Join Me In “Ground-Truthing” To Take Stock of Food System Progress

Danielle Nierenberg

Danielle Nierenberg

Next week, I’m heading to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the second U.N. Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4). This Stocktake is crucial to developing a shared understanding of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go regarding food systems transformation. 

In the leadup to the UNFSS+4, it’s worth grounding ourselves with the same questions I posed before the first Stocktake two years ago: When it comes to food system transformation, where are we starting from? Where are we headed? How do we know whether the actions we’re taking are actually making enough progress?

“As we approach UNFSS+4, food and agriculture systems are finally on the global agenda—central to climate action, economic resilience, nutrition, and food security. But progress remains too slow,” Ertharin Cousin tells Food Tank. Cousin formerly served as the Executive Director of the U.N. World Food Programme and as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture, and now leads Food Systems For The Future.

She says, “farmers, SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises), and frontline communities still lack the capital, markets, and policy support they need. It’s time for governments to back commitments with budgets and bold policies, and for the private sector to embrace less risk-averse capital investment and meaningful public-private partnerships. Indeed, capital must deliver financial returns as well as drive food security and resilience. Because transforming food systems isn’t just about growing more: It’s about nourishing people and creating opportunity for those who sustain us all.”

The goal of this Stocktake is to ensure that governments, civil society, investors, and other groups are all on the same page so we can actually achieve these goals. But some key groups say that the structure of the Stocktake itself is flawed, and their concerns need to be taken seriously.

The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) of the U.N. Committee on World Food Security withdrew from the Stocktake over concerns that it too strongly prioritizes corporate interests, rather than adequately grappling with ongoing world conflicts and policy fights that jeopardize human rights, food security, and people’s lives.

“What use are our expertise, our legal frameworks and our international forums, if we are unable to protect the fundamental right to feed, to live?” Souad Mahmoud, a CSIPM Coordination Committee Member, tells the organization Via Campesina.

Going into the UNFSS+4, I do think it’s possible to use this event as a springboard for meaningful global change. And at the same time, my perspective is that, if we’re serious about food system transformation being the multifaceted, collective, diverse process we know it can and must be, we need to uplift voices of people on the ground. I’m proud that this has been central to Food Tank’s ethos as long as we’ve existed.

In other words: The people who truly know where the world stands on food system issues—the folks we should actually be asking to take stock of our progress—are farmers, ranchers, pastoralists, fishers, community organizers, agricultural workers, and those experiencing the daily stresses of food insecurity and hunger.

When the UNFSS+4 ends, I’m not immediately returning home. Instead, I’m travelling around Ethiopia to do this very work. I’ll be meeting with farmers, researchers, civil society groups, and others to learn first-hand about how communities are innovating to boost climate resilience, how they’re building real food sovereignty, and how they’re grappling with the impacts of USAID’s dismantling in the region.

I like to call this work “ground-truthing,” and I think that name speaks for itself: The way we can actually find truths about the state of the global food system is by listening to and genuinely involving folks on the ground in the decision-making that impacts all of us.

There’s no question our food systems face massive challenges—and that, five years away from 2030, we’re not making progress toward the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals at the pace we need to be. But there’s also no question that the knowledge we need to solve these challenges already exists within communities around the world. Turning goals into real-life transformation requires us all to work together and learn from one another!

The UNFSS+4 runs July 25–27. Wherever you are during those three days, I encourage you to spend some time ground-truthing, too, in your own communities. As a citizen eater, reach out to a local farmer, food policy council representative, activist, or other expert where you live—and if you work in the food system, find ways to deepen your engagement with citizen eaters! 

And keep me in the loop at danielle@foodtank.com: Let me know how I can share Food Tank’s resources to help you in this process, and I look forward to learning from you all.

(Danielle Nierenbergis the President of Food Tank and can be found at danielle@foodtank.com)