‘We need accountability’: On getting nutrition on the COP 28 agenda

As a country made up of over 7,000 islands, with much of the population living in climate-vulnerable low-lying areas, the Philippines faces enormous risks from extreme weather as the impact of climate change takes hold. It’s an issue that those in the food sector are acutely aware of — and it’s why food systems transformation champion Cherrie Atilano has made it her life’s mission to support farmers to transition to climate-resilient methods. Atilano is the founding farmer, CEO and president of AGREA Agricultural Systems International, Inc., an agri-food social enterprise. AGREA works with smallholder farming and fishing communities, helping them to boost their incomes and become climate-smart at the same time — by, for example, planting a range of crops that can withstand increasingly frequent typhoons. She told Devex the organization’s ethos is called the “ecology of dignity,” which focuses on supporting farmers to lead prosperous, dignified lives. After starting work on farms and working with other farmers from a young age, Atilano became involved in activism as a 15-year-old — fighting against child labor on sugar cane plantations. She later studied agriculture at the university, and in between her entrepreneurial pursuits, has also worked as a consultant for the Philippines’ Department of Agrarian Reform, and as an ambassador to the United Nations’ Scaling Up Nutrition movement. “The work and the fight is on the ground. We need to not rely on global agendas anymore. We can only do so much at the upper level.” --— Cherrie Atilano, founding farmer, CEO and president of AGREA Agricultural Systems International Atilano sat down with Devex to talk about what she wants to achieve with her work, and how the global development community can ensure that the link between nutrition, food and climate is made clear — and put on the policy agenda at the 28th U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP 28, and beyond. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. AGREA focuses on sustainable farming practices. Can you tell me more about that — what are its goals? At AGREA we work on what you could call climate-smart agriculture, sustainable agriculture or regenerative farming, and we focus on smallholder farmers. We do climate-smart agriculture by default. We encourage diversification to layer the harvests, and therefore the income of farmers across the year. We help them design their farms so that they can harvest crops after 15 days or 30 days, as well as those that are ready after six months, eight months, one year, or even perennial crops. The Philippines can have 21 typhoons in a year. So, if there are typhoons this means farmers will still have root crops that they can harvest, so they can still eat, and still sell. [Typhoon Rai caused $215 million worth of crop and farmland damage in 2022]. We work a lot with coconut farmers and we've been transitioning them to grow dwarf coconuts instead because it’s a shorter tree. It's easier for them to harvest and it's not uprooted immediately [during a typhoon]. We teach them to utilize the land underneath the coconut trees too — to plant turmeric and ginger, because these are high-value crops. Another goal is to foster community; getting a community of farmers into an association or a cooperative, so that they can learn from others practicing sustainable agriculture. We also focus on workforce nutrition because farmers are consumers too and we want to ensure the work we do with them translates to healthy diets for them. The World Food Programme has warned of a global malnutrition crisis being exacerbated by climate change. What are your biggest concerns around access to nutrition in the face of global warming? It’s about realizing that climate, nature, food, nutrition — they're all interconnected. We need to produce food with fewer resources, scarcer resources. Water [resources] are not that good anymore, and there is not much arable land to sustain the needs of the population. There is an urgent need to address all of this. It’s critical for me that we position our work in agriculture by ensuring food is always connected to climate. When I started AGREA, the name actually refers to “agriculture plus Gaia,” meaning Mother Earth. I spoke at the U.N. General Assembly this September, and have been having so many high-level discussions about climate. But at the end of the day, the work and the fight is on the ground. We need to not rely on global agendas anymore. We can only do so much at the upper level. Wearing my entrepreneurial hat, and in my role as a farm school teacher, I’m always thinking: If I put myself in the shoes of a farmer, how do I survive? Whether I’m in Africa, Latin America, in the U.S. or Canada, or whether I’m a smallholder farmer in Southeast Asia, or South Asia — how do I make climate change real and part of my formula as a farmer? What are some key policies or goals that you would like to see the international community take on board to affect change? I have three points. With the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, we’ve been talking about the need for financing for nutrition, as there is currently very little. In meetings with Save the Children and UNICEF, we realized we need to create a big return on investment statement — there’s a case for a strong ROI. One of Save the Children’s programs concentrates on the first 1,000 days of life. They found that if you invest $1 in a child during the first 1,000 days, you save $16, because this child will develop better cognitive function and a better immune system — so the workforce in the future will be healthier, the citizens will be healthier. We want to push for this [financing] on a global level — hopefully it can be realized through civil society organizations with the support of the U.N., and have the buy-in of countries that are members of the U.N. At a country level, I would like there to be stronger policies around agricultural subsidies. Most agricultural subsidies are decided by the private sector who are supplying fertilizers and pesticides to the government. It’s mega billions of dollars — so policies could be established so that they [subsidies] are not just decided upon from top to bottom, but bottom up. That way farmers could have a way to say “we’re transitioning to sustainable agriculture, so can we have options on what kind of fertilizers and pesticides we receive?” They are just offered a blanket solution right now — everyone gets the same fertilizer and pesticides. It’s causing pollution in the environment, both in terms of soil health and in the water. Farmers are saying they don't need it, but they receive it anyway so it’s a waste. Instead, we could unlock a lot of financing to design our food systems better. Finally, we can look at social protection as an area where funds could be unlocked — if you are receiving social protection funds from the government, are these funds being used to buy healthy and nutritious food? Are these funds and food stamps coming alongside education? So we need to foster a conversation about that. What do you want to see at COP 28 regarding nutrition and the climate agenda? I still see so much hope. I met with Dubai’s Minister for Climate Change and Environment Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri who is handling COP 28 in Dubai, and we are trying to push on this. At COP 27, it was hard to put food systems on the agenda. But we really need to comprehend that if the planet collapses, we won’t have food to eat. So now I’m hopeful that they actually have a head of food systems at COP, and they are also having a health discussion too. So we want to position nutrition there — with a focus on nutrition financing. The Scaling Up Nutrition movement is working hand in hand with COP, along with the World Bank and the big U.N. agencies. We’re making a case for nutrition financing because there needs to be an intentional agenda. We need clarity on the measures we are using to define forms of malnutrition: We have stunting, wasting, obesity, and so on. But we need to be intentional and have accountability about those definitions. Are we measuring deficiencies of micronutrients? Or are we measuring just stunting and wasting? Investors, and even research or government institutions, don’t understand, because they see nutrition as just part of hunger — and that needs to be clarified. It’s not just about having food, you need very specific healthy food to have good nutrition. What happens in so many feeding programs around the world is they provide packets of unhealthy, cheap goods. It fills up the stomach but it is not nutritious at all. We need to talk about that at COP too. We need to position nutrition with specific asks, specific definitions and accountabilities. Visit Food Secured — a series that explores how to save the food system and where experts share groundbreaking solutions for a sustainable and resilient future. This is an editorially independent piece produced as part of our Food Secured series, which is funded by partners. To learn more about this series and our partners, click here.