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

Dear colleagues and coordinator of the Forum, I would like to greet you from Colombia and particularly from the Metropolitan University of Barraqnuilla. I am a nutritionist-dietitian and I am a researcher in the area of ​​public nutrition.

Here are my contributions to this forum:

Does the draft focus on the most relevant issues relating to the links between migration, agriculture and rural development, or are there important dimensions left out?

The draft of the report focuses on relevant aspects of migrations on agriculture, I perceive that it is properly structured.

I recommend that figures be included that illustrate the state of rural migration in the world by region, depending on the availability of information, as well as other information that will help to illustrate the magnitude of the problem and if possible illustrate some relevant case studies such as the case of Colombia, where for many years the armed conflict caused displacement from the countryside to the city and this affected agri-food production and its quality of life, now with the peace process the situation is changing and peasants have begun to return to their lands but all this has to be a process led and accompanied by the government, also planned in agricultural policies.

The case of Venezuela our brother and neighbor, as it affects the current situation of the country to the peasants and in general as it is affecting the current situation of conflict and migrations the food and nutritional security of its inhabitants.

These are cases in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean that can help analyze the issue of migration and its relationship with agriculture and food and nutritional security.

Therefore, I suggest including some analysis of the relationship of migration with other variables, such as food systems and how food security is affected by urbanization processes.

The processes of urbanization generate transformation of agro-food value chains generating impacts on nutrition; when an agro-food system is supplied from local production, local collection centers are established, with flexible prices for consumers, product volumes and quality standards, availability to consumers through stores where traders and small farmers directly access Although these value chains can be affected by seasonal production, they encourage the consumption of healthy foodstuffs such as low-cost fruits and vegetables, livestock products and staple foods, particularly in rural areas and in urban poor neighborhoods reduce micronutrient deficiencies and malnutrition (Gómez et al, 2017).

Likewise, I suggest revising some approach to migration from human development where migrants are established as the cause of migration from the point of view of the migrants as human beings who seek when they leave their environments and the migrant as an individual with capacities, aspirations and expectations, not just as a producer agent in the agri-food system. This type of analysis helps to define policies for social protection, education and health, among others that must accompany agrifood policies and to analyze the phenomenon of migration as a complex and systemic phenomenon but seen in an integral way.

Migration from the countryside to the city generates consequences on food security affecting their incomes and living conditions by undertaking migration processes towards cities, where they enter to perpetuate the circle of poverty and food insecurity.

Do you have individual experience or do you know of case studies that are useful to help lay the foundations for particular parts of the report?

I have been doing bibliographic research on the subject from the invitations for World Food Day and the call for presentations made by FAO.

Do you know key sources of information that may be useful for the preparation of the report?

Please see the documents attached.