TIP is pleased to announce a new 28-month research project, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The project, titled “Demonstrating People and Landscapes thrive under Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems”, laid its investigative stones in September 2022 and will run until December 2024. It seeks to address important evidence gaps relating to Indigenous People’s Food Systems (IPFS) and their contributions to current debates around global food system sustainability.
Whilst recent high-level policy discussion has acknowledged that Indigenous Peoples can make expert contributions to global debates on sustainable food systems, there is a dearth of evidence of IPFS on which to derive effective food policy. Much of the existing evidence on IPFS is fragmented, unstandardised, highly context specific, has been deemed to have limited utility for policy. TIP will use this new project to respond to this evidence gap, support narrative change and positive policy action around IPFS.
Working with Indigenous Peoples’ communities in Kenya, Thailand, Mexico and India, the project will characterise IPFS according to multiple dimensions of food systems performance, and document their outcomes and best food system practices. The Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) methodology, launched by FAO in 2019, is the primary instrument used for this project. As a research tool, TAPE can be used to produce global and harmonized evidence on the multidimensional performance of agroecology and its potential to contribute to sustainable food systems. Since its inception, TAPE has been endorsed on the global stage by the Committee on World Food Security and by prominent academics in agroecology. Some adaptations, endorsed by FAO, have been made to TAPE to make it more suitable for use in IPFS.
Alongside TAPE, the project will use storytelling as a qualitative, participatory research method. The collection of stories will complement the results of TAPE, and explain the rich values and knowledges that underpin sustainable IPFS.
TIP is honoured to be partnering with four Indigenous-led organisations for this work:
Contact us for further information or to get involved.