Nature Positive Production in Developing Countries - Summary of the Webinar on 21.09.2021

Nature Positive Production is one of the critical themes at the Food Systems Summit (FSS) that is held in New York today, 23rd of September 2021. How to keep our production in the planetary boundaries, how to respect the nature and its ecosystems while ensuring food security for all and decent income for producers.

This was also the topic of a webinar that was organized on 21st September by FFD and Fingo. We wanted to focus on understanding how the numerous smallholders in developing countries could become actors of nature positive production system and what could be done to support them in the transition. 

The key messages from the webinar are summarized below:

• We need to look at the systems and not only production. Agriculture, forests and whole landscape need to be seen holistically.

• Multistakeholder approach is needed. This should not be left only for the governments.

• Participation of farmers in the process is crucial. They are the managers and keepers of their resources.

• We need to ensure that women have both possibilities and access to assets, services and finance.

• Innovation platforms, which ensure the linkage between research and practitioners can act as an instrument of change and how to adapt knowledge into the local context.

• Global value chains require changes in policies and standards to support more nature positive production.

• There is a need to ensure transparent data on value chains

• Primary producers should have a decent price for their efforts.

• The dominance of big corporations should be balanced with the work of consumer unions, financial and educational institutions, certification bodies and producer organizations.

We would like to thank all the participants who attended the webinar representing NGOs, research institutions, ministries and farmer organizations from the global South.

We also express our gratitude to Director Aulikki Hulmi from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, who opened the webinar and Professor Juha Helenius from University of Helsinki who explored the dimensions of meaning of nature positive production.

A special thank you to Samuel Tumwesigye who delivered a keynote presentation at the webinar. Mr. Tumwesigye was a co-author of Fingo’s report “Potential Impacts of the EU Green Deal Farm to Fork Strategy on Africa's Climate Agenda and food Sovereignty”. According to his studies, increasing demand for organic products in the EU help to increase organic production in the global south and the implementation of new nature positive policies will help with nature positive production in the global south. Challenges, however, persist in the form of food insecurity, lack of green technology, lack of skills development, irregular framework for agro-chemical use and investment funding for green production. In addition, it is important to note that stricter rules for EU for production may turn producers to look for markets in China.

If you would like to watch the webinar online, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/oNK780LnQNE

Please note that the group discussions are not included in the recording.

Sertifiointia ja kestävää metsänhoitoa Vietnamissa

Vietnamissa suurin osa metsänomistajista on pienviljelijöitä, jotka omistavat vain 0,5 hehtaaria metsää. Tämä vaikeuttaa heidän metsien sertifiointia. Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) ja Vietnam Forest Certification System (VFCS) ovat aloittaneet ryhmäsertifikaatti pilottiohjelman pienviljelijöille Vietnamissa. Tämä mahdollistaa pienviljelijöille sertifikaatin ja pääsyn kansainvälisille markkinoille. PEFC järjestää Vietnamin ryhmäsertifioinnista webinaarin 29 syyskuuta. Lue lisää metsäsertifioinnista ja ilmoittaudu webinaariin mukaan tästä linkistä.   

Webinar on Nature Positive Production in Developing Countries

FFD and Fingo are organizing a webinar on Nature Positive Production in Developing Countries on 21st of September at 9am – 11:45am.

The webinar continues the dialogue within the framework of the Food System Dialogue, a process in which the UN gathers together a multitude of partners to debate and deliberate on how to improve the present food system to be more sustainable and equitable. The webinar aims at studying how Finnish actors could support their partners in global south better when they transform their production systems to be more nature positive. The webinar and group discussions will be held in English.

The webinar’s keynote speaker, Samuel Tumwesigye, is a rural development professional. He is currently a PhD Fellow at the Department of Earth and Environmental Studies KU Leuven, Belgium, researching on rural-urban interaction and land use changes. Samuel also works as an Agriculture and Climate Change Adaptation Specialist at UNDP HQ, and was one of the authors of Fingo’s study on impacts of the EU’s Green Deal and Farm to Fork to Africa (2021). After the keynote speaker’s presentation, participants will be divided into small groups to discuss one of the following topics:

• Who should provide knowledge and extension on location-based nature positive production mechanisms? How should this be done? Which institutions should be involved?

• How are we going to strengthen women’s role in the development of nature positive production methods?

• How can we strengthen advisory and training services to support the change process and reduce risks? How can we improve learning, development and innovation capacity in the local level/global South?

• How could nature positive production be better supported in global value chains? What are the current challenges and barriers? How could we overcome these challenges and barriers?

Agenda:

9:00am – 9:10am          Introduction - Aulikki Hulmi, Director for International Affairs at Finland’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

9:10am – 9:25am           What is meant by nature positive production? – Juha Helenius, Professor at University of Helsinki and Research Director at Ruralia Institute

9:25 am – 9:45am          Keynote speaker Samuel Tumwesigye, PhD fellow at University of Leuven.

9:45am – 10:45am         Discussion in small groups based on the questions above

10:45am – 11:00am        Break

11:00am – 11:30am         Summary of group discussions (~5 min/group)

11:30am – 11:45am          Final remarks – Juha Ruippo, Chairman of Fingo’s Food Security Group

All participants interested in food systems and nature positive production in developing countries working with Finnish actors are welcome to join the webinar.

Please register for the event via this link by 17th of September.