Food Policy: To achieve sustainable food security and good nutrition for all

Presented at the 56th AARES Annual Conference, Fremantle, Western Australia, February7-10, 2012. (Full paper here.)

The global food system and related government policies are in disarray. In response to increasing food prices and greater food price volatility, national governments are pursuing a variety of policies to protect population groups of greatest importance for maintaining government legitimacy. Some of these policies are further amplifying price fluctuations while others are attempting to prohibit price signals from reaching consumers, traders and producers. Extreme weather events, irrational expectations by speculators, sensationalism by the news media, oil price fluctuations and the pursuit of self-interests by international organizations, NGOs and the private sector, have created a sense of uncertainty and heightened political risks among many governments. Together with the so-called “food riots,” which were driven by grievances of various kinds including but not limited to food price fluctuations, these perceived political risks have pushed governments of many developing country governments towards crisis management, short-term political interventions and bandage solutions. The introduction and use of Generic Tadalafil viagra pills price have been designed exactly according to the requirement to have the pelvis orientated properly so that it allows you to look slightly down at the screen. The costly medicine of branded cost of cialis has not under the patent act that the same formula cannot use the other companies. Most of your fat calories must originate from unsaturated fats. sildenafil pill These medicines work well by relaxing blood vessels, pumping enough blood flow to the penile region and creates the cheap levitra uk problem of erection. This paper discusses these interventions and suggests a set of policy challenges of a longer-term nature as well as related policies to achieve sustainable food security for all in the foreseeable future. The paper will argue that food price volatility will continue to be with us, but that real food prices need not increase. It will further show that the main bottlenecks in expanding food production in most low-income developing countries are found outside the farm and that government intervention in the food system should focus on improvements in rural infrastructure, domestic markets and policies to facilitate efficiency and effectiveness in post-harvest value chains and input sectors. Full costing of environmental damage caused by the food system is suggested to be implemented to help assure sustainability

Presented at Stanford University as part of the FSE Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series, October 11, 2012. (full paper here)

Food systems and human health and nutrition are closely linked in Africa and elsewhere. Changes in food systems caused by policy interventions and other drivers of food systems may result in positive or negative health and nutrition effects and changes in health and nutrition may influence food systems. These two-way causal relationships offer important opportunities for improving health and nutrition through policy interventions in food systems. Unfortunately, such opportunities have not been exploited. While policies and projects aimed at the food system may be justified by the existence of hunger, malnutrition and poor health, they are not usually designed in such a way as to seek the greatest possible positive health and nutrition effects. Food systems and health are treated as two isolated sectors and the need for broad-based integration called for by many remains an illusion.
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Clearly identified pathways between the two sectors are essential to help design food and health policies with mutual benefits. This paper addresses such pathways from food systems to health and nutrition. While increased availability of food, clean water, good sanitation and health care are essential, they are not sufficient to assure positive health and nutrition effects. Lack of money and gender-specific lack of time as well as prices of these basic necessities may preclude access. Furthermore, the behavior of the various agents in the food and health systems, including but not limited to consumers, may stand in the way of capturing potential positive health and nutrition effects. Health-sensitive policy interventions in the food system should include not only the producers of food and health care but the complete value system from producers to the final consumer. This paper suggests a set of such policies and discusses how a set of key drivers of food systems affect health and nutrition.

Published in Business Daily, September 6.

Agricultural development is the most effective driver of broad-based economic growth and poverty alleviation in most Sub-Saharan African countries.

Consequently, the failure by many African governments to prioritise investments in rural areas is resulting in very low economic growth rates.

Government has to lead and be the catalyst in countries where public investment and public goods are missing.

Without government investment, domestic markets do not work, the private sector cannot do its job and farmers who manage to increase productivity with currently available technology cannot sell their output at a reasonable price.

Over the past year, I have been involved in a regional agricultural policy project run by the Global Development Network (GDN).

Five teams of leading African experts have synthesised and summarised multiple studies showing that African farmers can quite easily double their yields.
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Their findings and recommendations reveal that the answers are there and provide enough evidence for policy makers and other key actors to act.

Smallholder farmers need investment in public infrastructure to bring their products to market. Farmers also need improved rural and agricultural institutions such as farmer associations, contract enforcement and the rule of law, without which markets simply cannot function.

None of the research and evidence the GDN researchers reviewed produced findings of negative health or environmental effects from the growing of GM crops anywhere in the world.

