GLOBAL SOIL PARTNERSHIP FOR FOOD SECURITY

GLOBAL SOIL PARTNERSHIP FOR FOOD SECURITY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

A great news about soil partnership—on a global scale—was recently churned out of the news mills of the Food and Agricultural Organization or FAO. Addressing soil problems at this juncture isn’t only timely, it is in fact a bit late already.

The problem with soil deterioration due to over-farming and over-grazing was already experienced across many nations as early as the 1980s yet. I still recall, as a young development expert and academic, how we stakeholders expressed chagrin over the abusive use of land by the tillers and biz herders. Even the lakes in my country PH were already being threatened by over-fishing through unregulated fishpens.

Today the ecological problem posed by agri-related concerns had already reached a near-catastrophic proportion globally. Global partnership to address soil problems is a very urgent strategy, more so that climate change had entered the arena with gargantuan challenges and threats.

The report on the subject is shown below.

[Philippines, 09 October 2011]

Source: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/89277/icode/

Global Soil Partnership for Food Security launched at FAO / New effort to assure soils future generations

7 September 2011, Rome - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf warned today that pressure on the world's soil resources and land degradation are threatening global food security. He called for a renewed international effort to assure sufficient fertile and healthy soils today and for future generations.

Diouf was speaking here at the start of a three-day meeting to launch a new Global Soil Partnership for Food security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation.

"Soil is an essential component of the world's production systems and ecosystems," Diouf said. "But it is also a fragile and non-renewable resource. It is very easily degraded and it is slow, difficult and expensive to regenerate," he added.

Increased pressure

Soil resources across the globe are subject to increased pressure from competing land uses and are affected by extensive degradation processes that rapidly deplete the limited amounts of soils and water available for food production, Diouf noted.

According to FAO, in Africa alone 6.3 million hectares of degraded farmland have lost their fertility and water-holding capacity and need to be regenerated to meet the demand for food of a population set to more than double in the next 40 years.

In 1982 FAO adopted a World Soil Charter spelling out the basic principles and guidelines for sustainable soil management and soil protection to be followed by governments and international organizations.

Implementation lacking

"However, there have been long delays in applying the Charter in many countries and regions of the world. New efforts to implement it must be made as soon as possible," Diouf said.

Besides helping implement the provisions of the World Soil Charter, the Global Soil Partnership is intended to raise awareness and motivate action by decision-makers on the importance of soils for food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The partnership is also aimed at providing favourable policy environment and technical solutions for soil protection and management and at helping mobilize resources and expertise for joint activities and programmes.

The Global Soil Partnership will complement the 15-year-old Global Water Partnership initiated by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank in 1996 to coordinate the development and management of water, land, and related resources in order to maximise economic and social welfare without compromising the sustainability of vital environmental systems.

Greater resilience

Short-term interventions to provide food, water and basic needs such as seeds and fertilizer to kick-start agriculture is the usual response to food crises and extreme weather events such as in the Horn of Africa. However, longer-term and large-scale measures are needed in order to build greater resilience to degradation, drought and climate change and reduce human vulnerability to disasters.

The Horn of Africa crisis, with the ongoing famine in Somalia, is the most severe food security emergency in the world today. Besides issues of insecurity and governance, the crisis is caused to a large extent by inadequate soil and water management policies and practices.

The Rome meeting is expected to start work on an Action Plan on sustainable soil management that will develop synergies between partners and bring together work currently being done separately on soil survey, assessment and monitoring, soil productivity, soil carbon, soil biodiversity and ecology and soil and water conservation.

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G20 WARMS UP ON FOOD SECURITY RESEARCH

G20 WARMS UP ON FOOD SECURITY RESEARCH

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

There is a good news coming from the stakeholders of the G20 nations: the enthusiasm on food security research. This is a most welcome move, and let’s hope for sustained action on funding, launching and disseminating food security research & development results.

This is not to say that food security has been outside the ambit of science discourse among G20 nations. It was on the plate of options in the past, though it played second fiddle to industrial agenda and global trade reforms. Besides, there were the peace & development studies aimed at eradicating terrorism and organized crime in the long run.

