New York, 12 July 2017: SDG2 ‘end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture, articulates one of the highest aspirations of the 2030 Agenda. Failure to advance it will significantly affect the entire agenda, claims the Spotlight report, a comprehensive independent assessment released in New York on the opening day of the High Level Political Forum 2017.

The context in which SDG 2 is being implemented is the battlefield of two opposing visions on modernity and food and nutrition, explains Stefano Prato, Managing Director of the Society for International Development and one of the authors of the report: A model of large-scale industrial agriculture that aims to maximize short-term productivity based on technical solutions, and a vision of small-scale sustainable farming and agroecology based on the fundamental human right to adequate food and nutrition.

As the SDG2 is under review this year at the HLPF, we must be aware that 70 percent of the world food is produced by small scale farmers, which are the primary investors in agriculture. However, local communities and small/middle sized rural productions and enterprises are increasingly squeezed by the predatory nature of the large agribusiness industrial system, with its continued grabbing of land, water and genetic resources, and its profound impact on urban consumers and their dietary preferences.

Present food systems are dysfunctional because they result in unhealthy diets, unsustainable footprints and impoverishments of small-scale producers. The alternatives are based on locally rooted and driven processes that promote agroecological diversification and food sovereignty. This calls for public investments and supporting policies for those that are already feeding the world, points out the Spotlight report.

Rather than simple monitoring progress, the pursuit of the SDG2 requires active policy convergence and coordination; the suitable locus where these complexities can be addressed – explains Stefano Prato - is the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), given the active participation of small scale food producers in its process.

The Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2017 Report is published by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF), Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, Society for International Development (SID), and Third World Network (TWN), supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. It provides the most comprehensive independent assessment of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For more, see www.2030spotlight.org

Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2017

Reclaiming policies for the public. Privatization, partnerships, corporate capture and their impact on sustainability and inequality - assessments and alternatives.

Report of the Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Beirut/Bonn/Ferney-Voltaire/Montevideo/New York/Penang/Rome/Suva, July 2017

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