A Holistic Description of the Projected State of Global Nutrition and Food Security in 2030
On account of the brevity of the proposed paper, it will have to be a holistic overview of the current situation, what efforts are now underway to achieve SDG-2 and other related goals, their effectiveness to achieve the objectives intended to have been attained by now, and finally, what revisions and new actions are to be undertaken to reach our goal.
Why this suggested change of title?
Borrowed from a now discredited ‘theory of literary criticism’ (narratology), the term narrative in its standard use means a description of a true or imagined event after it has taken place. Moreover, it does not imply that the narrators are going to do something to change either the current situation, or it by 2030. If we are going to improve the global FSN by the target year, then it cannot be a narrative, rather a description of a projected or an anticipated future state of affairs. I think the drafters of the document should pay very serious attention to these two points in order to avoid two unfortunate solecisms. Let us not forget that this document ought to embody a statement of intent, viz., enhanced state of global nutrition and food security by the target year.
The Proposed Structure of the Document:
If the document is to display its authors’ keen desire to improve the current state of global FSN, and not to remain just passive reporters, then the it will have to contain the following elements:
1. A clear and an unequivocal statement of feasible intent. Generally at this level, it would take the form of a politically supported statement of global policy with room for relevant regional and national adaptation with reference to level-specific needs. References to such policies would be very useful to eliminate the unnecessary clutter and enhance its clarity and readability. I think this element should be as brief as possible without compromising its completeness.
2. This element will give a summary of the current state of global FSN with documented references to it globally, regionally and nationally.
3. Next, the document will summarise the current efforts directed at attaining the objectives the above policies embody. These need not be exhaustive descriptions and references to relevant plans of action would suffice.
4. Evaluation and revision of of our current endeavours towards achieving global FSN. I think this section would occupy the bulk of the paper as FAO statistics for 2018 indicate a deterioration of the state of flobal nutrition. This implies a deficit between the anticipated results of the ongoing activities and their actual results. Hence, the urgent need for their evaluation and revision of the way forward.
It is clear that the the difference between the projected and the actual results of the current efforts are due to their inappropriateness or incompetent execution, or a combination of both. Thus, our next step would be to ascertain the appropriateness of those efforts and the competence shown in their execution. Unless these essential steps are taken, we have no sound basis on which to determine a revised way forward towards our objectives. Simply continuing the same activities and adding some more to them does not eliminate an already existing shortcoming. I would like to emphasise that we ignore the flaws in our current endeavours at our own peril, opening ourselves to the accusation of having wasted great deal of time and resources in vain.
Therefore, it is important now to identify the Challenges to Our Way Forward:
5. Here, the obvious question would be, what should be the current state of global FSN if we are going to attain our 2030 objectives at the present rate of improvement? But the data from the FAO paints a steadily worsening picture. Therefore, other things being equal, the current rate of global FSN enhancement is inadequate. Thus, we face a two-fold difficulty;
I. What would be the minimally adequate rate of progress in FSN that would eventually enable us to attain our objectives for 2030? Let us call this R.
II. Once we have a tenable notion of R, how are we going to make up the short fall between it and the current rate of progress towards global FSN? This may seem a point difficult to understand, but a short reflection will convince us that we are not going forward, and we have to do so at a certain minimum rate if we are to achieve SDG-2. So, first we need to increase our rate of progress, and at a minimum, we need to reduce the number of the hungry and inappropriately nourished by some rate which may not be the optimal. As statistics concerning SDG-2 are intentional rather than factual, so would be its annual rate of achievement. This however, does not detract its value as an important guide to follow as long as we do not do so slavishly.
III. Quantitative increase of the type of effort in current use is not an option as discussed above until their appropriateness and competence of execution are established beyond doubt. It is worthwhile remembering that unless a proposed activity takes in to account the the capabilities of those to whom its execution is delegated, that activity would be inappropriate for it is beyond the capacity of the people who are supposed to engage in it. Furthermore, the following attributes of a proposed activity/project would render it inappropriate:
A. It is not sustainable with reference to the currently available local resources.
B. It does not make a sufficient quantity of food available to the local population.
C. The food it makes available is not affordable to a significant number of the local people.
D. The food it makes available is not varied or wholesome, and does not allow the local majority to procure a balanced diet. It is often against the local food culture, and ignores the dietary enjoyment of the end-user as though we still live in pre-historic times just content to fill our bellies.
