Key issues for Sustainable Food Systems and Climate Action raised at the IFIAD 2021 Annual Conference
IFIAD is the Irish Forum for International Agriculture Development. It is a conference that meets every year to discuss Ireland’s impact as a leader in promoting sustainable practices in international agriculture development. As I watched the conference, three key issues stood out to me. First was the need for inclusivity. This means including bringing in farmers, multiple diverse stakeholders, national dialogue, and environmental organizations into the climate change dialogue at COP26. It was also mentioned that farmers need to be brought into the conversation at the beginning. Secondly, was forming trust between the aforementioned parties. All of these parties need to come together to promote climate awareness and to make changes in their industries. Trust is necessary when the parties may have opposing views. Thirdly, not one size fits all when it comes to climate change techniques. Many times, people get excited about the new or cleanest climate change mitigation or adaptation technique and think it should be applied everywhere. However, depending on the farming or ranching operation they may not be feasible to use. It is important to remember that every farm is different and so every climate change technique will also be different.
There were also areas of polarization or a lack of consensus. A large one is the area of climate justice. There are many questions about who oversees holding countries and organizations to their climate change agreements. Should there be a mediation process, and how it could be done in a neutral way are some of these questions. It is also necessary that governments look at technical results over political results. Many participants at IFIAD agreed that politics will only get in the way of moving climate policy forward. Another area of polarization is dietary changes. Many people feel very strongly about dietary changes when it comes to meat consumption. I thought Mark Howden did a fantastic job of presenting a neutral point of view on the dietary changes and highlighted the benefits in a non-biased way.
There were some key issues from the Food Systems Summit and COP26 that were not discussed in the IFIAD Conference. Aquaculture and marine life were not mentioned. These are two key issues for Ireland. Aquaculture is important as a food source, and marine life is important for the biodiversity of the planet. Another key issue that wasn’t discussed was financing. All the ideas presented in IFIAD, the Food Systems Summit and COP26 are pointless without financing. All climate change mitigation and adaptation techniques need to be affordable for small farmers and individuals who wish to minimize their carbon footprint. Many people have a desire to make changes however, they can’t make those changes if it is expensive.
More Information
Finance – UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) at the SEC – Glasgow 2021 (ukcop26.org)
Seeking stakeholder consensus within Ireland’s conflicted salmon aquaculture space – ScienceDirect