Eswatini Food Systems Summit dialogues lead to game changing pathways

The Ministry of Agriculture, with support from the United Nations Development System in Eswatini, has facilitated a consultative process of industry stakeholders in preparation for the Food Systems Summit planned for the 23rd September 2021. 

The consultative dialogues, involving key industry players for existing value chains in Eswatini, were held between May and September 2021. The dialogues focused on improving the speed and quality of the country policies and strategies delivery on food systems development and unlocking the potential to sustainable prosperity of Emaswati.

Despite COVID 19 disruption, Eswatini successfully held over 16  gatherings on food systems which were composed of five senior government and partners meetings, one independent dialogue for farmers, nine commodity value chain dialogues and one nutrition and social protection platform.

Facilitated by the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Bongani Masuku, the dialogues included Accelerating Household Food Security, Agriculture Indaba, Eswatini Farmers Contributing to Sustainable Food Systems, Value Chain dialogues for dairy, beef, vegetables, fruits, maize and beans, sugar, poultry, pork, cotton and nutrition and social protection.

Over 867 people actively participated from a diverse spectrum including251 farmers, 205 government personnel, 48 private organizations staff, 85 civil society representative, 48 independent groups and 50 individuals. The commodity value chain virtual dialogues were livestreamed on social media, reaching over 50,000 views.

The FSS dialogues confirmed the urgency to intensify and improve ongoing Government initiatives that are focusing on inclusive participation of smallholder farmers in all value chains, better understanding of Consumers food and nutrition needs, improvement of value chains delivery systems and catalyzing effective coordination, collaboration and learning among players. The live discussions lead to agreed immediate actions while divergent views were deferred for further discussions.

Agreed actions were building on ongoing government initiatives drawn from the National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP), and other developments along value chains to support Food and nutrition programmes such as School Feeding and Food Assistance Programmes.

Outcomes of the dialogue revealed major challenges to local food systems towards addressing the “Eswatini’s triple burden” of malnutrition marked by stunting, anaemia and overweight in children under five years of age.

The dialogues dramatically elevated public discourse about the importance of food systems leading to the achievement of the SDGs.

Government had already started initiatives to structure agriculture commodity chains to lead to concrete sector development plans, most of which formed part of the discussions of the dialogues. The organization and structuring of the agricultural commodity chains was seen as the flagship underlying game changing action signaling concrete action towards transforming food systems. It is envisaged the sector development plans will pave the way to systemic interventions, investments and engagement by stakeholders in the agro-food systems. The deliberations provided a validation of the Agri –Invest development approach and will go a long way towards supporting contributing to the Eswatini National Agricultural Investment Plan (ENAIP).

From the dialogues, the Government and stakeholders identified concrete  pathways and game changers on how to transform the food system in the country. These include agricultural value chain planning and structuring;  agricultural development fund;  integrated digital agri-information systems, institutional re-engineering as well as support, upscale of safe and nutritious food for all.

Structuring value chains will ensure coordination of players through the establishment industry associations (producers/traders/service providers) where they currently do not exist.

The establishment of the Agriculture Fund will include financing instruments for reducing risk of participation in agricultural value chains by farmers and private sector as well as improving access to agricultural inputs by farmers.

An Integrated Digital Agri-data and Information Systems was also proposed to support a digital registry of farmers and value chains players.

The dialogue recommended that the roles of agriculture and food systems institutions (government and private sector) be re-engineered through institutional reforms in the respective value chains.

The dialogues also recommended that the country should facilitate identification of food and nutrition security strategic crops for public support in the form of subsidies, nutrient fortification and value addition to meet the needs of the population.

The players involved in food system in Eswatini include, among others, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), International Agency for Food and Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP), the European Union, the African Development Bank, the Republic of China on Taiwan and the Arab Bank for Economic Development.