Publication: FIPAT Guidebook: Food Security Indicator & Policy Analysis Tool (12 April 2014)

IISD Publications Centre

FIPAT Guidebook: Food Security Indicator & Policy Analysis Tool

» Daniella Echeverría, Marius Keller, IISD, 2014.Paper, 28 pages, copyright: IISD

PDF

• English (PDF - 8.4 MB)
• Spanish (PDF - 5.9 MB)

• Hard copy not available.

• If you are having difficulty viewing a PDF or Flash Flip-page, please click here.

The relationship between climate resilience, food security and the policies and actions of multiple levels of government is complex. Government decision makers who want to build more climate resilient food systems need an analytical tool to help them identify required resilience actions, monitor food system resilience over time, and assess the extent to which current policies strengthen food system resilience.

The Food Security Indicator & Policy Analysis Tool (FIPAT) has been developed to address this need. It provides a logical sequence of analytical steps that help users to:

• Identify key elements of their food system and their vulnerability to climate shocks and stresses;
• Identify relevant resilience actions to strengthen these vulnerable elements;
• Select indicators to monitor changes in food system resilience over time; and
• Assess the extent to which public policies support the implementation of required resilience actions; the capacity of actors to reduce risk and promote resilience; and the creation and maintenance of food system resilience.

This guidebook helps the leaders and facilitators of a FIPAT assessment to understand the conceptual foundation of the tool and to prepare for and conduct the assessment process.

The FIPAT Tool is available in English and Spanish versions.

see more: http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=2923

Read More

Book: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus Lessons from India for Development (19 Feb 2014)

The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus

Lessons from India for Development

Edited by M. Dinesh Kumar, Nitin Bassi, A. Narayanamoorthy,M.V.K. Sivamohan

Routledge – 2014 – 246 pages

Description:

It is becoming increasingly recognized that for the optimal sustainable development and use of natural resources, an integrated approach to water management, agriculture, food security and energy is required. This "nexus" is now the focus of major attention by researchers, policy-makers and practitioners.

In this book, the authors show how these issues are being addressed in India as part of its economic development, and how these can provide lessons for other developing nations. They address the conflicting claims of water resources for irrigation and hydropower, where both are scarce at the national level for fostering water and energy security. They also consider the relationship between water for irrigated agriculture and household use and its impact on rural poverty. They identify weaknesses in the current hydropower development programme in India that are preventing it from being an ecologically sustainable, socially just and economically viable solution to meeting growing energy demand.

The empirical analyses presented show the enormous scope for co-management of water, energy, agricultural growth and food security through appropriate technological interventions and market instruments.

Content:

1. Water-Food-Energy Nexus: Global and Local Perspectives

M. Dinesh Kumar, Nitin Bassi, A. Narayanamoorthy and M.V.K. Sivamohan

2. Unraveling Gujarat’s Agricultural Growth Story

M. Dinesh Kumar, A. Narayanamoorthy, O.P. Singh, M.V.K. Sivamohan and Nitin Bassi

3. Ghost Workers and Invisible Dams: Checking the Validity of Claims about Impacts of NREGA

Nitin Bassi, M. Dinesh Kumar and A. Narayanamoorthy

4. Benefit Sharing Mechanism for Hydropower Projects-Pointers for North East India

Neena Rao

5. Is Irrigation Development Still Relevant in Reducing Rural Poverty in India?: An Analysis of Macro Level Data

A. Narayanamoorthy and Susanto Kumar Beero

6. Raising Agricultural Productivity with Reduced Use of Energy and Groundwater: Role of Market Instruments and Technology

M. Dinesh Kumar, Christopher A. Scott and O.P. Singh

7. Diesel Price Hikes and Farm Distress in the Fossil Fuel Dependent Agricultural Economy Myth and Reality

M. Dinesh Kumar, O.P. Singh and M.V.K. Sivamohan

8. Breaking the Agrarian Impasse in Eastern India

M. Dinesh Kumar, Nitin Bassi, M.V.K. Sivamohan and L. Venkatachalam

9. Developing a Household Level MUWS Vulnerability Index for Rural Areas

V. Niranjan, M. Dinesh Kumar and Yusuf Kabir

10. The Decade of Sector Reforms of Rural Water Supply in Maharashtra

Nitin Bassi, M. Dinesh Kumar, V. Niranjan and K. Siva Rama Kishan

11. Future Impacts of Agri-business Corporations on Global Food and Water Security

M. Dinesh Kumar

12. Of Statecraft: Managing Water, Energy and Food for Long-term National Security

M. Dinesh Kumar

Review:

"Because this book provides such an interdisciplinary view of how a sustainable food system depends on responsible policies and management of water, energy and other inputs, it will be useful to people from many walks of life; including students, academics, policy makers, consultants, and industry. It is a book that can be read cover to cover or used as a reference for many critical food security topics related to water, energy and a host of issues that link the two." – Prof. Michael Faiver Walter, Cornell University, USA

source from: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415733038/

Read More

China News: Polluted farmland leads to Chinese food security fears (12 Jan 2014)

Polluted farmland leads to Chinese food security fears

Agricultural pollution means that China’s food security will increasingly rely on food imports

China is struggling to find more land to support agricultural production as it continues to urbanise (Image by Greenpeace) 

 

Decades of intense agricultural production have left China's soil seriously polluted and its water depleted. Wang Shiyuan, the vice-minister of land and resources, recently told a news briefing that about 3.33 million hectares of China’s farmland is too polluted to grow crops. The contaminated area is roughly the size of Belgium.

