Global Food for Thought

Commentary - The Nexus between Science, Business & Collaboration

This post is part of a series produced by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Dr. Margaret Zeigler

Margaret Zeigler is the executive director of the Global Harvest Initiative

On May 21, leaders from numerous sectors will participate in the Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium to identify opportunities to alleviate hunger and poverty through agricultural development. In February of 2013, I visited the Philippines to conduct an in-depth look at how that nation’s government and civil society organizations are implementing new approaches to improve food and nutrition security. During meetings with policymakers, farmers, research institutions and the private sector, I witnessed a growing nexus among science, government and business as each sector begins to collaborate to advance the Philippine agricultural system, educate the next generation, and improve livelihoods of those in rural farming communities.

On the trip, I saw this nexus come to life through the CoCoPal Program. CoCoPal, named after the cocoa, coconut and Palayamanan concept of rice-based diversified farming, is implemented by ACDI/VOCA, one of GHI’s consultative partner organizations. In 2009, ACDI/VOCA was awarded a $6.6 million USDA Food for Progress grant. CoCoPal is improving the incomes and food security of 25,000 smallholder farmers and 125,000 indirect beneficiaries through value-chain growth and integration of diversified farming systems. The program also improves post-harvest processing facilities, and practices and standards for cultivation of cocoa, coconut and rice.

Let’s take a closer look at how the program is fostering science, business and collaboration.

Commentary - Freezing the Footprint of Food

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @globalagdev and #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21^st.

By Dr. Jason Clay

Jason Clay is World Wildlife Fund's senior vice president for market transformation.

By the year 2050, our planet will be home to another two billion people. How and where we will we feed everyone has become one of the most pressing conservation issues of the 21st century.

Farmers will need to produce twice as much food as they do now to meet population demands. Where will this food come from? Today, we use over a third of the planet’s surface to grow food. When you subtract deserts, mountains, likes, rivers, cities and highways, food production is spread over 58 percent of the land. Take out national parks and other protected areas and this figure rises to 70 percent of the planet’s available surface.

We need to freeze the footprint of food—find ways to double the productivity of farming, so that we can produce twice as much food and fiber on the same amount of land. This will require many actors working on several strategies simultaneously.

At WWF, we have identified eight steps, when taken together, could produce enough food for all and still maintain a living planet.

1. Eliminate Waste in the Food Chain

Today, we waste one out of every three calories produced. In developing countries, waste is a result of post-harvest loss, lack of infrastructure, and lack of storage. In countries like the United States and in the European Union, waste usually occurs in the home or in restaurants as unused food is thrown away.

If we eliminated waste in the food chain today—by recycling post-harvest loss, improving infrastructure and eliminating post-consumer waste—we could halve the amount of new food needed by 2050.

2. Harness Technology to Advance Plant Breeding

The study of genetics, combined with 21st Century technology, can help us scale up the amount of nutrients in different foods. At the same time, it will improve productivity, drought tolerance and disease resistance in an era of climate change.

WWF works with the African Orphan Crops consortium, including partners like the Beijing Genomics Institute, Mars, Incorporated and the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), to map the genomes of two dozen of the most important food crops in Africa. Once sequenced, this information will be put into the public domain so plant breeders can provide better planting materials for farmers.  

Commentary - InterAction’s Food Security Pledge: $1 Billion of Potential Leverage

This post is part of a series produced by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Mr. Sam Worthington

Sam Worthington is the president and CEO of InterAction, an alliance of more than 180 U.S.-based NGOs.

Last fall InterAction pledged that its member NGOs would spend more than $1 billion in private resources on food security, agriculture and nutrition work over the next three years.  It may come as a surprise that U.S.-based NGOs have this amount of private resources to commit to ensuring more families worldwide have the food they need. Thanks to support from the individuals, foundations and corporations who believe in their cause and approach, they do. 

In fact, the U.S. NGO community is one of the largest donors in the world. Privately-funded international expenses for U.S. NGOs total $14 billion per year, according to the Hudson Institute. And in many countries, NGOs’ spending in the areas of food security, agriculture and nutrition exceeds that of the U.S. government.

