On Multistakeholder Partnerships to Improve Food Security and Nutrition
In my comments, I have given priority to what we intended to achieve, i.e., food security and nutrition, rather than to the particular objective of any one of the parties involved in the process. I maintain that this is crucial, for unless all those involved in a food system can agree on its overall objective, i.e., serving as a tool that enable all of us to adequately satisfy our nutritional needs, no worthwhile progress can be made through the proposed partnership.
I will take up each question in the order they have been posed, and will confine myself to their relevance to achieving our objective.
Who are the stakeholders in food security and nutrition?
In the order of their importance:
1. Relevant authorities, administrators and technical expertise.
2. Actual producers and the end-users (consumers) of food.
3. Operators of various sub-systems that separate the food producers (operating various yielder systems) and end-users; they may include the operators of independent or integrated transport, storage, preserving, and buying-selling systems. Often, yielder systems depend on some Ecoservices supplementary service for fertilisers, biocides, agro-technological aids like irrigation, etc.
4. Industrialised preserving and variants of preparation systems that respectively produce for instance, dairy products, cleaned, pre-cut and packaged raw food, and industrial food.
5. Catering system, a variant of buying and selling system that can play a very useful role here.
6. Doubled buying-systems that represent speculation in available food and its futures.
What are the interests and motivations of each stakeholder?
1. Those of group 1 need no further elaboration.
2. Food producers have always sought a decent living while most end-users seem to have a nebulous notion of what they really expect from food, which in affluent countries often seem to vary with fashion, apart from its cost and/convenience in preparation. In affluent countries, certain emphasis is now given to balanced diets, but dietary enjoyment does not seem to be able to supplant convenience.
3. It is difficult to envisage anything other than gain as the interest of those who operate the other sub-systems, and its increase is their principal motive. Increased use of advertising by the operators of buying and selling system provides indisputable evidence of this.
How to attract and retain partners?
I am not at all convinced whether the parties mentioned in 3 above will be willing to change their respective operations towards providing the people at an affordable price, a varied, wholesome and balanced diet in a sustainable way.
The present approach does not make clear whether it intends to accept gain as the principal motive of those parties, and if so, only the prospect of greater gain would attract and retain them. As their gain increases, methods to be used to cut production and sub-systems’ running costs will lead to increased energy use, environmental degradation, and mechanisation of food production that will have a catastrophic effect on developing countries with high unemployment and suffer from wide-spread hunger.
What other interests in FSN could one justifiably ascribe to those parties?
What are their various levels of responsibility?
As a general rule, those involved in all groups are responsible for making their respective contribution towards achieving the overall objective of a food system. While those in group 1 are directly responsible to the public for this, others are responsible for their own food directly or indirectly. In addition, those in groups 3 and onwards usually have other responsibilities specific to the sub-system they operate.
Going back to the groups 1-6 above, I should like to emphasise that those of group 1 can be spread out at three levels; national, regional or at the community level. However, as one goes down in this hierarchy, the extent of the overview one needs to make sound decisions gets narrower while need for specific knowledge increases.
In group 2, agricultural competence of the food producers would have to be local in order to be relevant, and the same applies to the end-users subject to the proviso that items of food from other areas are not available.
Those who are involved in ecoservice supplementing system ought to be extremely cautious in their recommendations so that we need not fear environmental catastrophes like that of Aral Sea, pollinator deaths in the US due to the toxicity of genetically modified Maize pollen (observed in 1990ties), etc.
As for the rest, once again, we run into the question of their motivation. A cynic might say they are responsible to the shareholders of the concerns that operate those systems. And if ‘enlightened self-interest’ is proposed as the basis of their overall responsibility, then we need to know to what extent could they reconcile that interest with the pressing need for food and environmental sustainability. It is difficult to see how this may be done.
How to define “multistakeholder partnership” for food security and nutrition?
An epistemologically sound definition would have to be based on a purpose a food system may justifiably serve. It is difficult to conceive of such a purpose as anything other than enabling the people to procure varied and wholesome food required to prepare a balanced diet at an affordable cost in a sustainable way.
