Shillong, Nov 17: Mr. Phrang Roy, the Founder of NESFAS and currently the Rome based Coordinator of TIP (The Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty) spoke on 15th November through Zoom at an Event of COP 29 that is currently held in Baku in Azerbaijan.
He highlighted the strategically important role that communities can play for any healthy, inclusive and sustainable food system. All too often, he said, “We only look to the State and the Market as key pillars of our development with communities playing only a subservient role to these two entities”.
He informed the audience that TIP along with NESFAS and 3 other Indigenous Peoples partners undertook an agroecology assessment of the Food Systems of Indigenous Peoples of 500 households living in 16 landscapes in Northern Thailand, North East India, Kenya and Yucatec Mexico.
The Study indicated very high and positive agroecological practices and principles. It found that all their food systems are rooted in their respective local environments. They do so because these communities believe they have a sacred relationship with their lands and their soils.
They enhance their soil ecology and sustainability through their traditional systems of keeping some of their landscapes as fallow lands for natural regeneration. Their social values of caring and sharing also led them to evolve inclusive local governance systems including the empowerment of women in the management of natural soil and water resources.
Bah Phrang further stated that the Study also found that when the Market through large scale monetisation or the promotion of monocropping for commercial purposes or when the State intervened and eroded traditional governance mechanisms as in the name of modernisation, these healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems have had to seriously compromise their inclusive decision-making and equitable access to community resources.
Bah Phrang, therefore, made this clarion call: “Let COP29 and its many events therefore call upon policy makers to take note that a community in any landscape or geographical location is an important and indispensable pillar of development, as important as the State or the Market. Only then we will collectively march towards Healthy, Inclusive and Sustainable Food Systems”.
Bah Phrang further said; “As stakeholders who are strong believers in nature-based food systems, we are constantly looking for pathways that generate convincing outcomes to enhance biodiversity, improve nature-based nutrition, generate local green initiatives and build climate resilience.
They have found through our own experience with NESFAS that a community-initiated and Nature based School Meal initiative can be an important programme that we can all support.
This will ensure an effective and sustainable use of local wild edibles that are often a part of the local biodiversity of remote areas. It will enhance the nutrition of children and build human capital and it could improve the food security of those who are often left behind.
It could also encourage local communities to see the wisdom of local circular markets offsetting climate risks generated by linear value chains. It could generate local livelihood opportunities.
But the School Meals Initiative is only one of the many pathways that we could pick up from the template of solutions of communities. Let us leave this event with a determination of ‘SCALING HOPE’ and co-creating with communities healthy, inclusive and sustainable innovations for a future we all want”.