There is no other new technology that has been so successful in countries such as China, India, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and the United States and not caused any negative effects.

Expanded investments in agricultural development in countries such as Ethiopia and Ghana are showing the way towards a situation in which African agriculture can meet future food demands in the region and compete in the global markets. But to do this it is necessary for high-income countries to reduce or eliminate subsidies.

So long as these subsidies remain, the evidence shows that direct payments to OECD farmers, rather than commodity-specific subsidies and trade-distorting policies, are less harmful to African producers.

Prioritizing Nutrition in Agriculture and Rural Development: Guiding Principles for Operational Investments, by A. Herforth, A., Jones and P. Pinstrup-Andersen, HNP Discussion Paper Series, World Bank.  (Full Publication Available Here).

Agricultural and rural development provides a critically important opportunity for reducing malnutrition, partly because a large share of the malnourished resides in rural areas and partly because agriculture is the source of food and other ecological services for both rural and urban people.  Many factors influence human nutrition and the impact of agricultural and rural development on human nutrition is not automatic and predetermined.  Both undernutrition (stunting, underweight, wasting, and micronutrient malnutrition) and overnutrition (overweight and obesity) are costly for human and economic development, and both are influenced by agriculture and the food system.

Abundant evidence shows that when farmers are malnourished, they are less productive; improving the nutrition of rural populations will improve agricultural productivity.  Putting a nutrition lens on an agricultural investment can also improve gender equity in that investment – an increasingly common goal of the agriculture sector – because it shifts focus toward the labor, income control, and time use of women.  It can also improve ecological sustainability in cases where crop diversification contributes to both human and ecosystem health.  In many instances, it is also good business to produce nutritious foods, since demand for high-value horticultural and animal source foods is rising in urban areas, and could rise further with improved education and incentives. Food security is regularly used as a justification for agricultural activities, and because food security rests on the access to nutritious diets, greater attention to nutrition impact will help ensure that many agricultural investments remain true to their rationale.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a set of guiding principles for incorporating nutrition goals into the design and implementation of agricultural and rural development projects, and to provide examples of current best-evidence options for operational investments. While many agricultural approaches to improve nutrition have shown promise, there is no one-size-fits-all silver bullet approach.  To choose among operational approaches, assessing the context in which agricultural operations will occur is essential.   Further, both concerted actions and policy coherence are needed to avoid unintended negative consequences on nutrition through agriculture policies and programs.  Several principles are likely to be important in all or most cases for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, which can be adapted to individual contexts:

1.  Incorporate nutritional concerns into the design and implementation of agricultural policies, projects and investments. The primary ways to achieve this principle are to include a nutrition objective as an explicit program or policy goal, and to measure nutrition-related outcomes.  In measurement of impact, the highest priority should be given to measurement of determinants of nutrition most likely to be affected by agricultural projects, particularly household food consumption and diet (e.g. through indicators such as dietary diversity); indicators will vary with respect to the project activities and goals.  If child nutritional status is the target for impact, it should also be measured through child anthropometry (e.g. height and weight measurements), given sufficient sample sizes, and attention to impact pathways for improving nutritional status.

2. Target nutritionally-vulnerable groups: Within the population, target the poorest households:  the project or policy should be targeted to reach the most vulnerable group(s) involved in or affected by agricultural incomes and food prices, particularly smallholder farmers, landless laborers, and the urban poor.  Investments can better reach vulnerable indigenous groups if they are modified appropriately.  Within households, target women of childbearing age and young children.  Agriculture has the potential to greatly contribute to child nutrition within the 1,000-day window between conception and age two, not only by ensuring consistent access to diverse diets, but also  safeguarding environmental resources and the health of household members.

3. Invest in women:  Women have a large role in the food security and nutrition in the household.  Agricultural investments can strengthen women’s decision-making power and control of economic resources, for example though providing increased market opportunities for women’s crops, increased access to land rights and other productive resources, and supporting women’s income generation with facilitation of high-quality child care and time-saving technologies. Agricultural project planners are accustomed to assessing market price and agronomic characteristics when selecting crops to be included in projects; gender characteristics could also be included as a criterion.

