“Sustainable food systems: a handbook for getting started

Allison Loconto is working with the FAO to provide training in new tools for implementing sustainable local food systems in several African countries and India. The manual is an effective tool for bringing about change in the food systems of partner projects. In India, the training given by A. Loconto was very well received, but in the meantime Covid* confinements had wiped out the supply chains of many localities, despite some growth with new small local agricultural markets.

Interest was rekindled and amplified when A. Loconto held a videoconference on 15/12/2020 with the town of Shimla (Himachal-Pradesh State) for the local launch of the “Enabling Sustainable Food Systems: Innovators’ Handbook”. The aim of this exchange was to promote better local cooperation towards natural agriculture. A. Loconto stressed that natural agriculture was beneficial not only to the environment but also to human health. She was supported in this by Gábor Figeczky from IFOAM in Germany and by the local FAO representative, Tomio Schichri, for whom the manual emphasises the preservation and conservation of local cultures, which he compared to those in Japan. Other organisations, presentations and participants included the VAF (Tata Trusts), which had just published “Sustainable Agriculture in India: Why does it not Scale Up? 6 months earlier.

The following day, a high-level meeting was held at which Jai Ram Thakur, the Chief Minister of India, pointed out the link with his own “Sustainable Food Systems Mechanism” programme, which he advocates as an alternative. He spoke in favour of this mechanism, which guarantees the proper marketing and certification of natural agricultural products that are beneficial to human health and the environment, and which also enables small farmers to obtain better prices for their produce. The INRAE programme has been adopted as a tool for structuring the Sustainable Food Systems Mechanism programme of the State of Himachal-Pradesh, which is seeking support for such a transition.

In 2022, an e-learning course based on this manual (with participants from the IIABA project) was developed and tested. In 2023, 30 people will be trained in October and November.

*Management of the Pandemic: Agriculture, Food Management & Resilience during Covid-19 in India, Pushpa Singh, First Published October 26, 2021 doi: 10.1177 %2F00195561211045094 (article first published online: October 26, 2021; Volume 67 issue 3, page(s): 324-336 Issue published: September 1, 2021)