Discussion: training manuals on food security

Contribution by Charlotte Dufour from France

Thank you very much, Mr. De Haen, for raising these hugely important questions.

I agree with many of the comments posted to date, that the real challenge is not so much the quantity of production but one of distribution and access.

My response focuses mostly on your question “Why are so many governments still reluctant to change priorities and invest in hunger reduction?”

I can see 2 major challenges, which may partly explain why there is such poor political commitment to “food security for all”, but also, a faint glimmer of hope that this may change (or at least, not get worst).
Challenges:
1) Conflict with donor countries’ interests:

Most donors are agricultural surplus producers and exporters. Why would they fund competition from abroad by genuinely promoting local production? And it looks so much more efficient / charitable to report numbers of food aid beneficiaries and malnourished children saved through supplementary and therapeutic feeding programmes! It suits Results-Based Monitoring frameworks perfectly and is much easier to report to charitable individuals and tax payers.

2. 
   Conflict with Private Sector interests:
   

Donors’ interests are very much tied to the (largely Western) agri-business industry, which relies on large-scale farming to make economies of scale and is thus unlikely to promote small-scale and sustainable production.

An example of the influence of the agri-business industry in the food security and nutrition agenda is the growing fad for “nutri-ceuticals” and “Ready to Used Foods”, which are increasingly used for preventing and treating malnutrition. While they have an important role to play (e.g. for managing severe acute malnutrition), their use is increasingly undermining approaches based on local foods. These products are promoted through Public Private Partnerships involving UN agencies, NGOs, Governments and Private businesses (mostly based in the West). Such partnerships can be very beneficial but since the money usually comes from the private sector, there is a real risk that the private sector agenda seriously biases the policies and programmes promoted by development stakeholders. One finds it increasingly difficult to mobilize support for nutrition programmes that are based on local foods.
Thus the “feeding the world” agenda risks being (or already is) recuperated by stakeholders who have an interest in people remaining dependent on their products.
Glimmer of hope: changing consumer preferences
When not in the field, I live in a small village in rural France. Many families around me are changing their consumption patterns by preferentially buying organic, locally produced foods. This is even the case in urban areas, where local organic agriculture producer-consumer organisations are flourishing: households establish a contractual relationship with a local (peri-urban) farmer who supplies them with a weekly basket. The farmer has a steady income and consumers share the risks associated with farming. These changing consumer preferences are affecting local policies, as provincial and district authorities begin to see local sustainable agriculture as an economic and environmental asset. I believe that these trends also exist in other countries such as the UK, Germany and North America. We have yet to see changes at the national level (e.g. European subsidies still favour large producers) but I hope the increasing interest in organic foods (linked to awareness raised by cancer and obesity epidemics) and growing concerns around climate change will boost these approaches across the World.
(Let’s leave aside the issue of countries –such as China- renting entire strips of land from poorer countries to carry out intensive agriculture; there’s a looming economic and environmental disaster, which depresses me too much to bring up…).
One sad truth is that we food security advocates will probably not be out of a job for a while…
All the best, and “la lucha continua siempre…”
Charlotte Dufour
Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods Consultant.

Contribution by Kevin Gallagher from FAO Sierra Leone

Dear FSNers,

I feel the question of How to Feed the World in 2050? is extremely pertinent to today’s dilemma of feeding the world. The investments that countries are making today on petroleum-based fertilizers, high traction inputs and export oriented (i.e. transport intensive) crops may not be the best investments for a future world in which energy is more expensive, resources more scarce and populations much higher. The investments we make for food security today will continue to have long lived implications. Chemical fertilizers promoted by the international fertilizer lobby called IFDC (yes, it is a lobby, not a CGIAR centre as many think) or highly toxic pesticides promoted by CropLife International (also a lobby) were both technologies of World War II that we adapted to agriculture. Bombs are still made with nitrogen fertilizers. Pesticides still kill people. What if the international community had asked the question in 1945, How to Sustainably Feed the World in 2000?, perhaps the world would have chosen to focus on technology that builds on natural cycles like nitrogen fixation and biological control? I doubt the world will suddenly come to their senses in answering the questions of How to Feed the World (Sustainably) in 2050? but there is a slight chance that someone will notice that investing in urea factories that require lots of energy in 2010 may not be the best investment for today or tomorrow.

Dr Colin Tudge’s book So Shall We Reap has already made a strong statement on the question posed as the title of this important workshop

(Please see http://www.colintudge.com/articles/article12.php).
Best regards,

Kevin Gallagher

FAOR Sierra Leone