With the Millenium Development Goal and post-Kyoto Protocol at the backdrop of worldwide guides to state policies and executory measures, the G20 has finally shown a warmer reception to food security research. Land use patterns across the globe have shown a general deterioration of soil fertility and utility due to monocropping and inorganic inputs, while genetic engineering has offered new opportunities for sustainable grains and livestock production.

Below is a report from the SciDev.net about the latest G20 initiatives on food security research.

[Philippines, 03 October 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/food-security/news/g20-nations-turn-to-agricultural-research-for-food-security.html

G20 nations turn to agricultural research for food security

Yojana Sharma

16 September 2011

The G20 group of major economies has for the first time put international agricultural research on its agenda, in an effort to take a long-term view on the fight for food security.

The group's first meeting on the topic has endorsed the key role of agricultural research not only in preventing global food crises, but also in making an effective contribution to economic growth.

The meeting, taking place in Montpellier, France, this week (12–14 September), is being hosted by the French presidency of the G20 — the group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies. It involved representatives of international development organisations including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN and the World Bank.

"It is the first time the G20 has actively put international agricultural research on its agenda," said Mark Holderness, executive secretary of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), and one of the conference rapporteurs. "That is a big step in itself — the G20 countries have recognised that [agricultural research has] a wider economic relevance."

Although food security shot to the top of the political agenda during the 2008 food riots, "people put in a rapid response … there was no political buy-in to have a long-term view," Holderness told SciDev.Net.

"We have had another price spike and the World Bank is predicting another because food stocks are dwindling and there isn't the capacity in the system — we need to increase food productivity to meet that need."

According to the meeting's draft summary document, research systems in the G20 countries that help increase agricultural productivity can "contribute decisively to the improvement of food security" in the developing world through "improved coherence and coordination, stronger and equal partnerships and better knowledge sharing".

The G20 countries have been described as "a powerhouse of both agricultural innovation and production, with around 70 per cent of scientific publications on agriculture, and around 60 per cent of agricultural exports," said a paper for the conference prepared by Brazil, Canada, France and Japan, together with international organisations including the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the World Bank and the FAO.

"We are not going to have global-scale research for development without appropriate scientific partnerships," said Anne-Marie Izac, CGIAR chief science officer and another rapporteur.

The meeting also recognised the need for foresight studies to improve preparedness.

Izac said that foresight did not mean just being prepared for emergencies, but asking the research questions "which may not be urgent now, but are nonetheless essential for food security in a dynamic, constantly changing environment".

The CGIAR's Independent Science and Partnership Council advises donors on future scenarios, but foresight studies are "not yet embedded in the international agricultural research system", acknowledged Izac.

France's minister for cooperation Henri de Raincourt said the meeting's outcomes would be taken into account at the G20 meeting of finance and development ministers in Washington DC, United States, next week (23–24 September) before the G20 Summit in November in France.

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WORLD BANK & UNCHR AID TO SALVE HUNGER IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

WORLD BANK & UNCHR AID TO SALVE HUNGER IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

A graciously good news has been coming out lately from the enclaves of international organizations as their respective institutions have been stretching out their tentacles and logistics in aid of the famine victims in the Horn of Africa.

In my past notes, I already shared the information about the interventions done by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO) in the relief and rehabilitation efforts for the hungry 11 Millions of affected Africans. As of late, the World Bank and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) have entered the scene in aid of the miserable millions.

As of this writing, the World Bank and UNHCR jointly reported that their synergy will benefit approximately 550,000 famine victims. That represents 5% of the total of 11 Millions of pauperized hungry refugees, though it is already appreciable a move as other organizations, inclusive of international NGOs, are also on the move to aid others.

Below is a summary of the aid coming from the World Bank news rooms.