Why highlight this with a pledge? Our hope is that the pledge will create opportunities for donors such as the U.S. government or corporations to partner with U.S. NGOs in new ways and, ultimately, to better leverage private dollars. By doing so, our goal is to increase the impact of food security, agriculture and nutrition efforts so that we are able to help more people lift themselves out of poverty.  In a world where one in eight people is malnourished, innovative and effective partnering is a must.

With programs in every country in the world, U.S. NGOs are at the forefront on the issues of food security, agriculture and nutrition. They work alongside local communities to help people become more self-sufficient, and their efforts complement U.S. government programs such as Feed the Future. But U.S. NGOs cannot build local capacity or solve local food security problems at scale by working alone.

There is enormous potential for governments, the private sector, and U.S. NGOs to work together and align our efforts in sectors such as food security and nutrition. Governments bring public dollars and the ability to change public policy, while the private sector offers access to markets, value chains and large distributive capacity. U.S. NGOs’ added value includes decades-long connections with communities and expertise working with and strengthening local civil society, including farmer cooperatives —critical assets given the need for development dollars to deliver lasting results.

Commentary - Lesson from a Famine: Markets Matter

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDevand use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21. 

By Mr. Roger Thurow

Roger Thurow is senior fellow with Global Agricultural Development Initiative at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Roger Thurow’s reporting in Ethiopia was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Ten years after the Ethiopian famine of 2003, when international food aid rushed in to feed 14 million people, another World Food Program (WFP) tent has been erected on an open field.  But this isn’t a scene of food distribution.  It is a scene of food purchase.

The action happens on the grounds of the Sidama Elto Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Awassa, Ethiopia. Sidama Elto is one of 16 cooperative unions in Ethiopia that have signed forward contracts with the WFP for the purchase of more than 28,000 metric tons of maize grown by their smallholder farmer members.  The maize, which is part of 112,000 tons of food the WFP purchased in Ethiopia last year, will be used for WFP relief distributions in the country.  Ten years ago, many of those farmers and their families were receiving food aid from the WFP.

One of the major lessons in agricultural development over the past decade is this: Markets Matter.  The 2003 famine tragically, and incomprehensibly, followed two years of bumper harvests in Ethiopia.  The surplus production overwhelmed the country’s weak and inefficient markets.  There were no export channels; the domestic market’s ability to absorb the harvests was crippled by woeful infrastructure.  The food piled up on farms and prices collapsed, upwards of 80% in some areas.  Farmers lost incentive to plant the next year.  Then the drought hit, and feast turned to famine.  The markets had failed before the weather did.

That gobsmacking turnaround triggered a reversal of the neglect of agricultural development that had set in since the 1980s, as I noted in my TedxChange talk last month.  In the past decade, science and research geared toward improving the work of smallholder farmers (who produce the majority of the food grown in the developing world) have been reinvigorated; so too have trade and business efforts accelerated to provide greater market incentives and opportunities for the farmers.  Prior to 2003, boosting agricultural production – growing more food -- was the primary focus and developing markets was considered to be a “second-generation problem.”  Now, markets share top billing with production, as it should; markets provide incentive to produce more.

Commentary - Prioritizing Reduction of Food Losses and Waste for Food Security

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on twitter to join the conversation on May 21.

By Betty Bugusu

Betty Bugusu is the Managing Director for the International Food Technology Center (IFTC) at Purdue University.

Food security is one of the most pressing challenges in the world today.  The challenge is particularly important as the world population is projected to reach over 9 billion people resulting in increased food demand by the year 2050.  Over the years, increasing agriculture production and productivity has been viewed and supported as the solution for fixing the problem.  Despite the great progress made in this arena, such as improved crop varieties and productive farming methods, many parts of the world are still food insecure.  Furthermore production agriculture is constrained by diminishing natural resources (land, water, and energy) and climate change.  Undoubtedly, food security is a complex issue that requires multiple solutions beyond production as well as beyond agriculture. 

