A Brain Cracking Experience with United Nations University 01: SCHEMA Workshop of Urban Food System and Health

The living environment that we are living in is currently experiencing vast and rapid changes. In the news, we see a lot of issues like climate change, pollution, social inequality, social exclusion and more. Nonetheless, those issues are real and some of us are experiencing that and may already a victim. In the end, none of us can escape if nothing is done about it. For instance, climate change, Earth itself is not replaceable and if it is no longer habitable for human, then it means we are leading to our own extinction, which is somehow illogical. Thus, it is important that our generation needs to be well aware of the problems and take actions from now. I also believe that through spreading this awareness to other people, we can congregate and form a strong community that willing to contribute to changing the future to a better one.

Hehe, my name tag :)

I was grateful that Dr. Lee Yi Yi from United Nations University - International Institute for Global Health had invited me to be part of the Systems Thinking and Place-based Methods for Healthier Malaysian Cities (SCHEMA). This is a joint project between the Sustainable Places Research Institute of Cardiff University and the International Institute for Global Health, funded by the prestigious foundation of Newton-Ungku Omar Fund. It was 3 days intensive workshop with sharing sessions, site visits, brainstorming and even learning sessions, which I found it to be mentally challenging. From the workshop, I not only learned a lot about the food and health system of Malaysia but also get to know people from different backgrounds like from the ministry, university, institutions, NGO’s and also private sectors. I myself represented the private sector, as a graduate architect to share my knowledge on urban agriculture and architecture with the participants.

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Due to the packed schedule and input from the workshop, I would like to split this write-up into two portions. One will be the takeaway points that I gained from the 5 minutes flash talk session by all the participants and the other one will be the gain of learning system thinking and place-based methods from the mentors.

Dr. Jose Siri, the Research Fellow from UNU giving his flash talk.

I will make the takeaway in point forms for easier reading and reference:

