I am working on consultancy and research in diversified issues:livelihoods, health, education, migration, enterprises development, gender, climate change and energy.
From my own observation in Ethiopia, the following points are the major peculiar causes but not given the required attention from the development actors for food security and nutrition inequalities particularly in rural areas
a. Poor awareness among the community members on nutrition friendly dietary practices: The odd thing is event the surplus produced areas in agricultural products are found less nutritionally poor/low nutritional status than the food shortage areas. This is not an availability of food issue but it is gap of food utilization which lacks to maintain balanced diet. Therefore, this requires a tailored awareness creation on keeping balanced diets to reduce nutrition inequalities. Hence, this report should include nutrition awareness program would reduce nutrition inequalities.
b. Insufficient supply of agricultural labor at the right time of agricultural activities: The female headed households and the poor households are highly affected with the lack of labor at the required time since most of them could not afford to pay for labor cost and/or could not handle the reciprocal labor arrangement. Therefore, they usually harvest poor agricultural production in terms of quantity and quality. Therefore, this draft report should assess the impact as well as propose the workable recommendation.
c. Limited awareness on the wild edible plants food security and nutrition effect: There are wild edible plants which are nutritionally rich , but not yet explored in comprehensive manner, have different utilization in different areas. In some areas, they serve as supplementary food for instance. Moringa (stenopetela) for the whole year while in other they are used only for compound fencing or shed. Therefore, this needs an effort to make awareness, promotion and demonstration. This is particularly useful for moisture stress areas. Therefore, this report should include the potentials of wild edible plants as a means for filling the gap of food security and nutrition inequalities.
d. Mono-cropping Crop Production System: This production system is one of the causes for nutrition inequalities in some areas particularly where accesses to market of other agricultural products are limited and/or high transaction costs due to long value chain from source of production.
e. Consumption seasonality pattern: The consumption pattern of rural areas in Ethiopia varies across seasons for some food items. In relative terms, in the harvest seasons there is a tendency of consumption of diversified foods while in the non-harvest seasons the consumption is keeping up with the limited food items which have less nutritional value. Therefore, this report should at least suggest how food stocks can reverse the food security and nutrition inequalities.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Q1. Partly yes and partly No. When I say partly yes, it would be good if the government commits to promote the involvement of migrants or returnees in the investment of agri-business where there is strong base of functionality developed agricultural value chains. My argument for partly No is I believe to make investment in any business or agribusiness worthwhile, it needs to invest more on the potential investors’ mindset/entrepreneurial skills. But from my crude observation in Ethiopia indicates that more migrants or returnees prefer to invest on services sector which is usually assumed agri-business return on investment is too long.
Q2. In my observation, matching grant program has both strong and weak points. The strong point is mainly attached to that it enables to access finance, skill and experience sharing/knowledge transfer. Whereas the weak point is that it has bureaucratic and/or long procedures, delay of release of apportioned budget for its purpose.
Q3. Agricultural machinery/tools matching grant. This has a great motivation to attract migrants or returnees for such investment.
Q4. I recalled there was World Bank funded matching grant program in Ethiopia 10 years ago to support export oriented business companies particularly involved in textile sub-sector.
Regards,
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Shirega Minuye
Dear Sir/Madam,
It is an interesting document and captures many important things. However, I like if it elaborates more about the following:
This zero draft guideline is good and I believe it meets its objective since it is intended to serve as basis for igniting more ideas related to the issue. From my experience, women and girls’ participation and decision making in production and marketing activities are also more compelling factors for food and nutrition security both at household and community level. However, this guideline has touched slightly in indirect way. In addition, the way family’s treatment of siblings (male and female) at household gives a way to make the gender disparity intergenerational. Therefore, the parenting styles of parents should be examined and brings into a table of policy agenda.
السيد Shirega Minuye
First of all, it is a crucial issue that needs a contribution from all concerned parties. It is therefore, I need to highlight the following points:
In general, particularly from the developing countries like East Africa, the policy making processes are driven or twisted to the interests of the political parties on the power. Therefore, it could say that others have limited policy influencing power.
There are also specific challenges that face scientists and other knowledge holders to effectively participate in agri-food system policy making processes.
Challenge 1: Lack of sufficient funding for conducting studies to generate relevant quality and reliable data for policy making
Challenge 2: Lack of consistent data from different institutions on the same issues-agri-food systems. There is a common challenge that great variation among the institutions on the quantitative results related to agri-food systems particularly the government structures seemingly come up with the biased results which distort the realities on the ground. Therefore, this might be a difficult task for scientists to prove or disprove as it would be time taking and costlier
Challenge 3:Data Analysis and synthesis problem: In most cases, based on my observation, scientists and other knowledge holders , the practice of data analysis style is mainly focused on simple variables for academic exercises which left off complex variables which have significant role on the policy designing
Challenge 4: Lack of producing tailored policy recommendation: It is usually observed that scientists and other knowledge holders provide blanket recommendations either taken form literature review or coping from other similar countries policies without digesting or distilling relevant to their countries.
Challenge 5: Disagreement among scientists on some issues: For instance, the practice of GMO foods is not favored by many scientists; in this case, it creates confusion for policy makers as it might be difficult to get into which one is right or wrong
Related to opportunities, the existing digitalization and global system need to flourish the knowledge economy which gives a wide opportunity for scientists to exercise their practical experience or knowledge.
Best Regards,
Shirega Minuye, Senior Researcher