Himalayan Agroecology Initiative: Towards Common Roadmaps for Sustainable Food Systems

Multi-stakeholder processes and stakeholder empowerment in the Himalayan Region focused on the development and implementation of comprehensive roadmaps for agroecological food systems in Bhutan, India and Nepal.

The Himalayan Agroecology Initiative is a strategic endeavour that works closely with governments and with the support of a broad group of stakeholders, to support the emergence of multi-stakeholder processes that develop, build capacities and facilitate the implementation of agroecology roadmaps. Its main aim is to improve livelihoods and sustainability, and to empower farmers, farmer producer organizations and other key stakeholders so they better benefit of public policies, including those that support organic and natural agriculture, food processing and consumption. A high-level conference launching the roadmaps is envisioned to be held in 2025 in New Delhi, India.

Whilst the World Future Council  and IFOAM – Organics International together serve as global coordinators of the Himalayan Agroecology Initiative, renowned organizations are paving the way for this ambitious undertaking at the national level, including the Alliance of Bioversity International-CIAT and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in India, Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD) in Nepal and the Tarayana Foundation in Bhutan. This timely effort contributes to the German-Indian Lighthouse Initiative for Agroecology and Sustainable Resource Management and is funded by the Special Initiative Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which both are core partners.

Stepping up Systems Thinking and Action

Our world’s food and farming systems currently face multiple challenges ranging from natural resource depletion, climate change, chemical pollution and biodiversity loss to farmers and food workers not earning a decent income, leading to hunger, malnutrition, ill-health, migration and much more. The way we produce, process, distribute, market, consume or waste food can either alleviate or exacerbate these conditions.

"Addressing these problems requires integrated actions taken by all stakeholders at local, national, regional, and global levels, by both public and private actors, and across multiple fronts - not only in agriculture, but also in trade policy, health, environment, gender norms, education, transport and infrastructure”

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Agroecology is an internationally recognized transition pathway towards sustainable food systems, as evidenced by the Agroecology Coalition founded in 2021, which comprises more than 50 countries (as of 2024). To realize agroecology in mountain development and worldwide, policy frameworks should hence go beyond the production focus and the conventional ‘value adding chain’ approach and pursue agroecology with a holistic food systems approach to achieve the targets foreseen by the 2030 Agenda. This is where the Himalayan region could become a flagship for expansion of sustainable food systems.

The growing momentum and urgency for the redesign of our food systems were also emphasized by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) as well as the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021. Since then, numerous countries developed national food system pathways and were encouraged to develop actionable implementation strategies until the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit +4 in 2025.

Within this work, we support that agroecology as systemic transformation pathway comes to the forefront, as it addresses multiple, highly intertwined challenges at the same time, in a holistic manner and acts as major catalyst for broader transformation across multiple systems and SDGs. Rapid climate change, the drastic loss of biodiversity, water and soil, socioeconomic developments but also geopolitical tensions, demand urgent and substantive successes in this direction.