Let us now go through various factors of male fertility. viagra 25 mg Following three months of proper discount viagra online care all head aches had been gone. As if that is not enough, Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church is also a decorated author with various popular books under his belt. generic cialis online Shortening recovering time, improving hormonal balance and helps you to last longer in tadalafil online india bed. 4. Increase year-round access to diverse, nutrient-dense foods through their increased production and productivity, market access, and demand creation.  A broader diversity of foods can be included in agricultural training, extension, seed provision programs, and exports.  Improving the nutritional content of staple foods through biofortification, industrial fortification, and zinc and iodine fertilizers is also a promising tool for increasing micronutrient intake.  Control of mycotoxins including aflatoxins also improves quality and safety of food with strong implications for health and nutrition.  The impacts of seasonal food shortages can be diminished through measures to increase consumption of nutrient-dense foods throughout the year, such as solar drying or other preservation technology, early or late-season crop varieties can extend the growing season, income generation activities during off-seasons, and links with social protection measures.

5. Protect health through water management, primarily through safeguards to minimize potential harm from water-borne diseases and chemical contamination of water and efforts to improve water use efficiency.

6. Design poverty-reduction strategies explicitly to benefit nutrition. At household level, the nutrition impact of household income can be enhanced through a focus on women and nutrition knowledge.  At a larger scale, measured outcomes of agricultural growth should include food security and public health – considering the dual burden of undernutrition and obesity that is closely linked to the food system –in addition to productivity and economic growth.  Poverty reduction, a primary goal of agriculture and rural development investments, can further become more nutrition-sensitive through pro-poor investments in services and infrastructure.

7. Create enabling environments for good nutrition through knowledge and incentives. Evidence has shown that incorporating nutrition education into agricultural investments helps to translate production and income gains into nutrition improvements.  Some nutrition-relevant information is best communicated by agricultural extensionists or project staff.  Efforts that involve the entire family in revaluing the importance of women’s time, resources and nutrition and the care of children have been shown as more likely to shift behaviors to benefit nutrition.  Policies can support or undermine poverty reduction and nutritious diets, and are a much larger factor that can be leveraged to enable households to put nutrition knowledge into practice.

8. Seek opportunities to work across sectors. Multisectoral action is critical to reducing all causal factors of malnutrition.  There may be opportunities within each program to interact with programs in other sectors working to improve nutrition: examples are through multisectoral planning and geographic overlap, establishing a national shared architecture for nutrition improvement, conducting joint nutritional impact assessments, and referring clients to other sector projects.  Supporting multisectoral coordination, it is often necessary to increase the capacity of government ministry staff across sectors to understand and address malnutrition.

The principles put forth in this document underscore investments in people and systems that have the potential to transform underlying conditions and positively influence the multiple, proximal determinants of proper nutrition.  Better information on impact and costs of specific approaches based on the above principles would be extremely helpful to inform better program design and best practice examples for scale-up.  Research and evaluation priorities include tracking impact on multiple outcomes at once (such as diet, nutritional status, productivity and income); better designing studies to attribute impact to specific approaches; and collecting information on costs and cost-effectiveness.

Although there is an urgent need to strengthen the understanding of how agricultural policies, projects and investments can be designed and implemented to achieve nutrition goals, existing knowledge around the guiding principles in this document is sufficient to move ahead with designing nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions.  Rather than to rationalize inaction based on incomplete evidence on operational approaches, it would be sensible to base agricultural investments on principles of how agriculture can affect nutrition, strengthened by good evidence that well-planned investments are likely to reach at least targeted income and dietary outcomes.  The next step is to put the principles outlined in this document into action, and to learn from the results.

Food systems are a means to an end rather than ends in themselves. They exist to help people and societies meet a variety of goals, including but not limited to, good nutrition. There are multiple pathways through which the food system affects human nutrition. Understanding these pathways and how they operate is essential to design agricultural and other food system policies to achieve nutrition goals. While much is said about the links between agriculture and nutrition, the fact is that each of the components of a food system: natural resource management and input use; primary production (agriculture); transport, storage and exchange; secondary production (food processing); and consumption shown in Figure 1 may influence nutrition.

Irrespective of their starting point in the food system, most pathways work through food availability and household access to available food.  Both are necessary but not sufficient.  The extent to which changes in the availability of food affects nutrition (positively or negatively) will be influenced by household incomes, food prices, time limitations, household behavior, tastes and preferences, intra-household food allocation and the importance of non-food factors such as access to clean water, good sanitation and good hygiene. The behavior of food system agents, including consumers, farmers, and traders, mitigate the nutrition effects.  By being the entry points, food availability and access are key components of the pathways through which food systems may affect nutrition. However, as shown in Figure 2, the nutrition effect of changes in these factors will depend on several other components of the pathways. Thus, merely pursuing changes in food availability and access will not assure the desired nutrition effects. The complete pathway must be understood to help guide the food system for nutritional benefits.