[Philippines, 26 September 2011]

Source: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23001986~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html

World Bank, UNHCR Join Efforts in an Emergency Response to Malnutrition and Disease in Horn of Africa Refugee Camps

Press Release No:2012/074/AFR

Some 550,000 people, mostly women and children, expected to benefit

WASHINGTON, September 15, 2011 – Over half a million people, mostly women and children, will be able to access nutrition, health and sanitation services in refugee settlements along the Somali border in Kenya and Ethiopia as a result of a US$30 million grant which the World Bank announced today.

The grant is drawn from the $250 million earmarked for the Horn of Africa drought through the Crisis Response Window (CRW) recently established as part of the International Development Association (IDA)—the World Bank Group’s fund for the world’s 80 poorest countries—to respond in a timely manner to emerging crises in low-income countries.

The $30 million grant will be administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) under the Horn of Africa Emergency Health and Nutrition Project, which is one of several initiatives undertaken by the World Bank to respond to one of the worst droughts in the Horn of Africa sub-region in more than half a century.

The drought has caused deaths, widespread hunger, massive displacement, and loss of means to survive in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, where the United Nations has declared a famine. Nearly 13.3 million people across the sub-region are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance.

Specifically, the grant will help reinforce ongoing UNHCR relief efforts with an emphasis on the most vulnerable, notably women and children. Targeted activities include measures to combat malnutrition (such as nutritious food and micronutrient supplements); basic health services, including pediatric and maternal care; and immunization. In addition, grant resources will be used to expand access to safe water and sanitation services, and to prevent and treat common illnesses such as diarrhea, measles, and malaria.

“When communicable diseases are addressed in densely populated environments such as refugee settlements, it is not only refugees who benefit, but also their host communities,” said António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “The funds granted today will allow us to expand coverage of essential health, nutrition, and sanitation services in the largest refugee camps in the Horn of Africa.”

Over the 18-month span of the project, it will help address the immediate needs of refugees in targeted camps, including those in the Dadaab complex in Kenya and the Dollo Ado area of Ethiopia, where there are nearly 600,000 Somali refugees.

Data collected at the camps shows alarming rates of severe acute malnutrition, especially among children under five years of age. Water shortages are also frequent. New refugees arriving at these sites are weak and prone to illness, and children are particularly at risk of dying of malnutrition and diarrheal diseases.

“The scale and severity of the Horn of Africa drought compels development agencies, governments, and NGOs to work in close collaboration in ways that maximize the comparative advantage of all partners,” said Obiageli Ezekwesili, World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region. “This approach ensures that we do not lose sight of the links between short-term crisis mitigation and the long term development outlook.”

The deadly nature of the drought has prompted the World Bank’s Board to allow unprecedented measures. This is the first grant through the Crisis Response Window issued directly to a UN agency. It is also the first time that the implementing entity’s procedures – not World Bank procedures - will be used through the life of this project, thus enabling an exceptional application of the 2008 Fiduciary Principles Accord signed between the Bank and the United Nations to this IDA operation.

Contacts:

World Bank: Kavita Watsa, (+1) 202 473 8302, kwatsa@worldbank.org

UNHCR: Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, (+41) 79 249 3483, lejeunek@unhcr.org

For more information, please visit: www.worldbank.org/afr or

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4e1ff4b06.html

Visit us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/worldbankafrica

Be updated via Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/worldbankafrica

For our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/worldbank

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CLIMATE DATA BENEFITS FARMERS IN SENEGAL

CLIMATE DATA BENEFITS FARMERS IN SENEGAL

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Many small planters across the globe are habitués of ecosystems that are replete with ecohazards. Add to that the risks posed by climate change patterns. Results: shrinking incomes, greater uncertainties of survival, possible deaths.

Sharing of climate data to the planter stakeholders could somehow dissipate any possibility of greater risks and damages. Information channels and data access are among the parameters that ought to be checked as enabling measures on the ground in aid of our small or marginal planters.

Senegal is among the developing countries that is addressing the challenges to data sharing and access in the area of climatology, that could then benefit farmers in the short run.

The update report on the Senegal precedent is shown below.

[Philippines, 20 September 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/features/how-climate-data-is-bringing-benefits-to-senegal-s-farmers.html

How climate data is bringing benefits to Senegal's farmers

Emeka Johnkingsley

11 August 2011

The InfoClim project, which distributes climate data to local communities, has helped Senegalese farmers adapt to climate change. SciDev.Net investigates.