All too often, no attention is paid to what constitutes the quality of food, when one occasionally does, it is a simple reductive notion that comes in two flavours viz., nutritive content ignoring whether the food concerned is desirable to an end-user, or its lack of injurious substances. A classic example of the harm done by this kind of expertise is the introduction of wheat to countries whose main source of carbohydrates were rice and some other grain types like millet, which made the use of traditional vegetable side-dishes with wheaten products unappetizing, thusputting an important source of their vitamins and minerals into disuse. I need not go into the expense and environmental cost of this piece of development.
What I have said so far is how one sees it from an end-user’s point of view. After all, it is the end-users who fill global hunger statistics as mere numbers, and it is time we kept him within sight. Let us now look at the type of activity we should engage in to achieve our objective.
6. I think that there is a general agreement on that such activities represent the use of a food system, their improvement (by no means through the introduction of ‘cutting edge’ technology.), its expansion and/revision. Meanwhile, use of a food system is governed by a certain set of external conditions that determine the exact composition of the sub-systems that makes up a food system. We will consider those important conditions in point 8 below.
7. For the sake of brevity, I shall not discuss the flaws in most current food systems inuse. The interested reader may find a useful account of it here: http://www.fao.org/fsnforum/sites/default/files/discussions/contributions/SFS_Manavado_.docx
8. As will be seen in the proposals outlined in the above link, our first food systems were simple tools intended to satisfy our nutritional needs by using our hunting and gathering skills to harvest food from our environment. Then those controlling conditions were the weather, richness of the environment and our own physical ability. However, they evolved in complexity in line with the social evolution of a social group involved. What is crucial to remember here, is that regardless of its current sophistication, its sole justifiable reason for existence is serving as a tool that enables us to procure our food. Value of food arises from its being the third essential thing for life after air and water. Many putative food systems that are said to represent ‘value chains’ are based on arguments categorically similar to those used by astrologers, charm pedlars and vendors of patent medicines. I have dealt with the anatomy of a justifiable food system in the article to which I have refered earlier.
9. Social advancement that fuelled the evolution of our food systems began to impose on it a wide variety of controls. Earlier, when it only served a family group, what controlled a food system was its user’s capacity to develop and use it, geographic and climatic factors and the salubriousness of one’s environment. The very first two real limitation man experienced in using a food system were the sudden adverse climatic changes and the impoverishment of the soil owing to the repeated cultivation of a crop in an area. We learned to compensate for these through the development of a supplementation sub-system appended to a food system. (see the article refered to above).
10. Most of the present food systems are designed to enable one to procure food through exchanging money for food, which is often far from a fair exchange. So, for most of us, earning enough to procure an adequate diet becomes a matter of critical importance. Complexities of our society has necessitated a fairly extensive governmental control of many aspects of social life, which is enforced with varying degrees of success.
11. Some of those controls manifest themselves as governmental policies to guide and direct courses of action beneficial to the people of a country, for no individual or a group will be able to undertake such action. However, such actions cover a wide variety of areas and achieving food security requires not only sound policies on agriculture, trade, employment, education, health, security etc., and their adequate implementation.
12. Unless one is very careful, those policies will often pull in opposite directions and will become obstructive to one another. So, it is essential to ensure that they display an inter-policy harmony, which when achieved will enable one to achieve the national goals associated with them. In addition, it is equally important to ensure that a given policy does not contain elements or modes of implementation that are in irrelevant or inappropriate. Their presence in a policy results in a lack of intra-policy harmony in it that renders it ineffective and wasteful.
The last four points here touches on the two major areas where an extensive overhaul has long been overdue, viz., the food systems in use and government policies in nearly every other area, for unless adequate employment cannot be achieved, it would make no sense to talk on increased food production as human population growth and demographic aggrigation continues apace. I think what we intend to do in those two related areas ought to form the concluding part of the document, and hope it would explore labour-intensive methods offering decent wages and an actual devolution of agro-economy as it has happened to political power.
Best wishes!
Lal Manavado.
Abu Saleh Abir