It matters what kinds of food are available.  Trade liberalization may increase the availability of imported foods with undesirable characteristics such as processed foods with a high content of fats and sweeteners. Investments in research and processing may develop new products beneficial or harmful to nutrition. Public and private investments in the food marketing sector may also improve food safety and quality. Availability of protein-dense plant-based foods, meat, dairy products, fruits and vegetables may reduce nutrient deficiencies while availability of fats, oils, sugar, sweeteners and energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods may contribute to overweight, obesity and chronic diseases. A high degree of diversity in the food supply, whether from own production or the market, may facilitate consumption diversity and better nutrition.

Enhancing consumption diversity, and in that way reducing nutrient deficiencies, are particularly important on semi-subsistence farms and isolated local wet markets where the diet may consist of one or two basic staples. Research and policy interventions to promote the production, marketing and consumption of so-called “orphan crops”, i.e., food crops for which little or no attention has been paid by researchers and policy-makers, offer interesting opportunities. Support of home gardens would be another initiative to be considered as would the promotion of the production, marketing and consumption of animal products such as beef, poultry, pork, goat and sheep meat, and milk and plant-based foods with high density of nutrients such as grain legumes. In locations where water resources are available, the promotion of aquaculture may help improve diet diversity and improve nutrition both through fish and seafood consumption and income-generating sales.

The nutrition value of foods may be improved by industrial fortification and biofortification. Indistrial fortification may increase the price of food and make it less affordable. On the other hand, the impact of biofortification depends on farmers’ adoption of the fortified seed, and consumers’ acceptance, ability and willingness to pay a higher price if necessary. In addition to processing and fortification, the nutritional quality and safety of foods may be improved or deteriorated by action or lack of action in storage, transportation and other food system activities. Finally, waste and losses in the food supply chain are large. A recent assessment found that about one-third of the food supply is wasted or lost. Adding production lost to plant and animal diseases and pest attacks in farmers’ fields, the large opportunities for expanding the food available for actual consumption become obvious.

So, while food availability is necessary for good nutrition, changes in food availability will not have any impact on nutrition unless the actual or potentially malnourished people have access. As shown in Figure 2, access, or the ability of households to acquire the food available, is influenced by incomes, own production, food prices, availability and prices of nonfoods and social safety nets. These factors and the related behavioral aspects are discussed below.

Changes in the food system may affect incomes of the actual or potentially malnourished people in several ways. First, research and technology may generate an economic surplus by improving productivity of land, water or labor, not only in agriculture but in other parts of the food system. Depending on supply and demand, elasticities and market structure, conduct and performance, the surplus may result in higher incomes (in cash or kind) for farmers, traders and other food system agents, lower prices for consumers or, most likely, a combination of the two as exemplified by the effects of the Green Revolution. Research and technology may also improve the nutritional quality of foods as exemplified by the above mentioned biofortification. A second pathway through incomes, that will change access, relates to changes in labor demand, wages and access to productive resources, e.g., land and water, through labor-using technology, investments in rural infrastructure, changes in land tenure and water policies, and other fiscal and monetary policies.  Third, changes in the food system may change the gender-specific income control as well as the composition of household incomes (cash or production for own consumption), and the cash flow over time.  Those changes will, in turn, influence household food acquisition behavior and the extent to which access is converted to acquisition. It is also likely to influence the allocation of food within the household. Increasing income and budget control by women is likely to increase the portion of household incomes dedicated to food, particularly as it relates to child feeding.

Changes in food and nonfood prices will influence a household’s purchasing power and as such its access to food. Changes in relative prices are also important. Lower prices for one food commodity relative to the price of another will usually increase consumption of the former and reduce the consumption of the latter. Unit-cost reducing technological change in food production, processing and marketing as well as commodity-specific taxes and subsidies and trade restrictions such as export restrictions and import duties are examples of policy interventions that may change relative prices. Before such commodity-specific policies are proposed, it is important to clearly specify the nutrition problem to be solved: Is it dietary energy deficiencies, nutrient deficiencies or obesity-related chronic diseases?

