Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Ad Q 1) What are the main issues for policy-makers to consider when linking climate change on the one hand and food security and nutrition on the other?

Even/because this is a fiendishly complex issue, focus is essential. I suggest a focus on the weakest link in the food value chain i.e. smallholders in net-food importing developing countries (NFIDC). This requires a self-critical look into the reasons for the failure (i) of smallholders to even feed themselves (ii) of national and international institutions including FAO, IBRD and WTO to lift the inherent smallholder biases in their own policies and practices. The fact that many scholars and even the research arm of the World Bank itself had already identified such biases back in the 1990ies, but never acted on them, speaks long for what is basically a governance failure in many organisations and countries. Regardless of whether we consider climate change as fundamentally different challenge or as an additional factor of uncertainty impacting on global and national food security, it seems to me that without an answer and remedial action in this issue there is little chance for successful climate change mitigation especially in those countries and population groups likely to be affected most violently. Failing now would leave those smallholders with few mitigation options other than massive national and international migration.