Smallholder farmers have years of experience in assessing how climatic conditions, particularly rainfall, affect their crops. But as the climate changes, that knowledge — often gathered over a lifetime — may no longer be valid.

As a result, vulnerable farmers need help to adapt or fine-tune their practices. But as climate monitoring and research become more sophisticated, the gap between the technology and farming communities is getting wider.

A project in Senegal is now helping to bridge that gap.

The InfoClim project collects climate information and shares it with vulnerable populations, particularly farmers, to help them adjust their sowing, cultivation and other dates to suit the current climate.

The project's advisors begin by analysing data from the Centre for Ecological Monitoring (CSE) in Dakar and its partners to assess the probability of climatic events.

These partners include Senegal's National Meteorological Agency, which collects seasonal forecasts, and the Senegalese Agricultural Research Institute (ISRA), which contributes information on adapted crops. The Laboratory for Atmospheric Physics at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar provides local climate models and scenarios.

Sharing knowledge

The scientific data are then shared with communities through four well-equipped regional 'observatories'. Local people trained by the project use community radio stations and meetings to pass the climate information to farmers.

Innocent Butare of the Senegal office of Canada's International Development Research Centre, which funded the InfoClim project, said the pilot project was intended to understand how to disseminate scientific information on adaptation to climate change to rural communities and local decision-makers.

The project provides farmers and local communities with climate data and soil statistics, and helps them share their knowledge to improve planting practices and ensure better yields.

Members of community-based organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and local decision-makers have learnt how to use agro-meteorological data to assess different options for adapting to climate change.

These include changing planting dates, using drought-resistant seeds, diversifying crops and planting perennial crops, improving water and soil management, fighting soil erosion, developing agro-forestry, integrating crops, livestock and trees, and finding alternative sources of income.

The success of the project has depended on building reliable networks between researchers and rural communities to share information on climate change.

"The project allowed the sharing of views on climate change and [highlighted] the importance of access to the information as a means of strengthening the capacity of rural communities to adapt to this phenomenon," said Butare.

"We also involved people from the local administration, local political decision-makers, community-based organisations and NGO representatives," said Butare. "Those forums are still working after the end of the project."

Local planning

The three-year research project, which started in 2008, was due to end in December 2010 but was extended by six months, spreading across four communities: Fandène, Notto Diobass, Taiba Ndiaye and Thiès. Other regions of Senegal are now asking for similar projects to help them.

Butare added that the project, funded to the tune of more than US$443,000, is a good example of how local decision-makers can use scientific information to integrate climate-change concerns into local development plans.

Amadou Sall, project leader of InfoClim, told SciDev.Net that the project had showed that adaptation at the local level is a condition of success for a national policy of adaptation to climate change.

Ibrahima Thiao, programme coordinator at the Federation of Non-Governmental Organisations of Senegal, said that InfoClim is one of the few innovative projects that provides opportunities for farmers, technicians and scientists to discuss common issues within a well-defined environment.

"Apart from the know-how, which the project inculcated in the partners, it scores a major point in securing the commitment of scientists and technicians to provide answers to farmers whenever they have questions about climate change as it relates to their work.

"It built the confidence of farmers by enhancing their knowledge and equipped them with the skills to be able to translate scientific and technical information into simple and understandable messages. Farmers want accurate information about the climate events that affect their crops," said Thiao.

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COWPEAS UPSCALE POST-HARVEST TECHNIQUES

COWPEAS UPSCALE POST-HARVEST TECHNIQUES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Gracious day from the suburban boondocks west of Manila!

Cowpeas has been among the most important sources of nutrients for the poor peoples of semi-arid Africa. Understandably, the production and post-harvest phases for the crop must optimize the gains accrued from it by the small planters.

In the concerned areas where the quality of sunlight is good, solar technology applications for the cowpeas is very promising. Solar heat can control pests that may feast on the product, while solar panels can energize the farms. Estimates put it that benefits to the farmers of central and west Africa can go as much as nearly US$300 millions in 2020, using related post-harvest technologies.