Most developing countries experience all three of these problems. This makes the choice of price-related policies difficult. For example, taxes on meat, vegetable oil, sugar and sweeteners may reduce the risks of chronic disease among low-and high-income people while increasing the deficiency of iron, essential fatty acids and dietary energy in low-income population groups. If these foods are highly preferred by low-income households, such taxes may also reduce purchasing power and the consumption of other foods which are beneficial for nutrition such as fruits and vegetables. Subsidies on fruits and vegetables may release purchasing power that could be used to acquire foods of lesser or negative nutrient value such as drinks high in sweeteners. Increasing productivity and lower unit-costs of production and marketing as well as price subsidies for foods such as fruits, vegetables and animal source foods may reduce nutrient deficiencies.

Improved knowledge regarding nutrition and its relations to the food system is needed for all food system agents, including consumers, farmers, traders and policy-makers. Nutrition education for consumers has been a commonly used tool to improve nutrition with limited success. As might be expected, free-standing nutrition education programs will only be successful where lack of knowledge is the most limiting factor for good nutrition. Educational efforts with all the right messages may be of no value if the new knowledge cannot be implemented because of time or income constraints. On the other hand, increased incomes, improved production diversity or reduced pressures on time may be of little or no nutrition value in the absence of the relevant knowledge. Therefore, nutrition education should in most cases be combined with other efforts to remove constraints to good nutrition.

Improved knowledge regarding food storage, processing and transportation may be effective in improving nutrition and food safety. In some cases, the achievement of nutrition goals may imply trade-offs with other goals but win-wins are common and often overlooked.  Examples of win-wins include investments in rural infrastructure (e.g., feeder roads and irrigation facilities), agricultural research, food processing technology and market information, which may increase food production, reduce unit-costs of production and marketing, reduce consumer prices, increase farmer incomes, and improve nutrition.

The ideal thing is sildenafil tablets that organic goods are safe and environmentally friendly. Others, who have low pain thresholds, take the maximum dose. robertrobb.com cheap women viagra Just like in any other case, here too, generic levitra http://robertrobb.com/afghan-peace-plan-wont-produce-peace-but-u-s-should-get-out-anyway/ the best form of treatment is prevention itself. In general, viagra in australia there are two small chambers called atria that are responsible for forcing blood into two larger chambers known as ventricles. Opportunities in the food system for improving—or potentially harming—the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women and children during the first two years of life are often related to how the food system affects women’s time allocation. Projects and policies often seek to empower women and improve their wellbeing as well as that of children by attempting to generate employment.  However, some food system practices make breastfeeding, which is critically important during the first six months of life and beyond, very difficult either because employment takes the lactating mother away from the baby for long periods or because the employment activities are otherwise incompatible with breastfeeding. Furthermore, employment creation by women may harm nutrition by reducing their time available for other important nutrition-related activities such as care, cooking, fetching water and firewood and agricultural work.

Thus, changes in the food system should consider the net effect of changes in women’s time before introducing new demands for women’s work. Introduction of labor-saving and productivity-enhancing technologies for the work traditionally done by women, such as herbicides to replace weeding, improved equipment for food processing, better access to water and fuel and rural infrastructure to improve food marketing and the time needed to bring food to the market as well as child care facilities appropriate for the particular situation, are examples of actions that could be considered.

Concluding Notes

Neither availability of sufficient food, nor household access to it, assures good nutrition. The extent to which food access is translated into actual food consumption by at-risk household members is determined by household behavior and the allocation of the food within the household. In addition to the nutritional content of the food allocated to the individual and the extent to which it matches the needs, the nutrition effect of the allocated food depends on the quality of the available water, sanitation, the prevalence of infectious diseases and other nutrition-related factors. Therefore, the impact of changes in the food system on household food security (access) alone may not be a good indicator of nutrition impact. Poverty reduction, or changes in income, women’s time allocation, prices and knowledge may likewise be poor nutrition indicators. These factors serve as entry points for the food system – nutrition pathways, but do not themselves serve as proxies for nutrition impact.

Efforts to enhance the nutrition impact of food systems should never forget that the food system is driven by economic demand and production possibilities and not nutrition goals.  Thus, to be successful, such efforts should aim to change either economic demand or production possibilities or both.

Figure 1. A conceptual framework of a food system.

Source:  Pinstrup-Andersen, P. & Watson, D. 2011. Food Policy in Developing Countries: The Role of Government in Global, National, and Local Food Systems. Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press.

