According to Costa et al, “Brazil was the first country in the world to implement a National Policy for Agroecology and Organic Production”. It is therefore worthy of notice that the Policy has been widely implemented in the country, succeeding as a good example of a multi-sectoral public policy, despite the challenges it still faces. Furthermore, PNAPO has served as inspiration for Brazilian States (such as Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Goiás, São Paulo and Amazonas), the Federal District and Municipalities to elaborate their own state and municipal policies, following the guidelines of the National Policy and adapting them to their own realities and necessities. Hence PNAPO is likely suitable to be transferred to other situations.

Funds have been secured to apply the TEEBAgriFood Evaluation Framework in various contexts at the country level in Brazil, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Senegal, Tanzania and Thailand. Across Senegal, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Ghana, the application will feature a regional narrative with national case study examples on agricultural systems, practices, products, and policy scenarios, with the overall aim of contributing to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and a wide range of SDGs. In Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand, the application of the TEEBAgriFood Initiative aims to protect biodiversity and contribute to a more sustainable agriculture and food sector with a view to moving towards a level playing field by avoiding unfair competition through low environmental standards.

TEEB, known for its pioneering research on the economic values of nature in 2010, brought together more than 150 experts from 33 countries to deliver a strong and urgent message to the global community on the need for a transformation of our agriculture and food systems that is sustainable, equitable, and healthy. The TEEBAgriFood initiative brings together scientists, economists, policymakers, business leaders, and farmers’ organizations to agree on how to frame, undertake and use holistic evaluations of agricultural systems, practices, products, and policy scenarios against a comprehensive range of impacts and dependencies across food value chains.

TEEBAgriFood’s Evaluation Framework answers the question: What should we evaluate about food systems? And TEEBAgriFood’s methodologies answer the question: How should we do these evaluations? TEEBAgriFood illustrates five families of applications to compare: (a) different policy scenarios; (b) different farming typologies; (c) different food and beverage products; (d) different diets/ food plates; and (e) adjusted versus conventional national or sectoral accounts.

TEEBAgriFood is a systems approach for bringing together the various disciplines and perspectives related to agriculture and food, a framework for evaluation that supports the comprehensive, universal and inclusive assessment of eco-agri-food systems, a set of methodologies and tools for the measurement of positive and negative externalities, and a theory of change to help integrate TEEBAgriFood into the wide landscape of platforms and initiatives, like the SDGs, that are tackling these complex issues. It therefore plays a crucial role in the transformation of food and agriculture systems.