Discussion: training manuals on food security

Contribution by Joy Selasi Afenyo from the Roma Tre University, Italy

Dear Colleagues

I am Joy Selasi Afenyo from Ghana; I have expertise in food security with particular interest in food safety, post- harvest systems and in rural development. I believe the subject up for discussion is a timely one and I would like to make a few inputs with regards to the two questions above.
I firmly believe that one of the most critical instruments to use to broaden physical access to food and to ensure food security in sub-Saharan Africa is to strengthen food safety and post-harvest systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Close examination reveals that the continuing efforts to focus solely on how to increase production by putting more land under cultivation and by the use of improved seeds, more fertilizer, and pesticides without addressing the challenges of yearly food losses due to spoilage, the lack of capacity to preserve and store food and the need of people for quality and safe food, have not succeeded in reducing the levels of hunger and malnutrition and have not translated into sustainable amelioration of food insecurity on the continent.
Current estimates of production losses as of 2008 are around 50% for perishable food commodities including fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers and about 30% for food grains including maize, sorghum, millet, rice and cowpeas in West Africa, (Aworh 2008). This extent of post-harvest loss in sub-Saharan Africa significantly affects the physical availability of food and further negatively aggravates our food insecurity situation.
In sub-Saharan Africa, food insecurity is not only about the availability of the food but also about economic access to it. In a good number of cases, people were hungry in the midst of plenty of food in the markets. Food security efforts here must also encompass the broader objective of poverty alleviation because so long as people remain poor, they will most likely remain food insecure and vice versa. This means that small producers of food must be able to take advantage of the markets i.e. small food producers must be enabled to become agro-entrepreneurs to be able to acquire the income necessary to meet additional food needs.
The realization of food security in Africa calls for access to safe and quality food. Especially considering the high incidence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malnutrition, people require food that is able to meet their nutritional and health needs not simply “food”.
To meet these challenges, agricultural practice in sub-Saharan Africa must adopt three inter-connected strategies:
1. Strategies to boost the capacities to process, preserve and store primary production in sub-Saharan Africa. This requires an appreciation of the fact and the necessary investments by national governments and development agents.
2. Food safety and hygienic practices along the food chain must be improved. For food trade to foster development and food security, small producers need to be able to supply markets – both local and international, with food that meets basic safety and hygienic standards.
3. Policies. Policies by national governments to make more budgetary allocations to support the above and also to invest in rural infrastructure, water and sanitation systems, rural electrification since these are necessary services and supports to make these programmes work.
If the physical and economic access to food and food security in general must be improved in sub-Saharan Africa, these are some of the areas that require urgent intervention.
Joy Selasi Afenyo

Master in Human Development and Food Security

Roma Tre University, Italy

Contribution by Ardhendu Chatterjee from the Development Research Communication and Services Centre, India

Dear Friends

Very interesting question, unfortunately I cannot join discussion fully as I will be traveling a lot during next 2 weeks,
We need to focus on reality of the hungry rather than just discuss the concept of hunger.

Poor people can feed themselves if their lands are not taken away for cities, factories, mines, large dams or power plants etc.; if the state subsidies do not go mainly to large land owners to buy synthetic agro chemicals and exotic breeds and is used instead for eco restoration and disaster preparedness, if local public distribution systems based on indigenous food grains and legumes are supported and buyback arrangements used. It will be important also to redesign community forests as real agroforests rather than monocultural timber or pulpwood plantations. Finally incentive should be given to diversified-integrated farming systems and penalty should be levied for polluting and water/energy inefficient farming technologies.

Problem is often IGOs such as UNDP/FAO/UNICEF etc. remain silent when most of the development aid meant for hunger reduction ends up being used by our state agencies for funding Agribusiness Corporations directly or indirectly, and the hungry are always excluded from the discussions on how to help them.

If we really wanted to reduce the number of hungry and malnourished it can be done. We need an honest dialogue and collaborative effort at international, regional, national and local level; and it needs to be a continuous process.

Best wishes and Puja Greetings to Forum members
Ardhendu Chatterjee

Development Research Communication and Services Centre

Kolkata

Contribution by DSK Rao from GyanTech Information Systems Limited, India

Dear Members,

The posting is interesting and also equally questionable! My advance apologies for my frank views. The posting starts with 'Experts tend to agree that it will be possible to produce enough food to meet the demand of a world population that will have increased to more than 9 billion in 2050'. I am not sure who these Experts are and why these Experts and their Collective wisdom is not able to address today's deficit and Hunger. I am equally doubtful about to what extent the MDG goals of reducing hunger can be achieved by 2015.
The fact stands that the poor hard working farmer is still the source of Food in almost all developing countries. Farm subsidies and unfair pricing policies are some of the main reasons for these poor hard working farmers remaining poor and hungry. On analysis, it is observed that in spite of tall claims on benefits of R&D in the Food Production, the ground reality is that it has not made significant difference.
I am again cautioning on covert ways of promoting GM experiments in the pretext of feeding the hungry. Things need to be viewed on a holistic basis and not on a myopic basis. It is still fresh in our minds the effects of 'Mad Cow Disease' on the meat industry in the west which is mainly attributed to mixing powdered meat from slaughter houses into cattle feed! Please note that there were some 'Experts', who got even awards & recognition for their break through contributions for this a couple of decades back.
The need of the hour is to look at Hunger & Farming in a totally different perspective. Hunger is more to do with denial of food and fundamental rights to marginalized people and poor governance than to do with Food Production. Their is a mind set change required to eliminate hunger. To support this view, in India millions of tons of food grains lying with the government warehouses gets infested and get burnt or used as cattle feed when officially 300 million people are starving! These people will continue to starve even if the production triples, as it is to do more with Social Justice & Human Rights which have become non existent ant to millions of oppressed people in this so called 'Civilized' world of the 21st Century. Greed, Falsehood, Cover Ups and unfair cartelization have become order of the day and to that extant that we have a Global Economic Meltdown with all countries having citizens fighting for their daily survival.
High time, we start a debate for an equitable & Inclusive model and not get into rhetoric on things we are not certain.
Regards,

DSK Rao