المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Greetings!

Obviously, it is important to ensure a supply of potable water during such crises. And one may even argue that water is a food constituent. However, I will confine myself to food in the sense it is often used.

I envisage two logically inseperable means one needs to use in order to achieve the above objective.

First, it is essential to establish a reliable and sustained supply of the appropriate food stuffs of adequate quality. Their appropriateness is sometimes overlooked; for instance, a supply of wheat flour will be of limited use to people whose staple food is rice. The importance of the quality of food provided needs no elaboration.

The second component involved here, is the delivery of food. This in turn, has two distinct components. First, the transport of food from the source areas to a target area, and secondly,  temporary storage and delivery of food to its final recipients.

So, the agenda in question, must strive to device and implement those two principal components of the means required to adress the issue.

Ensuring a reliable and sustained supply of food stuffs seems to be the most challenging task. Here, I would suggest international action to establish regional and/or national food stocks large enough to meet shortages of food owing to natural disasters, climatic change, or conflict. Such food stocks can be renewed by taking in the new harvest and releasing the old stocks to the market for normal use. The difficulty here, is that the present commodity markets would  violently object to such a move, for it would deprive the commodity speculators of their profit. Once again, a reasonable solution to this problem is a question of political will.

Provided that such food stocks could be established, then it is necessary to build and operated appropriate type of depot at strategic locations, from where they may be transported to a target area. Their diployment should ensure that the food may be transported by land, air or sea with the least possible delay.

The second component of the plan is fraught with many more political difficulties. The first of those is to obtain permission to enter the air fields and harbours of the affected area by foreign transport agencies. Unless some agreement on this can be obtained well in advance, waste of food and increased suffering would ensue.

If agreement on this point obtains,  it would be essential to establish temporary depots of food in or near the target area.  More often than not, the recipient country may not be able to offer much help here.

This activity requires means of food transport from a point of disembarkation to a local depot. So, the agenda ought to consider the establishment of  transportable storage facilities such as tents, huts, etc., that may tolerate a wide variety of weather conditions, and could be put up quickly.

Both the food to be stored in a local depot and the means of its storage would have to be transported from their point of disembarkation by land, air or water (river transport). Target country may not be able to undertake this task.

The final component of transport involves distribution of food from a local depot to those who need it. What is appropriate here may range from mule transport in some remote parts of the Andes to heli-drops. So, whenever possible, the agenda should attempt to obtain prior local agreement on establishing a common transport strategy, at least from the points of disembarkation. Moreover, it would be necessary to secure a similar agreement to bring in supplies from abroad using foreign transport.

Once such agreements are in place, it would be worthwhile to establish either some central depots or quick response commitments  that would enable one to pick and transport the components needed to put up local depots.

I believe  somebody versed in military logistics  would be invaluable in designing the rapid transport one requires here, but much diplomacy would be needed to get the political agreement its implementation requires.

Now, we come to the tricky question of personnel, who would run the relief operation from the point of disembarkation of supplies? Here, a great deal can be done to relieve misery and suffering, and a great deal can be done to enrich oneself at the expense of the victims and donors.

Here, I can only suggest that these operation should be under some supervision of the relevant international body that possesses the appropriate competence. Carefully selected members of the appropriate NGO's may be of value here.

Thank you.

Best wishes!

Lal Manavado.