»Local food systems are often the only source of affordable, nutritious food for poor rural and urban communities«
Alliance Sufosec – Alliance for Sustainable Food Systems and Empowered Communities
Alliance Sufosec
The Alliance for Sustainable Food Systems and Empowered Communities (Sufosec) is the partnership between six Swiss NGOs: SWISSAID, Vivamos Mejor, Fastenaktion, Aqua Alimenta, Vétérinaires Sans Frontières Suisse and Skat Foundation established in 2020.
Sufosec aims to achieve self-determined food security in local food systems that are in line with sustainable use of soil, air, forest and water, resilience to the impacts of climate change and an orientation towards climate change goals and SDG 2.
These local food systems are often the only source of affordable, nutritious food for rural and urban communities affected by poverty. Sufosec aims to combat malnutrition and hunger by strengthening local food systems and thus the resilience of communities. Civil society and political leaders play a central role in this.
Strengthening nutritional security by focusing on shorter supply chains, local agro ecological production, climate change adaptation and participatory research are at the core of Sufosec. The latter underlines the necessity to bring civil society actors back into the realm of development by strengthening their ability to claim their rights, giving marginalized groups and left-behinds, especially women, a voice in political, social and economic processes and holding duty bearers accountable.
Executive summary
Hunger – how we can end it
The central statements of the Sufosec Report 2022
The following report presents the results of the Sufosec Alliance, which focuses on local food systems and agroecology in the Global South:
We started with a survey that explored the linkages between agroecology and hunger. This survey of an extrapolated 600’000 households showed that 291’000 use at least one agroecological farming method. Every year, about 52’000 more households adopt an agroecological farming method for the first time. Where several agroecological measures are applied, families could reduce the risk of malnutrition by 22 percent. What seems like a small percentage at first glance means that around 122’000 families are able to feed themselves and will significantly reduce their risk of hunger and free themselves from malnutrition.
Reports from the Global South
Six Sufosec projects are presented here as examples.
In our World Food Report 2022, we not only identified challenges and threats to food security in the Global South and North, but also presented in short reports that we can and how we address these threats and challenges in sustainable ways via local food systems that allow for a healthy and self-determined life.
The reports come from our project partners in India, Kenya, Colombia, Madagascar, Mali and Guatemala. You can read them below.
Words of greeting
Sufosec report: Embedding of the findings
Scientific monitoring of the Sufosec programme
Johanna Jacobi and Stephan Rist
Agroecology is increasingly recognized as an approach that offers strategies and technologies to tackle today’s converging socio-environmental crises. For instance, the 2022 IPCC report (Pörtner et al. 2022) describes agroecology as a solution that can contribute to both climate change mitigation and adaptation, drawing on traditional knowledge that addresses multiple challenges simultaneously, including the biodiversity crisis and food insecurity. The report of SUFOSEC presents results from 16 countries in Africa, Latin American, and Asia. A total of 14’000 rural family and community farmers employing agroecology were monitored. The results show that agroecology – in addition to being a scientific concept and method – works well in highly complex field conditions too: The study demonstrated that agroecological farmers diversify their production and, in this way, can reduce hunger and malnutrition, even in areas where hunger is strikingly common.
Alliance Sufosec:
