Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

Dear FNS Forum readers,

It is great that FAO is conducting a consultation on this important topic. As rightly highlighted in the proposed outline (section 5.4), with increasingly frequent and dramatic climate change impacts striking the most vulnerable people, climate change is one of the main drivers of rural migrations, and will be even more so in the years to come.

As part of the Where the Rain Falls project,  CARE France in collaboration with the United Nations University conducted a few years ago a multi-country research project on the links between climate change, rainfall patterns and migrations.

The central focus of the initiative was to explore the circumstances under which households in selected case study sites in rural areas in Guatemala, Peru, Ghana, Tanzania, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam use migration as a risk management strategy when faced with rainfall variability and food and livelihood insecurity.

Several reports were produced and disseminated (global report attached here). Following this research phase, pilot projects were launched in 2013 in Bangladesh, India and Thailand and are still ongoing. As part of these projects, CARE is supporting vulnerable farmers to adapt to climate change and develop alternative livelihoods in order to reduce forced migrations. The impact of project activities on rural migrations is assessed through the project's monitoring and evaluation process.

On the same topic, a report was also developed and published recently by CARE Nederland: "Fleeing Climate Change: Impacts on Migrations and Displacement", which provides additonal interesting insight.

I remain at your disposal for additional information.

Best regards,

Marie

English translation below

Je me présente Mme Amina ABASS, Ministère de l'Agriculture et de l'Elevage/Niger:

Oui la question de la migration rurale constitue un véritable défi dans les questions de sécurité alimentaire, de paix ... surtout dans les pays de l'Afrique subsaharienne. La migration surtout rural impacte négativement sur la quantité/qualité des aliments à produire car les bras valides ou actifs agricoles qui constituent les seules forces productives abandonnent les exploitations agricoles et cela engendre du coût un problème de main d'oeuvre qualifiée. La majorité des exploitations agricoles n'ont pas encore les moyens d’accéder aux nouvelles technologies et deviennent ainsi vulnérables à l'insécurité alimentaire surtout dans ce contexte de changement climatique.

Les exploitations sont laissées aux femmes et aux enfants qui constituent les seuls maîtres des exploitations avec un accès limité aux financements agricoles, aux formations professionnelles, aux structures organisées.....Par ce biais, la majorité des enfants qui sont censés être à l'école se retrouvent dans le travail des enfants et pire encore la majorité d'entre ces enfants exerce une des pires formes de travail d'enfant dans le secteur ou leur santé, sécurité et leur bon développement sont menacés.

I am Mrs. Amina ABASS, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock/Niger:

Yes, the issue of rural migration is a real challenge in matters of food security, peace... especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Migration, especially rural migration, has a negative impact on the quantity/quality of food to be produced, since the valid or active agricultural labourers who constitute the only productive forces are abandoning farms and this leads to a problem of skilled labour. The majority of farms do not yet have the means to access new technologies and thus become vulnerable to food insecurity, especially in the context of climate change.

The farms are left to women and children who are the sole owners of the farms, with limited access to agricultural finance, vocational training and organised structures... In this way, the majority of children who are supposed to be in school end up in child labour, and even worse, the majority of these children are engaged in one of the worst forms of child labour in the sector, where their health, safety and development are threatened.

In my country Venezuela for several years is occurring this situation, rural workers migrate to the city seeking better living conditions, which generally do not find and increase the belts of urban poverty and marginality. This situation is mainly due to two reasons:

1. The lack of inputs for the producer to work obsolete agricultural machinery, lack of irrigation systems, lack of certified seed, fertilizers and chemicals to control pests.

2. Legal Insecurity: The agricultural producer must sell the crop to the government which is paid as and when he wants.

The costs of production do not even cover the payment of labor for the workers. At the moment it is very common to see many rural workers selling their harvest as informal merchants without any type of regulation which distorts the prices of the products generating inflation and shortage by the game of supply and demand. In addition, rural workers state that they can not work for a minimum wage in the countryside because it is not enough to cover their basic needs.

Finally we must conclude that this situation is a direct responsibility of the bad economic policies of the government that when it had the price of a barrel of oil in more than 100 $ did not invest in infrastructure and production of agroinsumos but that is dedicated to import food from producers of other countries to the detriment of domestic producers and now are paying the consequences of these wrong policies ...