Below is an update report about the promising post-harvest techniques.

[Philippines, 18 September 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/post-harvest-technologies-pay-off-for-cowpeas.html

Post-harvest technologies pay off for cowpeas

Bernard Appiah

17 August 2011

Tricks that prevent the rotting of cowpeas, an African staple, after they have been harvested, will have yielded US$295 million of benefits in west and central Africa by 2020, according to new research.

Solar powered heaters to kill pests, simple, airtight containers and other storage technologies developed between 1982 and 2007 through the Bean/Cowpea Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP), are having a dramatic impact on production of the bean (Vigna unguiculata), an important source of protein in semi-arid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, the study has shown.

The programme — now known as Pulse CRSP — works with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to support research and extension links among West and Central African cowpea researchers and their US counterparts.

The collaboration has led to improved storage technologies that are now used for nearly a third of grain in the region, the study says.

The researchers measured the economic impact of the non-chemical technologies in seven countries — Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal — which account for more than 96 per cent of the region's production.

They surveyed about 800 randomly selected village cowpea farmers and added price data from several sources. The results, were published in the July issue of Journal of Stored Products Research.

"If the cowpeas are stored in airtight containers, such as a triple bag or metal drums, the [pest] insects quickly use up the oxygen, the oxygen level drops, and the insects either die or leave the cowpeas so they don't cause any more damage," said James Lowenberg-DeBoer, a co-author of the research and a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, in the United States.

He added that the technologies mean that millions of poor farmers can improve their income from selling produce especially during the seasons when cowpeas is scarce. The improved technologies also reduce the application of pesticides during cowpea storage, which can lead to poisoning.

Several reports have recently outlined the importance of using existing and new technologies to cut post-harvest food loss and waste, which is as high as 30 per cent of all produced food globally.

Ousmane Coulibaly, an agricultural economist with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Benin said the study probably underestimated the total economic benefits.

"Cowpea provides protein and thus prevents nutritional diseases particularly in poor people, which can also lead to economic gains."

And Adeola Olufemi Oyebanji, the officer-in-charge of the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute said that the study considered improved technologies only at the rural level and therefore did not reflect the overall regional economic benefit.

"There are huge economic gains for large industries that use improved technologies for cowpea storage too," Oyebanji said.

Link to article abstract in Journal of Stored Products Research

References

Journal of Stored Products Research doi:10.1016/j.jspr.2011.02.001 (2011)

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HORN OF AFRICA: STARVATION THREATS

HORN OF AFRICA: STARVATION THREATS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Gargantuan social crises brought about by almost ceaseless warring among ethnic communities surely have their tolls on the affected populations. Africa has been the most direly affected by such crises, with the end result of seeing up to around 3 millions of non-combatants needing immediate relief to stave off hunger and death.

There isn’t a single continent that hasn’t been affected by such calamitous events. The war calamity actually borders catastrophe, as the debilitation caused by starvation will be long lasting. My country the Philippines has its own versions of lingering ethno-religious and ideologically-driven wars, with hundreds of thousands up to a million displaced by the hot wars between Moslem rebels and government forces in Mindanao.

The hunger cum famine situation induced by long wars and unattended farms (during hot conflicts) tend to yank out textbook principles of crisis intervention. Expertise practically fails during such eventualities.

Take the case of the Horn of East Africa, where 11 million from 3 countries are threatened with starvation. As a development expert, I would admit to my own inadequacies to address such a gargantuan crisis situation, which demands humility and immediate relief. Below is an opinion note on crisis prevention in the said region.

[Philippines, 13 August 2011]

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/articles/crisis-prevention-the-meaning-of-independence

Crisis Prevention & the Meaning of Independence

By Rolf Rosenkranz on 14 July 2011

A vulture eying a starving toddler – a nightmarish scene. The late Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for that chilling photo taken 1993 in South Sudan. It shocked the international community and prompted massive relief for a region reeling from civil war and famine.

