Dear all,
I had the honour and pleasure to take part in the APEC Food Security Workshop and would like to share some thoughts.
Food Security as we understand it today is defined as “existing when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.
From this definition we can deduce that food security bases itself on four main dimensions: the physics availability of food, the economic and physical access to it, the possibility to utilize the food (dietary practices, food preparation, health, etc) and the stability of the three previous dimensions over time (see FAO's Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security).
Now, given the complex nature of food security and the vast differences between the APEC economies it is clear that the challenges faced are extremely diverse. APEC reunites mature market economies, countries in transition and developing countries across various climatic zones and with populations ranging from 1.3 billion in China to less than 0.5 million in Brunei.
It is therefore normal that policies aiming at ensuring food security need to be fundamentally different in each member economy. An urban resident in Sydney will have very different priorities and ways to feed himself and his family than those available to a farmer in a remote rural village in Peru. However, the responsibilities of the governments remain the same. They need to put in place policies that create an environment in which citizens can be food secure according to all four dimensions. In this, APEC economies can learn a lot from each other. Being in very different stages of development and employing different types of government, there is a true treasure trove of experience.
Could the poorer countries learn from China and the fantastic success it had in lifting people out of food insecurity over the last decades? But would this approach work as well in a society with a different socioeconomic background? Is a liberal trade system the best way to follow? But how can poorer countries then protect their own nascent economies and agricultural sectors? Should we focus more on private or public investment?
While the answers to question such as these are far from easy to find, looking at what other countries did and the results they had can provide some valuable guidance. Meetings like the one organized by CAAS and this discussion are valuable exactly because they allow for such an exchange.
Let’s take advantage of the remaining days to share how our own countries have addressed food insecurity and explore what we, as young professionals and students can do to draw the right lessons from the past.
Let’s keep the ideas flowing
Max
Max Blanck