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The official definition of food security, adopted at the World Food Summit of 1996, states:
“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”
The causes of food insecurity involve a complex interplay of economic, social, political and technical issues. An analysis of this interplay should determine the potential solution and best approach for a given population group. The issue for some communities is being able to produce sufficient food.
For others, lack of money to purchase a wider selection of foods is the problem. Food insecurity and poverty are strongly correlated. The Swedish International Cooperation Agency (SIDA) defines poverty as a three-fold deficiency: a lack of security, ability and opportunity. Poverty is the main cause of food insecurity, and hunger is also a significant cause of poverty.
Hunger is not only about quantity—it goes hand-in- hand with malnutrition. Food insecurity and malnutrition impair people’s ability to develop skills and reduce their productivity. A lag in farm productivity is closely associated with rural poverty and hunger.
Food insecurity nevertheless is a reality experienced by the vulnerable in all societies and in all countries, developed and developing. In developed countries, the problem of food security is often a reflection of affordability and accessibility through conventional channels.
Food security for the rural poor in developing countries is about producing or securing enough to feed one’s household and being able to maintain that level of production year after year. Hunger and malnutrition increase susceptibility to disease and reduce people’s ability to earn a livelihood.
In instances where hunger is related to household income, improving food security by ensuring access to food or increasing the purchasing power of a family is essential. Providing poor communities with the skills to improve conditions in an economically and ecologically sustainable manner creates a window of opportunity to alleviate poverty at the subsistence-farming level and, on a larger scale, by having an impact on the economic development of the country.
Historically, increased food production in the developing countries can be attributed to the cultivation of more land rather than to the deployment of improved farming practices or to the application of new technologies.
By its very nature, agriculture threatens other ecosystems, a situation that can be exacerbated by over-cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and bad irrigation practices. However, increased demands for food in Asia, Europe and North Africa have to be met by increasing yields because most land in these areas is already used for agriculture.
The potential to expand agricultural land exists in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa only, where much of the remaining land is marginal for agricultural expansion.
The implication, therefore, is that the increase in food production needed to feed the world’s growing population can only be met by increasing the amount of food produced per hectare. Recognising the extent of environmental degradation caused mainly by human activities, the multilateral agreements that arose from the UNCED meeting of 1992 were intended to address the compromised food-security situation on a global scale.
One such agreement is the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. This agreement promotes the implementation of practices intended to reverse desertification for sustainable land use and food security. As the more affluent developed countries tend to produce more food, some argue that redistribution of these surpluses could feed the escalating populations of developing countries.
Redistribution, however, requires policy changes that may be impossible to implement on a global scale. Therefore, a substantial proportion of the food demands of developing countries will have to be met by the agricultural systems in these countries.
Enabling a consistent and sustainable supply of food will require an overhaul in the production processes and the supporting infrastructure. Finding solutions to declining crop yields requires an effort that will improve the assets on which agriculture relies; namely, soils, water and biodiversity.
Transforming the agricultural systems of rural farmers by introducing technologies that integrate agro-ecological processes in food production, while minimising adverse effects to the environment, is key to sustainable agriculture. In addition, increases in crop yield must be met with the use of locally available low-cost technologies and minimum inputs without causing damage to the environment.
Global food productivity is undergoing a process of rapid transformation as a result of technological progress in the fields of communication, information, transport and modern biotechnology.
A general observation is that technologies tend to be developed in response to market pressures, and not to the needs of the poor who have no purchasing power. As agriculture is the main economic activity of rural communities, optimising the levels of production will generate employment and income, and thus uplift the wealth and well-being of the community.
Improving agricultural production in developing countries is fundamental to reducing poverty and increasing food security. Investment to raise agricultural productivity can be achieved through the introduction of superior technologies such as better-quality seeds, crop rotation systems etc..
It is argued, however, that the adoption of earlier agricultural technologies has led to the emergence of more virulent strains of pests, pathogens and weeds, soil deterioration and a loss of biodiversity. The Green Revolution, in particular, focused on wheat and rice—not much attention was paid to staple crops such as sorghum, cassava or millet.
Also, the seeds and fertilisers required to grow the higher-yielding varieties were expensive and therefore not accessible to all. Reaffirming support for the principles agreed upon at the UNCED, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals have set a road map for protecting the environment.
Embraced in these time-bound goals is a new development ethic that demands sustainability in a framework where progress is measured in terms of actions reconciling the economic and ecological factors of food production for the benefit of present and future generations?
A secure food system is one in which the ecological resources on which food production depends allow for their continued use, with minimum damage for present and future generations. In other words, food security and sustainable agriculture are interlinked and both are central to the concept of sustainable development. The FAO Anti- hunger Programme reported that increasing investment in agriculture and rural development can reduce hunger.
The production problems experienced by farmers vary between countries and communities, and technological solutions need to be relevant to those circumstances, i.e. one solution will not be suitable everywhere.
The potential of some of these technologies has been demonstrated in various world regions—for instance, agro-ecological improvement programmes involving:
i. Better harvesting and conservation of water, even in rain-fed environments;
ii. A reduction of soil erosion by adopting zero tillage combined with the use of green manure and herbicides as in Argentina and Brazil; and
iii. Pest and weed control without pesticide or herbicide use, e.g. Bangladesh and Kenya, has been well tested and established.
Indeed, such programmes are now widely accepted as being at the core of sustainable agriculture. The communities that participated in these projects were able to transform food production through the use of resource- management strategies that focused on improving the soil by growing leguminous crops and applying agro-forestry, zero tillage and green manure.
These and other projects have proved that the sustainability of any farming practice and the conditions under which production can be maintained at reasonable levels cannot be predicted with absolute certainty.
Some regions may be better able to transfer high- yielding technologies with varying degrees of success. The uptake of new production systems has proved successful where the programmes have included the participation of entire communities and have not been introduced to isolated groups of farmers. Producing nutritionally enhanced properties in staple crops eaten by the poor could reduce the burden of disease in many developing countries.
Scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, India) have developed a pearl millet variety enhanced with betacarotene. The trait naturally occurs in two Burkina Faso millet lines from which it was transferred by conventional breeding methods.
Genetic modification of japonica rice with a ferritin gene has not given superior results compared to rice with an 80% increase in iron density produced by conventional plant breeding at the International Rice Research Institute. Research and technology alone will not drive agricultural growth.
Inadequate infrastructure and poorly functioning markets tend to exacerbate the problem of food insecurity. The cost of marketing farm produce can be prohibitive for small-scale farmers, as their isolation prevents the link between agricultural and non-agricultural activities among adjacent villages and between rural and urban areas.
Building roads in rural areas is vital to facilitating growth, trade and exchange of farm and non-farm products in rural communities, even those that can adequately feed themselves.
For instance, government investment in irrigation projects, storage and transport facilities, roads connecting villages to larger markets in the rural areas of China and India, has made an impressive impact on employment and productivity and ultimately provided opportunities for poverty alleviation in the affected areas. According to UNDP, basic thresholds in roads, power, ports and communications must be reached in order to sustain growth.