If one agrees on this as the sole justifiable purpose of a food system, then one may define such a partnership thus:
A multistakeholder partnership for food security and nutrition may be defined as a set of groups, where each group is concerned with a sub-system of a food system, and each and every group is willing and able to operate its own sub-system with sufficient skill in a coordinated fashion towards achieving the overall objective of the food system they constitute.
What are the existing types of partnerships for financing and improving food security and nutrition?
Here, I must plead the superficiality of my knowledge. But, as far as I know, they are based on financial gain that is hardly fair to the food producer or to the end-user.
What are the tensions between the nature of these stakeholders and the
Functions of the partnerships?
As they are hardly in agreement on the justifiable purpose of a food system, the ad hoc nature of what each hopes to achieve would lack a common direction, hence a variety of openings for dispute.
Obviously, well-being of the environment, preference for the capital-intensive in preference to labour-intensive that would most benefit many developing nations, disregard for local food culture and imposition of high-yield foreign cultivars, etc., are among the most important bones of contention. But, all these stem from the above lack of agreement, and of course, desire for greater profit whether justified or not.
I shall skip the next set of questions as the argument so far has already dealt with them, at least in principle. The only valid indicator I can envisage is the state of nutrition of the people affected by such an MSPS. I emphasise changes in their income does not necessarily entail their improved nutrition; hence, it is insignificant as an indicator with reference to our purpose.
What are the potential controversies related to MSPs?
Lack of agreement on a common goal will result in a conflicts outlined above.
What are/should be the respective roles and responsibilities of public and private stakeholders and civil society in such partnerships?
Please see the division of people surrounding a food system above. It offers a simple scheme of assigning roles to each of the above groups as appropriate. However, it is vital to remember that we all are end-users of food whatever we do.
What should be the respective contributions of each in the financing and improvement of FSN?
This is not as straightforward as it may seem. In most countries, some of the sub-systems in a food system are publicly run, which has to be taken into account. Food producers in developing nations are often in great need of both know-how and financial help.
As a general rule, answer to the question is case specific, but bearing in mind the overall purpose of a food system, whoever makes the contribution, will not demand an unfair return. To be specific, no contribution should be accompanied by a demand for a return that would
- How to ensure to all stakeholders a “fair” representation in adversely affect the affordability, variety and wholesomeness of the food the system neither produces, nor yet compel any sub-system operator to an unfair exchange of his output or services.
Do these questions correctly reflect the main issues to be covered?
My answer would be a qualified yes, and I’d like to make a few observations. The order in which questions are put would have been much improved if we used the purpose of a food system as our point of departure. This is not a mere academic nicety; after all, such partnerships are intended to enhance global food security and nutrition.
Food security is intimately linked with the sustainability of the food systems in general, and in particular, their capacity to provide a surplus at intervals, especially in areas prone to natural disasters or extreme climatic fluctuations, not to mention man-made misery.
Food system is the tool we use to satisfy our dietary needs. So, it is fair to say that making our food systems sustainable, flexible and robust and enabling people to put them into best use ought to be the goal of MSPs.
Now, a food system is made up of several sub-systems. So, the relevant partners have to come from or represent those. Each partner may have to be associated with others in order to do his job well, but such associates have only a peripheral connection with a food system. For instance,
Every modern food system requires a transport system. Those who operate may need to modernise it, and so, they might negotiate a loan with their banker. Surely this does not entitle that banker to claim to have a stake in a food system. If this is allowed, why not call in the local teachers because they will be teaching the future operators of every sub-system in a food system, and this staking could go on ad absurdum.
Once we have set forth the sub-systems and their operators in their right sequence ending in a population of end-users, it is simple to see the responsibilities of each group with reference to its own function, transport for instance, and to the overall purpose the food system is designed to serve. I hope these remarks may be of some use in spite of being noted down in a hurry.
Cheers!
Lal Manavado.
Lal Manavado