Achieving food security through community-based fo`od systems

[Note: Gail Feenstra, SAREP food systems analyst, attended a week-long seminar in Salzburg, Austria in May on food security and community-based food systems that was funded by the Kellogg Foundation. The UC Davis Provost’s office provided partial travel support. She shares here highlights of the seminar, which involved 58 participants from 28 countries.]

Schloss Leopoldskron, one of Austria’s national historic monuments and what many Americans may recognize as the site where the Sound of Music was filmed, was the spectacular setting of the Kellogg Foundation’s 2002 Salzburg Seminar. The week provided invaluable opportunities to hear participants discuss food insecurity from a global perspective. This article sums up the essence of these presentations and key themes from discussions during the week.

Status of food insecurity on a global scale

According to Rajul Pandya-Lorch, director of the 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment initiative of the International Food Policy Research Institute, in Washington D.C., progress in achieving global food security has been notable, but slow over the last three decades. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates show that since 1970, the number of food-insecure people has dropped 170 million in the developing world—a reduction from 37 percent to 18 percent of the world’s population. Yet, progress has been uneven. Although major improvements have occurred in East and Southeast Asia where the number of food-insecure people has dropped by half (largely due to changes in China), food insecurity has increased in South Asia and has more than doubled in Sub-Saharan Africa. About three-fifths of food-insecure people and three-quarters of all malnourished children live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (Pandya-Lorch, 2002).

Participants from North America and Europe noted that their countries also experience food insecurity, but on a very different scale than in Asia and Africa. Our statistics don’t even come close to those in the developing world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day and two million children under the age of five die every year from water and foodborne diseases.

Causes of food insecurity: the global context

We all generally agreed that poverty is the main cause of or can exacerbate food insecurity and vice versa. Worldwide, about three-quarters of food-insecure people live in rural areas, dependent directly or indirectly on agriculture for their food and livelihoods. So, agriculture must be an integral part of food security strategies, both for its role in food production as well as its role in providing employment. Yet, at the same time, it is recognized that with rapid urbanization in the developing world, the locus of hunger is shifting from rural to urban areas.

In North America, food insecurity is especially notable in urban areas, yet it also exists (sometimes invisibly) in rural areas. Food insecurity, from an industrialized country’s perspective, takes on different parameters than in the context of the developing world. It is a problem of poverty and income inequity resulting in inadequate access to nutritious food through normal market channels (Lezberg, 1999). In the United States, for example, food insecurity may not be associated with a visible incidence of malnutrition or food shortage, and may even contribute to obesity and other chronic diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes (Wagner, Butkus, and Wilken, 1994).

Over the course of the week we discussed root causes of hunger and food insecurity and various assumptions that tend to treat the symptoms of hunger, yet do not address these root causes. For example, it was generally agreed that increasing food production on a global scale will not improve food security, nor will free trade and free markets necessarily end hunger, nor will food aid necessarily help the hungry. Root causes of poverty, hunger and food insecurity are more directly linked to prevailing socio-economic inequity, which is characterized by loss of cultural diversity and traditional forms of food production and distribution, and unequal access to land and food.

Policies and governments in developing countries often influence the extent to which socio-economic inequities exist, yet the developed world has powerful influences as well. For example, the availability and overabundance of food in developed countries, corporate control of the food system and inappropriate development imposed by international agencies contribute to food insecurity in developing countries. It was humbling for those of us representing the United States and the European Union to hear how our food and agricultural policies impact Third World countries as well as our own citizens.

Successful food security initiatives

We agreed that a combination of strategies at various levels would be necessary to bring about meaningful changes and lasting food security. In spite of economic policies that often work against food security in many countries, there are examples of successful grassroots food security initiatives. These represent “spaces of hope” for the communities involved. As Michael Taylor from Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. and a Salzburg Seminar participant wrote in an article about U.S. food and development policy (2002):

There is no more direct way to address rural poverty and hunger than by building successful, community-based food systems. This means farmers improving their productivity in ways that are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. But it also means helping farmers connect with consumers through markets that work successfully at the local level and beyond to generate income and make food accessible for all. Developing countries can’t expect to achieve economic growth at the national level if they can’t meet their basic needs at the community level.

Community-based food systems are examples of innovation and provide valuable lessons for their participants. Seminar participants from all over the world shared examples of successful systems and summarized principles from them that could be applicable in many other situations. Successful community food systems tend to share the following characteristics:

• There is active participation of women and youth;
• They are based on traditional knowledge and local skills and resources;
• Agroecological approaches, resource conservation and appropriate technologies are used in food/fiber production;
• There is community organization and support;
• Participatory development methods are used, including farmer-to-farmer networks;
• Local markets are key;
• Micro-credit and financing are common.

More support for successful strategies

All of us were interested in how to help secure more support for and expand these initiatives to increase the beneficial impacts of local food security approaches to larger numbers of communities and broader geographical areas. Elements that were suggested included:

• Popular education programs for all ages and gender groups;
• Forming partnerships with communities and institutions (nonprofits, universities);
• Using farmer-to-farmer networks (locally and regionally);
• Applying agroecological principles;
• Creating and sustaining supportive policies and political will; and
• Developing local and regional markets.
  

Additionally, participants concluded that to truly be meaningful, collective community action must be linked to broader social movements that are working toward food security at many levels. These movements are challenging root causes of food insecurity, attempting to increase access to land, increasing participation in food and fiber systems by all members of the community, and supporting food and agricultural systems that respect both biological and cultural diversity. In the United States, there are several social movements that support these broad goals, including the Community Food Security movement, the Sustainable Agriculture movement, the Fair Trade movement, as well as a variety of organizations that support farmworker rights, a living wage and human and community health.

“Take home” lessons

In his article, Taylor asks what the policy implications of global food insecurity are for those of us in North America. We have already committed ourselves in the U.S. to the United Nations’ goals of cutting global poverty and hunger in half by 2015, and President Bush has made a pledge to increase U.S. development aid. But is this enough? Perhaps we need to take a harder look at how our national agriculture policies affect those in developing countries. Many seminar participants were critical of the United States’ investment in subsidies that unfairly disadvantage farmers in developing country. Taylor suggests, and I agree, that instead, we could be investing more of our U.S. farm dollars in conservation and sustainable agricultural practices and community-based food systems.

Resources

Lezberg, Sharon. 1999. Finding common ground between food security and sustainable food systems. Paper presented at the 1999 Joint Meetings of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society, Toronto, Canada.

Pandya-Lorch, Rajul. “Setting the Context: Prospects for Global Food Security.” Paper presented at the Salzburg Seminar on Achieving Food Security through Community-Based Food Systems, Salzburg, Austria, May 2002.

Taylor, Michael. “Battling Global Poverty and Hunger at the Community Level,” June 2002, Resources for the Future, www.rff.org/Battling Global Poverty and Hunger.htm

Wagner, Patricia, Sue Butkus and Karen Wilken. 1994. A Conceptual Foundation for Food Security Public Issues Education: Definitions and Educator’s Roles. In Leidenfrost, Nancy and Wilkins, Jennifer (Eds.), Food Security in the United States: A Guidebook for Public Issues Education, Cooperative Extension System, USDA.