New report assesses Ireland’s role in creating sustainable and fair global food systems

Today, aid agencies Trócaire and Oxfam Ireland release a major new report assessing the Irish government’s ambition to become a champion of fair and sustainable food systems on the global stage.

The report is published in advance of the UN Food Systems Summit pre-meetings in Rome next week and follows the release of the SOFI 2021 report, The State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World, which highlights rising global food insecurity and the urgency of delivering on the right to adequate food for all in sustainable ways.

The organisations are advocating for sustainable transformations that support small-scale food producers around the world. These context-specific transformations should protect everyone’s right to food, while sustaining the natural resources upon which agriculture relies.

Whilst acknowledging Ireland’s strong commitment to addressing hunger and malnutrition, the report found that Ireland’s ODA support for food and nutrition security needs to be more clearly directed toward agroecological initiatives, with only a minority of current ODA spending directed toward sustainable agriculture projects.

Jim Clarken, Chief Executive of Oxfam Ireland said: “Because of the climate and biodiversity emergencies, land use competition, and conflict there is a critical need for agriculture and food system transformation to prevent already at-risk communities falling into deeper peril.

“Increasing the proportion of ODA spending used to support sustainable agriculture initiatives can move us in the right direction and ensure the communities Oxfam and Trócaire work with have the tools to adapt and make their livelihoods climate resilient.”

The report also found that policy decisions emphasise Irish agri-food trade objectives to the detriment of sustainable development goals. This was found to be especially true in terms of subsidised Irish milk powder exports to West Africa, with the report stating that relationships with African countries should bolster local markets rather than putting them at risk. West African government officials, small-scale dairy owners and livestock farmers argue that powdered imports are nutritionally inferior and environmentally damaging, and are undermining local markets and dairy production.

Both Oxfam and Trócaire work in countries and contexts where agriculture and food are the main sources of income generation and employment. In addition, these small-scale farms quite often account for most of the food consumed within households and wider local communities, making their futures reliant on building their food security and strengthening their resilience to climate and other shocks.

Caoimhe de Barra, CEO of Trócaire said: “A transformation is needed whereby food policies are centred on human rights, social equity, women’s empowerment, economic security and prosperity, environmental regeneration and resilience building to climate change and other shocks. We’re calling on Ireland to ensure its leadership on sustainable food systems includes all of these elements.”

A recent survey of 350 influential food and agriculture companies found that half do not disclose targets or report on progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while over a third do not sufficiently acknowledge their responsibility to ensure the human rights of workers in their supply chain – nor do they demonstrate any intention of improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The report calls for binding legislation to ensure the agri-food sector is fulfilling its human rights and environmental obligations throughout its value chain.

Closer to home

Alongside its international analysis, the report addresses domestic changes that need to take effect in Ireland. It recommends the establishment of a national sustainable food systems body that provides space for the voices of all stakeholders – including the most marginalised in Irish society – to be heard and integrated into decision-making.

The report also found that narratives claiming that Ireland’s food is ‘produced sustainably’ or that the Irish food industry has made great progress towards ‘driving sustainable food production’ are difficult to validate when assessing agri-environmental indicators and recommends the use of appropriate sustainability metrics to measure progress on the transition to sustainable food production.

Sinead Mowlds, researcher and author of the Sustainable Food Systems report said: “Ireland has a real opportunity to forge a new direction in implementing a sustainable food systems approach if it is willing to address current shortcomings and make necessary adjustments.

“For example, the report reveals that Irish farmers are not adequately supported to transition to more sustainable methods and approaches. At present only 11 percent of funding in Ireland is directed toward projects that support ‘principally’ sustainable agriculture. This is compounded by the fact that, in some cases, farmers are penalised for their efforts to support biodiversity.

The report calls for the scaling up of programmes with clear environmental and social sustainability objectives, as well as investment in rural economies and measures to increase the production of fresh, nutritious, and local produce.

Prepared by Ebony Ximines-Parke