. The coalitions are a way of collaborating and sharing knowledge to enable and accelerate the commitment of transforming the food systems to be sustainable and in line with Agenda 2030. We thought this was a great way of generating action around a specific topic as well as inspiring to see so many people wanting to share and work together.
We have described some of the coalitions below and what action areas they are related to:
Coalitions across the world
One of the coalitions from action area one, Nourish All People, is The Coalition of Action for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for Children It is & All. The coalition is described as a broad coalition that focuses on aligning and strengthening actions across sectors to be able to achieve collective impact on healthy diets. The actions the coalition is mainly focusing on should address malnutrition, unsafe foods and environmental impacts of food production.
The Global Sustainable Livestock Coalition is a part of action area two to Boost nature based solutions of production and their overarching goal is to âsupport decision making at all levels for farmer- and value-chain-oriented national/bioregional developmentâ. Livestock production affects development in the economic, social as well as the environmental system and the coalition is a way to optimise sharing of best practises between stakeholders across scales.
Vegetables at a market. Credit: Pixabay
The session has also shed light on the strategies across the world to reduce food loss and waste under the Coalition on Food is Never Waste under action track two. While one in ten people in the world suffer from hunger, a large amount of food is wasted, which also results in releasing greenhouse gases. Thus, the initiative urges the consumers to avoid buying excess food while utilising what we buy. It also depicted the need to invest more in facilities to preserve food, and technologies for food waste management such as the food losses measuring method developed in Sweden to reduce food loss within food production.
Indigenous Peoples Food Systems coalition is connected to action track three; Advance Equitable Livelihoods, Decent Work, & Empowered Communities. The main objective of the coalition is to strengthen and protect indigenous peopleâs food systems across the world as well as scale up and disseminate the traditional knowledge and good practices already there that have the potential to transform the global food system as a whole.
Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), linked to action track four, is established around the main objective of improving soil health with the intention of changing diverse perspectives of food systems constructively. Paying farmers not only for volume but also for the quality and soil health, scaling up science-based solutions and innovation, sharing knowledge with farmers through field schools to store carbon in soils, increasing plant-based meat and dietary products and many other initiatives were uncovered by this coalition.
For a sustainable future
In review of these efforts, we felt encouraged to see that the summit and itsâ extended network is mobilising people to act and specifically to collaborate. To be able to transform such complex systems as the food systems, cross-scale and cross-sectoral collaborations are definitely needed. Perhaps these coalitions can be a perfect place for the sharing of knowledge and practices to take place.
Nevertheless, we also find these initiatives are not as simple as we see. Especially the pandemic has made some peopleâs vulnerability worse because of health issues, unemployment and poverty, lack of access to food and resources and many more. Under such circumstances, will these coalitions be able just to come out of the worse scenario or to overcome the detrimental effects of the pandemic and create long-term sustainability in food systems? Most importantly, continuation of these collaborations in the long run is essential to see a visible change in food systems.
Apart from that, some of these actions could contradict different sustainable development goals. The coalitionsâ effort of promoting plant-based dietary products can be a constructive change in acquiring health benefits for people whereas it can be a livelihood and environmental threat. For example, almond milk can be a comparatively nutritious plant-based substitute yet, almond cultivation is highly water extracting and labour consuming. Thus, it is also vital to integrate the implementation processes of these initiatives with the other Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, to see a sustainable future, the implementation strategies of these initiatives might have to be shaped constructively according to the situation.
If you want to know more about or get in contact with any of the coalitions, visit the FSS website or email foodsystemssummit@un.org.
Photo:Â Plant Protection Drone by viva14 /Â 
