Discussion: training manuals on food security

Contribution by Brian Thompson, Irela Mazar, Juliet Aphane, Leslie Amoroso, Nomindelger Bayasgalanbat and Janice Meerman of FAO’s Household Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods Group

Dear colleagues and friends,

Six Issues Briefs by FAO’s Economic and Social Development Department are posted as background documents for the High Level Forum on “How to Feed the World by 2050” available at: (http://www.fao.org/wsfs/forum2050/wsfs-background-documents/hlef-issues-briefs/en/).
This contribution - the fourth in a series posted by FAO’s Household Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods Group – addresses three of these briefs (Climate Change and Bioenergy Challenges for Food and Agriculture, Non-Distorting Support Measures to Farmers, and Investment) from a nutrition perspective. Direct quotes from the Issues Briefs are in plain font with our additional comments on food and nutrition security in italics.
1. Climate Change and Bioenergy Challenges for Food and Agriculture
The current impetus for investing in improved agricultural policies, institutions and technologies to meet food security and energy goals offers a unique opportunity to mainstream climate change mitigation and adaptation actions into agriculture. Further research is needed on the various dimensions and impacts of climate change and biofuels on food security across regions and over time. In particular, assessment of the impacts of climate change on nutrition and food security, identification and development of adaptive solutions and scenario-building of the projected changes on resource and livelihoods options of poor households are essential.
All current quantitative assessments indicate that climate change will adversely affect food security in developing countries, particularly Africa. It is estimated that the number of malnourished children between 2000 and 2050 will likely increase from 33 to 42 million (without climate change), but climate change will further increase this number by over 10 million, resulting in 52 million malnourished children in 2050.
Adaptation to climate change – including the ability to mitigate exposure to, and cope with, extreme weather shocks – will be necessary to ensure global food security in both the short and long-term. To the extent that certain activities fulfil both adaptation and mitigation objectives, such activities could offer new opportunities for financing. Sustainable development and research to enhance both adaptation and mitigation can diminish climate change based threats to nutrition. Adaptation and mitigation measures should be integrated into national and sector-specific development programmes, such as poverty reduction strategy papers, safety nets and national food and nutrition action plans. The main obstacles include significant data requirements, as well the legal and institutional frameworks that reduce transactions costs of participation in mitigation programmes. Lack of capacity for the development of integrated adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development strategies to address food security and nutrition issues driven by climate change and biofuel demand is another challenge.
Although this brief nicely describes the impact of climate change on all four aspects of food security, we would add:
“Efforts to assure food security and good nutrition in the face of current challenges, including climate change and rising bioenergy demand, must continue to place achievement of the MDG’s at the centre of human endeavour. FAO and other international organizations should assist countries in assessing their capacity building needs for the development of integrated adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development strategies to address food security and nutrition challenges from climate change and biofuel demand. Agriculture, food and nutrition issues need to be placed onto national and international climate change agendas. The expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 offers an opportunity to bring these issues to the table.”
To this brief’s Discussion Points, we would also add:

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  How can we accelerate progress in reducing poverty hunger and malnutrition while mitigating risk and protecting the environment?
  

2. Non-Distorting Support Measures to Farmers
Border policies that restrict market access from third countries are trade distorting... Analyses show that market access restrictions vary widely across countries, and greatly impair nearly 30 developing countries. Improved market access is key to translating increased agricultural productivity into improved food and nutrition security. The current trade negotiations should recognize this issue and make it a priority. OECD countries should grant developing countries increased access to their markets and reduce their domestic agricultural subsidies and import tariffs. Assistance should also be provided to help developing countries meet international nutrition and food safety standards for globally traded food products.
Many developing countries have undertaken major economic reforms since the 1980s, including phasing out agricultural export taxes, reducing manufacturing protection and allowing markets to determine the value of their currency. However, these reforms remain incomplete and distortion rates across many agricultural sectors continue to be large. For example, consumer subsidy and trade restriction policies lower domestic food prices and increase the consumption and welfare of net food buyers. However, consumer food subsidies are costly in terms of efficiency (high budgetary burden), efficacy (difficult to target) and administration. Furthermore, export restrictions can lower the income of sellers over time, and subsequently reduce incentives for production. Nevertheless, the immediate, positive effects of these policies may well outweigh the longer term trade-offs, especially if paired with social safety net programmes. In this and similar contexts, further analysis and debate is required to assess whether trade policy instruments can be used in support of pro-poor development objectives, including sustainable improvements in food and nutrition security.
3. Investment
The latest UN estimates of population suggest that by 2050 the planet will be populated by 9.1 billion persons, up from the current population of 6.8 billion. This represents a 34 percent increase over the next 41 years. The latest FAO estimates indicate, however, that agricultural production would need to grow globally by 70 percent over the same period (by almost 100 percent in developing countries) to feed this population, because of a shift in demand towards higher value products of lower caloric content and an increased use of crop output as feed to meet rising meat demand. Further, these predictions of additional output are likely to be a low estimate, as they do not take into account any increases in agricultural production to meet possible expansion in demand for biofuels. These statistics have stark implications for food and nutrition security. In developing countries, 178 million, or one in three children under the age of five, is currently stunted (low height-for-age, reflecting a sustained past episode or episodes of undernutrition), and 148 million children are underweight. Moreover, micronutrient malnutrition affects approximately 2 billion people, over 30 percent of the world's population. These figures are likely to grow in conjunction with the shifting trends in demand described above. While agriculture has a key role to play in mitigating the negative impact of these trends via reduction of food insecurity and malnutrition, investment and growth in the sector have been slow over the past decade. One important indicator of this neglect is the proportion of official development assistance designated for agriculture, which fell by 70 percent between 1990 and 2004 from approximately 12 to under 4 percent. Long-term investments in agricultural development, medium-term efforts to build institutional capacity and empower organizations of rural poor people, and short-term emergency and safety net initiatives for the most vulnerable are imperative to address food insecurity and malnutrition.
To this brief’s Discussion Points, we would also add:

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  How can private-sector interest be linked to needs of smallholder farmers and marginalized groups, including indigenous people, to meet the challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition?
  

Best regards

Brian Thompson, Irela Mazar, Juliet Aphane, Leslie Amoroso, Nomindelger Bayasgalanbat and Janice Meerman of FAO’s Household Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods Group