1. The definition of food does not end as being a commodity or a basic source of energy for the human, but it also involve in the environment impact that is caused by agricultural activities, carbon emissions and energy consumption from the logistic
2. Eating out (meaning to eat outside), is a culture of Malaysian, especially people that live in the city. Although it provides a lot of variety, it comes with less control on the quality of food.
3. Food security includes the stability of price as well. During the world food price crisis around 2007 and 2008, the price spiked and impacted countries throughout the globe.
4. Breakdown a system and to see what issue nested in within and think on how to improve or reconnect the dots. It is more like a first principle thinking that a lot of elites practiced, like Elon Musk whereby the method breaks down the complex system, finds the most important factor that is jeopardizing the system and solve it.
5. A good way to evaluate the quality of food is by determining the numbers of hand and machine touching the food. The lesser it is, the better the quality is. This is a method proposed by Prof. Terry Marsden from Cardiff University.
6. Agriculture, especially the livestock industry contributed to the second largest greenhouse gas emissions in the globe. As the human population grows, there will be more demand for meat, hence thriving more production. This will end up putting the industry to the top greenhouse gas emission and worsen the climate change. So how are we going to solve this issue? Perhaps opting for artificial meat that may raise another ethical debate? I would rather eat artificial meat that are proven to be safe than dying because of sticking with the conventional meat production.
7. In China, megacities are linked together by high-speed railways and highways, slowly congregates into a super megacity that has not existed yet. So, how are we going to feed this scale of city?
8. Is food bank enough to solve the food insecurity? Or is it a temporary solution, like a safe?
9. Food is the new oil, land is the new gold. This is becoming more and more relevant to us as we see price of food slowly increase and land price soared. We had transited from a food abundance era to a scarcity era. However, we still have the problem of food waste with as high as 40% and more, which is insane.
10. A better educational system that touches our food production system can help in improving the situation whereby the young generation is segregated from the farm and the knowledge of Real Food.
11. There was a research that studied how the local community of Malaysia eats. The fiber intake of Malaysian was very minimal. The worst is that Malaysia is now the most obese country in South East Asia with near 50% population are obese or overweight. Is it the fault of our food system? Local culture? Built environment?
12. Organic food lacks certification that verifies whether the vendors are providing the nutrient value that they promised. Will this certification work and help the consumers to make better choice?
13. There is a large calories intake inequality happened throughout the world. People with less financial security may tend to have higher calories intake and end up to be obese or overweight. Does poverty relate directly with the community health condition?
14. The Malaysia’s Ministry of Health is looking into the condition of living environment as they are aware that if the built environment for the people is not designed well, it will cause the community to have lower immune system. Besides, the future building design should be climatic resilience which has less energy consumption especially in air conditioning. It is a known fact that the human population will increase and the need for housing will rise. With more supply, the use of air conditioning will increase as well, that will end up speeding up the climate change. For example, houses can be designed to have cross ventilation or stack effect to promote natural ventilation and cool down the building. The UN Habitat looks into these issues and is trying to bring solutions with declarations and implementation actions.
15. A good food system should be governed by the nutrition value produced for the consumers, as a balanced diet is made up of different types of nutrients with the right proportion.
16. The loci for a household food insecurity consists of the location of the food source, availability, price, quality, variations and the promotion of consuming local food. We may eat a lot but we may still end up with malnutrition, as we are not taking well balanced nutrient diet.
17. The recent flood that happened in Penang, Kedah, Perak and the East Coast had raise the issue of food security of the food for the flood victims. The secureness is justified by the availability of the food, the accessibility, the stability of supply and price and also utilization.
18. Urban food system also relates to the urban environment and psychological distress level of the urbanites. In order to monitor the impact, we can utilize GIS technology to look into aspects like traffic, green space availability, distance between farm and plate, walkability, network, land use, crime and safety. We need to look into the physical form, natural environment and social environment as a whole to understand how the community works.
19. There is a need to increase the incentive for health screening and encourage people to do so. As prevention is always better than cure, it is always better to interfere with the health problem as early as possible before it is too late. So how to encourage people to go for health screening?
20. Sustainable Development Goals has a calculation method to justify how much impact had been made. The method has an amazing aspect that if the action goes again the goals, it may cancel out the positive marks and end up with neutral or negative impact.
21. Promotion to embrace riverbank farming as riverbank provides different resources like ready ecosystem, water and also connection with the people. It may be the time for the cities to relook on how to revitalize the city by revamping its river, like how Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul.
22. There is lesser labor involved in agricultural practice and this will affect the quality of the agricultural product due to man shortage. The production outsourcing service was introduced to solve this problem like what happened in the cocoa industry. Basically, the owner will delegate the labor work to the outsourcing service to harvest and process the produce to be sold.
23. Urban agriculture is a rising trend whereby people start to bring food source back to the city. This could improve the connection within the community, food security, sustainability and economics too. Individuals, specific communities and schools could be part of the drivers for this initiative to work.
24. Malaysian wasted 1/3 of their food which is approximate RM246 million per year. Thus, the government had set up plans, policies to handle the food waste issue, like introducing segregation of organic and non-organic waste.
25. The culture of instant food consumption was highlighted as it affect the young generation the most. Most of the urbanites are used to instant food consumption due to hectic lifestyle and have no time for hands-on cooking. So, should we start pick up cooking again?
26. Malaysia has the highest sugar and fat intake population among the Southeast Asia countries. This is a worrying statistic and people should be educated more on the consumption habit.
27. An interesting idea from a local practicing doctor that prompted a question on what is the most efficient medium to pass health knowledge to the adult community, like women? Maybe hairdressers can be the answer as women will most likely communicate with hairdressers quite frequently and with the least psychological defense.
28. The food policy has no innovation since long time ago, meaning to say we are still using the old horse carriage liked food system to run in this electrical vehicle era. We should revise and redefine our food policy by starting to look into growing urbanization, urban bias, city food network, trans-local alliances and method of implementation. Usually the federal government will have difficulty in implementing the policies as top-down implementation will have lower efficiency when it reaches the bottom. Thus, the government will require partners like institutions, local governments and communities to work together to build trans-local vision and exercising multi-scalar agency.

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Summary of the main sharing sessions with scribble:

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Even until now, I am still digesting the input from the workshop. In the next writing, I will share the takeaway on System Thinking and Place-based method which I found very challenging (a way of doing critical thinking).

Again, I loved the organizer's hospitality for providing a great stay and food!

Great nightview from my hotel stay

Awesome breakfast 1

Awesome breakfast 2, should have submitted for @howtostartablog #dailyfoodphotography contest :P

Nice place to eat

The hotel attached to the old colonial bungalow building.

Was rushing back to KL and not able to selfie with most of the participants, managed to take one shot before leaving with the awesome organizers Jessie and Liza!

Again, a big thank and Kudos to the organizers.

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Sincerely from @kimzwarch