That region became an independent state Saturday in a long process carefully aided by the United Nations and others.

As citizens of the newly formed Republic of South Sudan put persistent worries aside and celebrate independence from Khartoum, a colossal food crisis is threatening to destabilize the Horn of East Africa.

Some 11.5 million people in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are at risk of starvation. It’s the most severe food security emergency in the world today, the worst drought in 60 years. And the current humanitarian response is inadequate.

That’s according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which predicted the drought last year. FEWS NET is run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has made food security and crisis response & prevention pillars of its new strategy.

Can development aid help diffuse or even prevent crises before they occur (and threaten the safety and economic security of others around the globe)? Most likely. The key to making it work: a functioning early warning system, political leadership, money and sufficient funding flexibility. And an international community working in partnership to tackle emerging issues.

But of course, things aren’t always clear-cut, especially when development, diplomacy and defense objectives collide. Should the international community freeze assistance to the Palestinian territories, for instance, as long as their leaders seek statehood with the United Nations? Should international donors continue to fund HIV prevention in China and other emerging economies? What exactly should be the role of private and public donors like the European Union?

Amid these current debates, the suffering continues in the Horn of Africa. As Save the Children CEO Justin Forsyth wrote last week in the Huffington Post: “Two tragedies are unfolding in the horn of Africa. The first is the very visible one, the tragedy of families who’ve walked for weeks, their children growing weak with hunger, desperate for our help. Then there is the larger tragedy of a failing humanitarian system built around responding to emergencies, not preventing them.”

It appears as if sweeping reforms of our relief and development architecture are needed to truly tackle emerging crises before they get out of hand.

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FOOD SECURITY FROM FARM TO INDUSTRY

FOOD SECURITY FROM FARM TO INDUSTRY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

‘Food security’ as a theme has been reverberating the planet for over two (2) decades now. I still recall, upon my return to graduate school in 1997 to take up development studies (w/ global political economy foundation), that food security was already a wave in terms of advocacy clamors.

Since 1998, I was involved in couples of projects about food production, which includes a 550-hectare farm systems development for a sugarworkers’ cooperative (they wished to shift to diverse crops) and a public policy project on fair trade and food security. That, on top of earlier efforts on food enterprise development and financing (1980s).

The most shocking truth about food production is when you, as specialist and expert, would find out first hand that the food producers you deal with are themselves malnourished, low-income earning, and could nil afford to send their kids to school. That is, the food producers themselves are the most food insecure, which is a paradox of capitalist development.

After long engagement on the food sector (among other sectors I got involved in), I am very highly convinced that interventions in the value chain are key to boosting productivity, increasing income, and improving the quality of life of food producers. Value chain should mean up to downstream industrial processing of food to make them more elastic.

Let us take a glimpse at the efforts of the international organization UNIDO in regard to enabling country stakeholders take the road from food production to agro-industries. The efforts do dovetail into interventions on the value-chain.

[Philippines, 14 July 2011]

Source: www.unido,org, http://www.3adi.org/

Africa’s Agro-industry and Agribusiness Development Initiative (3ADI)

Our goal

The goal of the 3ADI is to have an agriculture sector in Africa which, by the year 2020, is made up of highly productive and profitable agricultural value chains. The initiative aims at accelerating the development of agribusiness and agro-industries sectors that ensure value-addition to Africa’s agricultural products.

The leading agencies: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), join forces to support a well-coordinated effort to enhance development impacts. The cooperation builds on sharing knowledge and harmonizing programmes in ways that capture synergies, avoid fragmented efforts, and enhance developmental impacts.

For the 3ADI concept note: click here

Our vision

Food security in developing countries begins with better, more humane and more honest governance; with fair access to land for the most vulnerable populations; with small farmers association, provided with real bargaining power; with technological development for a more productive agricultural sector, that are also in environmentally friendly.

The solution can be found in collective action and resources undertaken by a variety of actors otherwise independent. For the past three years, UNIDO, FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have been working on the ground in least developed countries to promote the expansion of local and international value chains that benefit the small producers and entrepreneurs, who create jobs and income, and who gradually transform the rural world to turn it into an attractive career proposition to the eyes of the youth in search of a better future.