Figure 2. A simplified conceptual framework linking food availability, food security, and nutrition.

Source:  Pinstrup-Andersen, P. & Watson, D. 2011. Food Policy in Developing Countries: The Role of Government in Global, National, and Local Food Systems. Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press.

Food insecurity, i.e., lack of access to sufficient food to meet energy and nutrient needs, contributes to – and is caused by – human conflict.  Increasing food prices, caused in part by extreme weather events, which threaten the food security of individuals, households and communities, may cause violence.  This is illustrated by food riots that erupted in more than 60 countries during 2007-2008 in response to rapidly increasing prices for rice, wheat and maize (1).  Food security related conflicts are not new.  Food riots erupted in France from the mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries (2).  Other conflicts include the Boston bread riot in 1713, the Flour Riot in New York in 1837, the Southern bread riots in 1863, and the Japanese rice riot in 1918.  The bread riots in Egypt in 1977 are an example of a more recent response to a government’s attempt to remove food subsidies.

An analysis of food prices in 120 countries during the period 1970-2007, concluded that “in low income countries increases in the international food prices lead to a significant deterioration of democratic institutions and a significant increase in the incidence of anti-government demonstrations, riots, and civil conflict” (3).

As shown in Fig. 1, conflict is more likely to occur in countries with a high prevalence of food insecurity (4).  Thus, countries where conflict subsequently occurred had a 45% higher prevalence of food insecurity prior to the conflict onset.  They also suffered from higher child malnutrition and mortality rates and more poverty, while access to safe water and economic growth were lower.  Multivariate analysis, controlling for each variable, identified poverty (headcount poverty), child mortality and child malnutrition prior to conflict to be significantly associated with conflict onset.

Food insecurity is most likely to trigger conflict in situations where other grievances, such as opposition to the existing political power structure and increasing prices for fuel and public transportation are present.  Thus, although claims have been made that the Arab Spring began with food riots caused by increasing food prices, a number of other grievances played key roles. Conflict flourishes in an environment of poverty, political oppression, inequality, human rights abuses and food insecurity.

Hunger, poverty and hopelessness associated with political oppression were key triggers in recent conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.  Drug-related conflict in Mexico, Colombia and Peru were also associated with poverty and food insecurity (5, 6, 7).  Food insecurity and other human suffering aligned with caste, religion, and ethnicity exacerbate tension and conflict.

On-going conflicts are causing widespread food insecurity in Somalia, The Republic of Congo, Sudan and several other countries.  Conflict may cause food insecurity through the destruction of rural infrastructure, reductions in livestock herds, deforestation, widespread use of land-mines and population movements (8).  During the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first half of the 1990s, the number of farm animals halved and the agricultural area cultivated dropped by 55%.  A study comparing food production growth rates before, during and after conflict in 38 countries found a drop from 3.6% annual growth five years prior to the conflict onset to 0.8% during the conflict and increasing to 4.1% five years after the conflict (ibid).  Average dietary energy intake dropped from 2,224 kcal/person five years prior to the conflict to 2,077 during the conflict in spite of large inflows of food aid during the conflicts.

As population growth, dietary transitions and biofuel production add pressure on land and water resources, the control over the use of land and water essential for food security has become an important source of conflict both within and between countries.  Current efforts by middle and high-income country governments and transnational corporations to gain control over land for the production of food and raw materials for biofuel in low-income countries cause conflict as smallholder farmers, who often do not have legal title to the land, are pushed off the land they cultivate with no viable alternatives for achieving food security (9).

More than 500 water conflicts occurred during the period 1946-1999 (10) and the risks of new conflicts over access to both ground and surface water increase as the competition for water between up-stream and downstream farmers and between countries becomes fiercer.  Potential regions for future water wars include the Mekong delta countries, India and China (the Brahmaputra River), Israel and Jordan (the Jordan River) and the Nile’s host countries, particularly Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.  Levy et al. (11) found a highly significant relationship between rainfall deviations and the likelihood of outbreak of conflict.  Climate change, and the related extreme weather events resulting in irregular rainfall, droughts, floods and extreme temperature fluctuations, is likely to exacerbate both food insecurity and conflict.