With prospects for higher income earning jobs in urban and peri-urban areas there are major migration from rural areas in Kerala one of the most literate state of India. The migration to middle east, Canada, USA, Australia and Europe from rural and urban Kerala are noteworthy. The shortage in farm and plantation labour are met by immigration from Bihar, West Bengal, UP and North Eastern States. Occurence of marriages among immigrant labour and locals are becoming prevalent. Many commercial banks open during sundays for the service of immigrants. Even church services are held in Hindi in cities like Perumbavoor in Kerala. In construction industries especially national highways, the immigrants play a vital role. In hospitality industry, immigrants from North Eastern states are much visible. Now political parties have come forth to organize the unorganized labours. Despite all the measures taken by the Labour department of the Government,the conditions especially housing are very pathetic.

Chapter 4, para 4.1 talks about "changes toward less labour intensive practices" but important to recognise that this often results in changes in cropping pattern. For example, in the Delta of Egypt farmers are being encouraged to conserve water by growing less rice. There is supposed to be a quota on how much area can be sown to paddy. Despite this there are large areas of so called "illegal" paddy. Most farmers in this area are in fact part time and and paddy is the ideal crop which requires minimum attention from planting to harvest so that they can work off farm, 

The same situation is noticeable in South-East and South Asia where farmers are often being encouraged to grow non-paddy crops in order to save water, but often with rather limited success.  

There is no internationally accepted definition of ‘rural areas’. Heterogeneity in the characteristics of rural areas across countries complicates attempts to reduce the differences in national definitions and to harness them to some common criteria. In most cases rural areas are set as equivalent to non-urban areas. A lack of consistency in definition hinders comparability of rural indicators across countries and reduces usefulness of indicators for national governments.

The outline don't adress this problem.

I refer to the on going research topic of the Global Strategy improving Agricultural and Rural Statistics - GSARS entitled "Improving Rural Statistics". The objective of this research topic is to develop a framework and cost-effective methods to help countries produce rural statistics, including a proposal for an international definition of rural areas and degrees of rurality for statistical purposes. (see http://gsars.org/en/tag/ruralstatistic/)

The project has been collaborating with other international institutions (WB, OECD, JRC, and EUROSTAT) that are working on a degree of urbanization (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/degree-of-urbanisation) to ensure a consistent definition of urban and rural areas. (See also http://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/).

Dear Moderator,

Just an initial reaction to the outline --- It is not the case as stated that “knowledge of the exact relationship between agricultural and rural development and migration is limited due to relative scarcity both of statistical data and empirical analysis.”

Demographers --- including those working in the UN Population Division and New York (which has a Population and Development section) have been looking at and collecting data on this for the last several decades --- this encompasses several expert group meetings over the last decades. This topic has been a key area of research including work I believe previously done under the auspices of FAO (see Richard Bilsborrow’s body of work) as well as my own.

I strongly suggest you consult the UN Population Division resources and personnel in drafting this outline, I believe they will prove a valuable resource to this end.

I will review the outline as well to provide more specific comments as well.

Yours,

Catherine M. Marquette

Dear FSN Forum members,

Hand-in-hand with the 2018 edition of the State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA), FAO headquarters in Rome will be hosting a technical workshop on the 1st of December 2017 on:

The drivers and impacts of migration and labor mobility in origins and destinations: Building the evidence base for policies that promote safe, orderly and regular people’s and labor mobility for poverty reduction and sustainable development

The workshop will bring together researchers and policymakers from around the world to discuss and understand the diverse patterns, drivers and impacts of migration and labor mobility as well as to enhance the dialogue to promote rural-urban linkages for achieving sustainable livelihoods transformation, food security and nutrition and poverty reduction.

In the context of the program, FAO invites the submission of papers to be presented at the workshop. You are welcome to send your extended abstracts explaining the core question(s), data and methods used, and (anticipated) findings, or complete papers, to [email protected] by 29 September 2017.

For further information on the call, the aims of the workshop and the programme of work, please visit: www.fao.org/economic/esa/esa-events/migration/en

Laura

Laura Schenck

Small Family Farms Team

FAO

Dear Colleagues, I enclosed 2 papers (a short one in English published resently in the Indian journal EPW, and a longer one published in 2016 in the French journal "Economie Rurale") that may be useful for the preparation of the report. They illustrate how what you call "successful economic development and structural transformation of economies" may be questioned in a country like India due to land constraints and jobless growth that are disregarded by current theories of economic development and rural-urban migrations. Best regards, Bruno Dorin (CSH/CIRAD/CIRED, New Delhi, India)

Challenges posed to food security are the methods used to reduce poverty, enhance stability, promote growth in partner countries, education and health. Boost incomes and increase economic security (Agriculture, fisheries and water) through development assistance with effective governance that will lead to standard infrastructure and will facilitate trade and international competitiveness.