The resources exist, the will is evident; the question is how to catalyze the convergence of the value chain components in a situation that provides attractive returns to all stakeholders, while addressing at the same time the most necessary of the Millennium Development Goals, reducing poverty and hunger worldwide.

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs & website anytime!

Social Blogs:

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PROF. ERLE FRAYNE ARGONZA: http://erleargonza.com

RURAL DEVELOPMENT SHOULD BE TOP PRIORITY WORLDWIDE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Good evening from the Philippines’ highland suburbs!

For this note I will focus on the thesis that rural development should be pursued by developing countries. The world’s nations have pursued growth that has been badly skewed towards urbanization and commercialization since after World War II, a total effort that has seen many people become poor as a result. Most of the poor folks are in rural hinterlands and fisherfolks.

The Philippines is a classic case in point that has been direly affected by the badly skewed development in favor of urbanization, an endeavor that has been fostered at the expense of rural communities of farmers, fisherfolks, and Indigenous Peoples or IPs. Today, Philippine population is 66% urban and 34% rural, with 2% added to urban population every year.

As urbanization grows, rural poverty likewise grows in my beloved country. Rural to urban poverty ratio here is 2.5:1 and is still moving up. It was 2.1:1 in 1989, and the situation has been deteriorating ever since. 70% of the country’s poor families are rural, with only 30% as urban. Very clearly, between the two, it is rural development that must be pursued with vigor to reverse the poverty situation in the country as a whole.

To demonstrate what I mean by skewed development, consider the following information:

 MetroManila or simply Manila, the national capital region (NCR), produces 30% or nearly 1/3 of the nation’s wealth. Yet it supports merely 12% o3 1/8 of the nation’s population.

 As of end of 2009, Manila contributed a whopping US $65 Billion to the country’s $186 Billion GDP or gross domestic product. Using UNDP converter index, Manila’s GDP, multiplied by 4, registered an enviable $260 Billion-Purchasing Power Parity or PPP for 2009, rendering it as wealthy as the whole of Vietnam.

 Included among the world’s 35 most wealthy and powerful mega-cities—comprising the ‘global nexus’—Manila’s economy remains at 65% services and 35% industries, with nary a food base worth documenting. These economic sectors are the highest in value-added, ensuring high levels of income for all component cities and towns of the mega-city.

 Poverty in Manila has been reduced to a manageable 8%, rendering it on an even much better situation than the USA’s whose poverty incidence had climbed from 12% in 2002 to 15% today. Manila has all the resources it needs to solve its own poverty and development problems, which made it drastically reduce poverty since the 1990s.

 Therefore, Manila should no longer be subsidized by national government in terms of development projects, from roads to international airports (Los Angeles & US cities are building their own airports without federal or state government support). Yet, as records show, billions of dollars are still being poured by national government to bankroll gigantic projects here, such as lightrail systems, international airport expansion, and flood control.

 On top of those national government-initiated projects is Pagcor City, a world-class theme park-cum-gaming complex that is costing U.S. $25 Billion (with private participation). It will employ 250,000 and will house the world’s tallest tower. It is targeted for completion in 2014.

So, as you can see from the Philippine case, whereas the mega-city receives billions of dollars for new projects and urban renewal, the rural areas continue to wallow in appalling states of abject poverty. Lucky enough if a region outside Manila would be appropriated P1 Billion or U.S. $24 Million at any given year from the pork barrels of Congress.

Fisherfolks in my country are particularly the most vulnerable to poverty and deleterious living conditions spawned by it. With poverty incidence at 66%, you could easily see why past 40% of fisherfolks’ children suffer from advanced malnutrition. The situation of over-fishing in the entire country compounds the poverty situation of marginal fisherfolks who can ill afford to equip themselves with state-of-the art fishing gears to compete with commercial fishers.

To say that the Philippines is in a transition phase, and that poverty and malnutrition will disappear it time as the country reaches development ‘maturity’, is pure delusion. Without active intervention to improve the capacities and capabilities of fisherfolks, farmers, and IPs, the problem of poverty will never fade away but will, as a matter of fact, worsen with time.