Reduction of food losses and waste is one of the key solutions to improving food security.  According to the 2010 United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, about one third of the food produced worldwide is lost.  Food losses occur in developing countries, predominantly after harvest, due to poor post-harvest handling and storage as well as limited or lack of value addition activities and markets.  Waste is prevalent in industrialized nations, mainly at retail and consumer levels due to various reasons, such as large portion sizes, strict standards, and cosmetics issues.  Reducing the amount of food lost requires increased investment in research and development to develop technologies and innovations in the post-production segment of the value chain.  This is especially true in developing countries where reducing losses can have immediate and major positive impact on hunger, malnutrition, and poor health, affecting the population.  It would effectively compliment the current incremental advances in agriculture production as well as reducing the strain on the available natural resources. 

Until recently, limited attention was given to developing post-production programs to reduce these losses and waste.  However, there is now a renewed acknowledgement of the role of food loss reduction efforts in improving food availability amongst governments, industry, and international organizations worldwide. 

Commentary - Failing to Address the Complexity of US International Food Aid Policy May Result in Perpetuating the Problem of World Hunger

By Hannah Laufer-Rottman

Hannah Laufer-Rottman is Executive Director of Palms for Life Fund, a not for profit that promotes a global alliance to end poverty and hunger. 

An encouraging new development from the Obama Administration intends to change the way the US distributes its international food aid. But will it succeed? While the goal of reducing hunger in the world continues to be a key strategic goal of this country, the effectiveness of the policy will hinge on the application of a global, regional and country-by-country understanding of how complexities can work for or against the issue.

The key elements of the policy will have to address these complexities: 1.) the hijacking of the right to food for all under an elaborate system of charity, 2.) the “weapon” element of food between nations, 3.) the necessity to distinguish between emergency and non-emergency food aid, 4.) the need to have a global, regional, and country-by-country comprehensive approach for determining  how to allocate US-grown food, local food or some combination of the two, 5.) the role of land investment in Africa as an impediment to local farming solutions, and 6.) the need to address the environmental and sustainable elements of food production.

Sustainable Agricultural Intensification: A Practical Solution for the Global Development Agenda

By Sir Gordon Conway
Professor of International Development, Agriculture for Impact, Imperial College London
This originally appeared on Huffington Post.

Hunger, malnutrition, poverty, climate change, environmental degradation - addressing these injustices is at the forefront of political meetings the world over. Yet these problems persist as global leaders strive to find efficient and synergistic ways of tackling them sustainably.

In Africa alone over 200 million people are chronically hungry and 40% of children under the age of 5 are stunted. At the same time, the African population is still rapidly growing and experiencing serious declines in its agricultural resource base with present food production systems only expected to be able to meet 13% of the continent's food needs by 2050.

Meeting the challenge of this "post-2015" development agenda - so-called because it will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) once they expire in 2015 - requires new solutions to addressing food insecurity, resource scarcity and at-risk rural livelihoods.

One such solution is Sustainable Intensification.

Sustainable Intensification as a new development paradigm

The phrase "Sustainable Intensification" was originally coined as a technical term, but it has become highly politicised more recently by various groups and is often incorrectly associated only with high-input, industrial agriculture.

However, a new report Sustainable Intensification: A New Paradigm for African Agriculture, authored by the Montpellier Panel of which I chair, aims to revisit the original intent of Sustainable Intensification and explain how it can be used by many types of farms, even smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

First coined by Jules Pretty and brought to prominence in a 2009 Royal Society Report and more recently in the FAO's Save and Grow Report, Sustainable Intensification can be simply defined as "producing more outputs with more efficient use of all inputs - on a durable basis - while reducing environmental damage and building resilience, natural capital and the flow of environmental services."

Making every dollar count - Food aid for the 21st century

By Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman

This was originally posted on Politico. 

When it comes to providing hunger relief to needy people around the world, the United States has been a leader since World War II. And if early reports about the Obama administration’s 2014 budget are true, then the U.S. will have a golden opportunity to provide even more food to the hungry while spending less taxpayer dollars in the years ahead.

