Enhancement of the Engagement between FAO and CSO’s
The great diversity among the CSO’s precludes any meaningful engagement between all of them and the FAO. Therefore, it would be necessary from the outset to device a suitable screening procedure to select the appropriate organisation with whom FAO may fruitfully interact. Once this has been carried out, the next challenge is to identify how best such an interaction may be undertaken in order to enhance the quality and quantity of the output from the food systems involved.
The best way for FAO to optimise its engagement with CSO’s would be to select to interact with those organisations directly associated with one or more of the sub-systems of the food systems that seem to be of importance to people of the area in which an CSO operates. Other things being equal, such sub-systems may include yielder, harvester, transport, preservation, preparation, supplementation or trade sub-system or any combination of them.
Unfortunately, the current notions on what may justifiably constitute our food systems are diffuse, vague not to say trade-centric as though food trade has any logical priority over the other sub-systems of a food system. This is patently incorrect despite the rhetorical notions like supply chains, block chain technology, etc. In order of their emergence into the real world, our food systems have the following component sub-systems:
• Yielder; first solely our environment and then agriculture in selected parts of it. Even then fishing, hunting and gathering are examples of the ancient usage carried out with modern equipment.
• Harvester; ranges from simple fishing, gathering nuts in a forest to the use of combined harvesters.
• Preparation; conversion of food into a ready-to-eat form which may or may not involve cooking.
• Transport; removal of the harvested produce or food from place to place. This may range from field to a grain silo or from a shop home.
• Preservation; prolonging the usability of food through a variety of processes such as drying, smoking, salting, refrigeration or by converting it into lasting forms like dairy products etc.
• Supplementation; originally concerned with methods applied to make up the shortfall in ecosystems services brought about by constant cultivation or weather changes. Such shortages include diminished soil fertility, lack of water, proliferation of pests owing to the reduction of biodiversity in cultivated areas. Use of fertilisers, irrigation and biocides are examples of this. In recent times, this has been extended to increase the yield of cultivars and in animal husbandry.
• Trade; requires no elaboration and some considers this last to emerge component to be the ‘first.’ Such a notion represents a belief in reverse social evolution which may be profitable to some while entailing misery to the food producer and the end-user.
Now, apart from its transport sub-system, CSO’s associated with improving the other sub-systems of national food systems are the appropriate bodies with whom FAO may fruitfully engage. However, FAO ought to ensure that their activities are exclusively concerned with those sub-systems and not any other socio-political issues. Failure to meet this criterion would remain an unsurmountable obstacle to success for obvious reasons.
Once the appropriateness of engaging with a CSO has been ascertained, FAO ought to consider the following questions before undertaking any further action:
• Would the activities of the CSO really contribute to an increase in national, regional or local food production? Sometimes, its activities may have a negative effect here even though it may enhance the economy at the expense of food production by its emphasis on cash crops, which is to be deprecated.
• Does its endeavours benefit the local food producers and end-users in general rather than the wealthier end-users in distant areas? This is important because some affluent agronomists purchase rural land and employ locals at symbolic wages to cultivate ‘ecological crops’ to be marketed in distant cities at a high profit to themselves. Engagement with such bodies is to be deprecated.
• Does the organisation promote cooperative food production or sale? Such may include family farms, family-run sales outlets or restaurants.
• Is the CSO involved in the development of ecological manure and pest control or rain harvesting?
• Has it carried out activities demonstrably to increase local green cover? This may include planting endemic shade and fruit trees, promotion of home gardening, etc.
• Has the cso successfully recovered polluted or salinated arable land?
• Is it successful in combating soil erosion?
• Does the activities of the CSO promote biodiversity in general and that in agriculture in particular?
Unless a CSO is concerned with any one or more of the above topics and the answer to the relevant questions is in the affirmative, it would be unwise of FAO to establish a working relationship with such an organisation, for it is not concerned with the general social good described earlier. Once a CSO has successfully come through this screening, one faces the question, what form of engagement between it and FAO would yield the most desirable result to a nation, region or a locale.
It is possible to distinguish between two distinct forms of FAO’s engagement with the appropriate CSO’s; indirect and direct engagement. Indirect engagement is concerned with influencing the relevant home authorities of a CSO to provide the latter with any one or more of the following assistance:
• Financial help.
• Technical assistance; this may include enhanced extension services, equipment, cultivars, etc.
• Relevant infra-structural improvement; storage and transport facilities may be critical in many less affluent countries.
• Comprehensive pest control; it had been established that monkeys destroy many millions of crops in central and north India while rhodents do the same in several other parts of the world.
• Active promotion of cooperative food production and trade including legislation on establishing financial conditions beneficial to them.
• Establishment of laws against monopolies concerned with every sub-system of food systems and their strict enforcement.
• Active promotion of family planning.
It is not claimed that the above list is exhaustive, however, the urgent need for them and similar actions is self-evident. While food monopolists and ‘globalists’ may vehemently protest against many of the above measures, the ever-increasing number of the hungry and malnourished ought to convince the humane of their importance.
The direct engagement between FAO and the relevant CSO’s has a clearer range and scope. Such engagement may involve any one or more of the following:
• Provision of the relevant knowledge and skills a CSO may need successfully to carry out its objectives. Field workshops, training programmes, printed matter, etc., are among the most useful tools used here. While context dependent, their general format is too well-known to be elaborated.
• Advisory project participation; FAO may second appropriate human resources from its own cadres or some other suitable institution to guide a CSO throughout the lifetime of one or more of its projects. Such an involvement should not entail a financial burden to the CSO concerned.
• Being instrumental in the joint development of appropriate guidelines on healthy and varied culinary practices, cultivation, animal husbandry, cooperative enterprises etc. It is crucial that such guidelines meet the screening described earlier.
• Mediation between qualified CSO’s and potential donors to financed and/or equip the former to implement their plans in accordance with the restrictions imposed by the screening requirements.
A detailed description of how these four types of engagement may be executed would have to be decided with respect to the context, but are well-known. It is hoped that the present outline of the modes of possible engagement between FAO and CSO’s to enhance the qualitative and quantitative output would be of some use.
Best wishes!
Lal Manavado.
Mr. Lal Manavado