Countries where land degradation takes place are more prone to conflict (12, 13).  The conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan and the earlier conflicts in Rwanda are examples.  Productivity increases for land and water are urgently needed to reduce the probability for conflict in land and water scarce countries and communities, with emphasis on fragile or failed states with weak institutions where food security related conflicts are most likely to take place.  Government policy has an important role to play to reduce the onset of conflict and improve food security.  Countries where discrimination against minority groups occurs are particularly prone to domestic conflict and terrorism (14).  Since food price volatility is likely to continue, risk management tools for farmers and consumers, including social safety nets, are particularly important.  Analyzing 153 countries during the period 1975-2005, Taydas and Peksen (15) found that increasing government investment in welfare policies has “a strong pacifying effect on civil conflict.”

Local and national conflicts may spill over to international terrorism (16).  This is particularly important in the case of fragile or failed states. According to the 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy, weak states can pose as great a threat to U.S. national interests as strong states because poverty, weak institutions and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks (17).  International assistance to improve governance and reduce poverty and food insecurity in fragile states could be effective in efforts to reduce conflict and enhance global stability.

References:

1.      Zaman, H., Delgado, C., Mitchell, D., and Revenga, A. (2008). Rising Food Prices:  Are There Right Policy Choices? Development Outreach, October 6-8.

2.      Tilly, L. A. (2012). The Food Riot as a Form of Political Conflict in France. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2(1): 23-57.

The pill has to be consumed with alpha-blocking meds or nitrates. viagra online buy Unlike http://djpaulkom.tv/scholarship-essay-contest-put-your-writing/ on line levitra and other vasodilatory erection drugs, Nitric Oxide supplements actually improve cardiovascular protection and help lower overall blood pressure, making them far safer and more suitable for those with cardiovascular conditions. If the donor is friend or relative then it may create social or legal problems later on. cialis canada generic Most men who reach midlife will cheap viagra in canada experience one or more of the following symptoms: Negative Thoughts: Ideas of hopelessness, helplessness and excessive worry are very common. 3.      Arezki, R. and Bruckner, M. (2011). Food Prices and Political Instability. IMF Working Paper WP/11/62, International Monetary Fund.

4.      Pinstrup-Andersen, P. and Shimokawa, S. (2008). Does Poverty Increase the Risk of Armed Conflict Onset? The Effects of Poverty in Income, Nutrition, and Health. Food Policy, 33, 513-520.

5.      De Soysa, I. and Gleditsch, N. P. (1999). To Cultivate Peace – Agriculture in a World of Conflict.  PRIO Report, 1/99.  Oslo: International Peace Research Institute.

6.      Messer, E., Cohen, M. and D’Costa, J. (1998). Food from Peace: Breaking the Links Between Conflict and Hunger. Food, Agriculture and the Environment Discussion Paper 24. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

7.      Weiner, T. (2004). Life is Hard and Short in Haiti’s Bleak Villages. New York Times, March 14.

8.      Teodosijevic, S. B. (2003). Armed Conflicts and Food Security. ESA Working Paper No. 03-11, June. Agricultural and Development Economics Division, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

9.      Robertson, B. and P. Pinstrup-Andersen. (2010). Global Land Acquisition: Neo-Colonialism Or Development Opportunity? Food Security, 2: 271-283.

10.  von Braun, J. (2009). Threats to Security Related to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources – What to Do? Paper presented at Strategic Discussion Circle, EADS, Berlin, March 26.

11.  Levy, M. A., Thorkelson, C., Vorosmarty, C., Douglas, E., and Humphreys, M.  (2005). Freshwater Availability Anomalies and Outbreak of Internal War: Results from a Global Spatial Time Series Analysis. Human Security and Climate Change, An International Workshop, Oslo, Norway, 21-23 June.

12.  Hauge, W. and Ellingsen, T. (1998). Beyond Environmental Scarcity: Causal Pathways to Conflict. Journal of Peace Research 35(3): 299-317.

13.  Pinstrup-Andersen, P. (1998). Changing Approaches to Development Aid: The Effect on International Stability. Global Governance, 4, 381-394.

14.  Piazza, J. A. (2011). Poverty, Minority Economic Discrimination, and Domestic Terrorism.  Journal of Peace Research 48(3): 399-353.

15.  Taydas, Z. and Peksen, D. (2012). Can States Buy Peace? Social Welfare Spending and Civil Conflicts. Journal of Peace Research 49(2): 273-287.

16.  Patrick, S. (2006). Weak States and Global Threats: Assessing Evidence of “Spillovers.” Working Paper Number 73, Center for Global Development.

17.  Bush, G. W. (2002). The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. September. Accessed online at:  www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html.

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