For the past 60 years, the U.S. has invested an average of $2 billion annually in food aid and saved many millions of lives. Food aid has been an influential “soft power” tool in advancing American foreign policy goals. However, our laws have long required that the bulk of our food aid be purchased in the U.S. and then transported on U.S.-flagged ships to the far-flung places where it is needed. This requirement, combined with other outdated practices, have increased the costs and diminished our flexibility in responding quickly to crisis. The administration’s proposal would reportedly change this approach by issuing cash-grants that can go to purchasing food both from the U.S. and in or near areas where the hungry live.

This reform would speed up the delivery of aid to people facing starvation while maximizing our use of taxpayer dollars. Multiple studies by the GAO, leading academics and others suggest that purchasing food nearer to hunger crisis areas would cut in half or more the seven months it now takes to buy food here and ship it half way around the world. And the cost savings would be enormous. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that up to half of its spending on food aid now goes to ocean transportation costs.

Our agricultural, foreign policy and national security objectives would be better served by focusing our efforts more precisely toward getting food aid as quickly as possible to the people who desperately need it. The United States is the only food aid donor that still gives food in-kind rather than cash. Now is the time for flexible food aid program that uses our foreign assistance monies more efficiently and ensures America’s leadership in the fight against global hunger.

World Water Day: Embrace Technology to Get More Crop Per Drop

By Dr. Margaret Zeigler and Dr. Roberto Lenton

Dr. Margaret Zeigler is the executive director of the Global Harvest Initiative and Dr. Roberto Lenton is the founding executive director of the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska.

Water, climate, and agricultural experts connect the changing climate with the capacity to sustainably feed a growing global population.

Extreme weather in 2012 demonstrated the impacts of climate disruption on global food systems. Farms across three continents saw decreased yields due to record drought and heat in the U.S. and Europe and below average rainfall during India’s monsoons. Serious climatic challenges are just one factor affecting global food security. Growing global populations and rising incomes in developing and transition countries are reshaping global food demand. 

Higher incomes, urbanization and entrance into an expanding middle class affect how much and what people eat. Agriculture now accounts for roughly 70 percent of global water use. Without a significant boost in water-use efficiency, agricultural water demand would grow by 45 percent by 2030 as increasingly affluent consumers demand higher value food, especially meat, eggs, and dairy.

Changing consumption patterns are already taking shape in India, where spending on animal-based food doubled between 2005 and 2010. The International Water Management Institute projects that Indians will consume 64 percent more of their calories from animal products in 2025 than in 2000.

Securing Women's Right to Land Ownership

By Renee Giovarelli and D. Hien Tran

Renee Giovarelli is Executive Director of the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights and D. Hien Tran is Advocacy Director for Landesa.

Forty years after the green revolution dramatically increased agricultural output in much of the developing world a new revolution is taking place.

As Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food spotlighted in an op-ed in the New York Times earlier this month, men are leaving farms for work in the cities across much of the developing world and leaving management of the family farm to their wives.

De Schutter’s op-ed on the feminization of farming is correct on many levels. The women left behind on the family farms face “pervasive discrimination” that inhibits their climb out of poverty.  This further burdens women who are already bearing a disproportionate responsibility for uncompensated household chores.

But De Schutter’s outline of the challenges women face: “discrimination denies small-scale female farmers the same access men have to fertilizer, seeds, credit, membership in cooperatives and unions, and technical assistance,” misses one central issue: women very often have very limited rights even to the land they farm.

In many parts of the world, women do not enjoy the same rights to land that men do, and the overwhelming majority of women farmers lack legal control over the land they rely on to survive.  In many cases they do not have access to the critical items De Schutter mentions like credit and training because they lack legal or socially accepted rights over land.  For example, in India, women farmers tell us that they can’t access agricultural extension services without the benefit of a land document.  In Rwanda, women farmers tell us that before they had land titles in their names (the result of a government initiative launched five years ago), they could not buy the good quality, heavily subsidized fertilizer available through the government’s agricultural program.

Indeed, although the op-ed does not mention land, De Schutter’s report to the UN Human Rights Council points out that access to land is critical to women’s ability to fully participate in the economy and in society.  As he explains, “land is more than an economic asset that women should be allowed to use productively.  It is also a means of empowerment, as the greater economic independence that results from land ownership enhances the woman’s role in decision-making and allows her to garner more social, family and community support.”