With so many rural folks wallowing in cesspools of pauperization, we can at best watch more rural insurgencies feast upon the resentment-filled minds of the rural poor. As the Philippine case has shown, past rural insurgencies have ceased only to be replaced by new, bigger, and more ferocious insurgencies.

[Philippines, 11 August 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

TRADE & HUNGER: SALVING HUNGER VIA TRADE POLICY

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Let me continue on the issue of hunger, which many politicians are raising howls this early in time for the 2010 polls. The tendency right now, with politicians’ short-sightedness and poverty of wisdom, is that hunger will be perpetuated and sustained even long after the same politicians are all dead.

In the study on fair trade & food security I did for the national center for fair trade and food security (KAISAMPALAD), I already raised the howl about hunger and recommended policy and institutional intervention.

Since other experts, notably nutritionists, already highlighted many factors to hunger and under-nutrition, such as lifestyle problems, economics, and lack of appropriate public policy, I preferred to highlight in that study the factor of trade on food insecurity and the hunger malaise. Let me cite some cases here to show how trade and hunger are directly related:

· Immediately after the termination of the sugar quota of the USA for Philippine-sourced sugar in the early 80s, the domestic sugar industry collapsed. 500,000 hungry sugar workers and their dependents had to line up for food, a tragedy and calamity that shamed the country before the international community. Till these days, the trauma caused by that ‘line up for porridge’ solution remains among those children of those days who are now adults, one of whom became my student at the University of the Philippines Manila campus (a girl).

· Two years ago, a cargo ship carrying PETRON oil to the Visayas got struck with leaks and a tragic spillage covering wide swaths of sea waters. The island province of Guimaras suffered catastrophically from that incident, its economy was as bad as a war-torn economy for one year. Its marginal fishers couldn’t fish for at least one year as the sea spillage had to cleaned up. The hunger and under-nutrition caused by that tragedy is indubitably related to a trade activity: oil being transported to a predefined destination.

· At the instance of trade liberalization on fruits upon the implementation of a series of GATT-related and IMF-World Bank sanctioned measures that began during the Cory Aquino regime, the massive entry of apples and fruit imports immediately crashed tens of thousands of producers of local mangoes, guavas and oranges, as domestic consumers (with their colonial flair for anything imported) chose to buy fruit imports in place of local ones. Economic dislocation and hunger instantly resulted from the trade liberalization policy.

The list could go on and on, as we go from one economic and/or population to another. What is clear here is that trade measures and activities do directly lead to food insecurity and the attendant problems of malnutrition and hunger. In the case of the Guimaras oil spillage calamity, humanitarian hands such as the Visayan provinces and Manila’s mayors’ offices, added to private and NGO groups, quickly moved to help the affected residents. Of course the PETRON itself took responsibility for the spillage, clean up, and offered humanitarian help as well. But did trade stakeholders ever paid for the hunger malaise suffered by the sugar workers and families, fruit small planters, and other families in the aftermath of shifting trade policy?

A strategic solution to trade-related hunger would be to constitute a Hunger Fund, whose funds shall come from at least 0.1% of all tariffs (on imports). A 0.1% tariff alone today translates to P800 million approximately, or close to $20 Million. This can serve as an insurance of sorts for trade-induced hunger. The funds will then be administered by an appropriate body, comprising of representatives from diverse sectors and headed by a nutritional scientist of international repute (e.g Dr. Florencio) rather than by a politician or ignoramus species.

Furthermore, insurance groups here can begin to innovate on food production-related insurance to cover force majeure damages. Cyclone insurance and earthquake insurance would be strong options for agricultural producers, even as other options can be designed most urgently.

I would admit that trade-related hunger and its solutions are practicable for the productive sectors of our population. There are 2.3 million street people today who comprise the relatively ‘unproductive sectors’, who all suffer from hunger. This need to be tackled as a distinct sector and problem, and discussed separately.

[Writ 28 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]