The deteriorating environment adds to the immense pressure to produce more food. Imports of corn, rice and wheat have more than doubled over the past three years. In October 2013, the US Department of Agriculturepredicted that by the end of the year China would have imported 23 million tonnes of grain. The overall grain self-sufficiency rate is now less than 90%, well below the target of 95%

“China has moved from being self-sufficient in grain a few years ago to being very close to the world’s leading grain importer,” said Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank based in Washington, D.C.

China is set to become more dependent on imported grains, oilseeds and meat, according to a recent report published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the OECD. It described feeding China in the context of its resource constraints as a “daunting” task.

Brown said the Chinese leadership is well aware of the political risks associated with increased food imports. Between 2007 and 2008 export restrictions in major producer countries drove up food prices, a situation that led to civil unrest in several nations.

“China no longer considers food security as one secluded country,” said Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “We must also utilise the international market for more food. The leadership views food security in a new light and this is a good change.”

Sustainable solutions

The overuse of fertilisers, together with dumping of industrial waste, is amajor factor behind soil contamination. In May 2013, tests showed that rice produced in Hunan province, one of China’s most important agricultural regions, was tainted by cadmium, a heavy metal known to affect liver function and bone health. Hunan officials blamed the contamination on fertilisers.

Jiang Gaoming, a researcher at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said sustainable agriculture is an important long-term solution to boosting production while protecting the environment. As a first step, Jiang says China needs to reduce the amount of fertiliser used by 50% and pesticide by 80 to 90%.

China is also struggling to find more land to support agricultural production as it continues to urbanise. Beijing said it would strictly guard the government’s so-called 'red line' of 120 million hectares of arable land. However, a national survey found that per capita farmland has fallen to 0.1 hectare, less than half the global average. A China Daily editorial wrote that the contradiction between urban construction and preservation of arable land was “increasingly prominent.”

Jiang said sustainable farming could further boost supply from limited land resources. “We have to adjust domestic production. Already many people have to eat imported food because of worsening environmental conditions. This is a forced choice and it is not sustainable,” he said.

Local government and farming
Zhang Zhongjun, the FAO's Beijing representative, said local governments play a key role in promoting sustainable farming, yet they lack incentives to do so as agriculture traditionally accounts for a very small part of local growth. “Quantity is still the top priority,” Zhang said. “They don’t care as much about the environment.”

Jiang said party officials are also unsure if sustainable agriculture can really improve production as those farming methods require more investment. “They [local governments] won’t support us,” he said. “The fertiliser and pesticide manufacturers tell them that our ways don’t work. We are showing them that they are wrong. Our production doubled in the fourth year.”

Farmers are also unwilling to change their method of cultivation as the cost of doing so would cut into their small profit margin. A large number of people have abandoned  their fields to work in cities because of the unacceptably low price of grain. “China has to subsidise the farmers in a better way, ” said Zhang.

But it may not be enough to just subsidise farmers. Li Guoxiang said land reform is also the key to promoting such products on a bigger scale. Currently, farmers are not allowed to sell or lease the land they farm or live on. Giving them the right to transfer rural land would pave the way for larger and more profitable farms.

source from: https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/6636-Polluted-farmland-leads-to-Chinese-food-security-fears

Read More

Seminars: Atmosphere-biosphere Interactions: Impacts of Global Environmental Change on Air Quality, Food Security and Public Health organized by CUHK on 12 Sep 2013

Atmosphere-biosphere Interactions: Impacts of Global Environmental Change on Air Quality, Food Security and Public Health 

Date: 12/9/2013

Venue: Room 233, Wong Foo Yuan Building, Chung Chi College

Time: 16:30 - 1800

For more information: http://www.grm.cuhk.edu.hk/eng/news/deptseminar/Seminar20130912.pdf

Read More

Publications: Rice Trade and Price Volatility: Implications on ASEAN and Global Food Security by ADB (Sep 2013)

Rice Trade and Price Volatility: Implications on ASEAN and Global Food Security

Date:	September 2013
Type:	Papers and Briefs
Subject:	Agriculture and natural resources; Economics; Industry and trade
Series:	Economics Working Papers
ISSN:	1655-5252 (print)

Description

This paper highlights the thinness of rice trade relative to wheat and maize, and the contrasting price volatility and tradability relations for wheat and maize, which display a positive correlation, and for rice, which show an inverse relation. The paper focuses on Southeast Asia, which hosts the world’s biggest rice exporters and rice importers. Using the Granger causality tests to determine correlation, the analysis concludes that very low global trading activity in rice that tends to self-perpetuate its dampening effect on trade does not cause extreme rice price volatility in the region, but the other way around. Rice-importing countries appear to resort to self-sufficiency measures as insurance to compensate for the high risks of unreliable rice supply and unaffordable rice prices. What would it take for countries to regain their confidence in external rice trade? The Association of Southeast Asian Nations Integrated Food Security Program provides a menu of policies for reducing and managing the chances of excessive rice price volatility.

Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Profile of Output and Trade in Selected Cereals
• Tradability and Price Volatility of Cereals
• Self-Perpetuating Cycle: Thin Trade in Rice
• Giving Trade a Chance through Regional Actions
• Conclusion
• References

PURCHASE PUBLICATION

ADB Publishing

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE

English

For more information: 

http://www.adb.org/publications/rice-trade-and-price-volatility-implications-asean-and-global-food-security

Read More

Publications: Poverty and Food Security in India by ADB (Sep 2013)

Poverty and Food Security in India

Date:	September 2013
Type:	Papers and Briefs
Country:	India
Subject:	Agriculture and natural resources; Economics; Poverty
Series:	Economics Working Papers
ISSN:	1655-5252 (print)

Description

This paper is an attempt to analyze the impact of two of India’s largest food security interventions—the Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM)—on poverty outcomes and on nutritional intake. This paper offers a simple methodology to take into account the impact of food-based transfers by including the implicit transfers from these schemes along with generating consumption expenditure estimates consistent with the transfers.

The preliminary analysis shows the significant impact of the PDS and MDM in terms of poverty reduction and calorie intake. While there are large variations across states, the analysis shows that the schemes have not only improved efficiency in the last 2 decades but have also contributed significantly to poverty reduction. Almost half of the poverty reduction in the distribution-sensitive measures such as the squared poverty gap between 2004–2005 and 2009–2010 is explained by the improved efficiency and coverage of these schemes. There is also evidence that the functioning of these schemes, particularly the PDS, has improved in recent years. This is particularly true in states that have followed a universal or quasi-universal coverage along with low cereal prices.

Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction 
• Background
• Food-based Transfers and Poverty Estimates
• A Decomposition Exercise
• Is the PDS Efficient?
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• References

PURCHASE PUBLICATION

ADB Publishing

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE

English

For more information: http://www.adb.org/publications/poverty-and-food-security-india

Read More

Publications: ICARDA Annual Report Stresses Innovations on Climate Resilience (29 Aug 2013)

ICARDA Annual Report Stresses Innovations on Climate Resilience

29 August 2013: The 2012 Annual Report of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) notes that despite significant challenges due to the on-going conflict in Syria, the Center has made significant achievements in translating research into action and policy impact, highlighting its leadership in the high-level international conference on Food Security in the Dry Lands, as well as enhanced partnerships with Canada and South Asia.

The report underscores work on climate change mitigation in India, improved seed systems in Ethiopia, climate change adaptation in Palestine, conservation agriculture in North Africa, and science for adaptation in Central Asia and China.

It describes results to improve crops to combat drought, develop and distribute new seeds, implement conservation agriculture, and test new approaches to improve efficiency in water use in response to climate change. ICARDA outlines its successes in managing genetic resources, mining agricultural genebanks to speed the pace of innovation and deliver food security, managing soil salinity, and reversing rangeland degradation. The report notes the differing outcomes of its new Research Program on Dryland Systems that relate to minimizing risk and reducing vulnerability in low-potential drylands and seeking to support sustainable intensification in higher potential dryland regions.

On research for development initiatives, the report describes three dry area initiatives on enhancing food security in Arab countries, the Middle East Water and Livelihoods Initiative, and Harmonized Support for Agricultural Development. It also notes the efforts of ICARDA's regional and country programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, West Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, South Asia and China, the Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. 

[Publication: ICARDA 2012 Annual Report]

For more information: 
http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/icarda-annual-report-stresses-innovations-on-climate-resilience/212930/

Read More

Events: Harvesting Peace: Food Security, Conflict, and Cooperation (Report Launch) organized by the Wilson Center on 12 Sep 2013

Events

Harvesting Peace: Food Security, Conflict, and Cooperation (Report Launch)

September 12, 2013 // 9:00am — 11:00am

EVENT CO-SPONSORS: 

Africa Program

Middle East Prog

Event Speakers

Since 2008, when rapid increases in the prices for major grains helped to trigger outbreaks of civil unrest in more than 40 countries, scholars and policymakers have paid increased attention to the potential influence of global food prices on social and political instability. Compelling and provocative headlines have suggested that there is a direct relationship between food insecurity and conflict. However, we know from a conflict perspective that the story is always more complicated than those claims often imply. How does conflict affect food insecurity? How does food insecurity contribute to conflict? And how can development organizations effectively address both? Harvesting Peace: Food Security, Conflict, and Cooperation – the latest edition of ECSP Report – explores these complex linkages, drawing insights from scholarly work to help inform more effective programming for practitioners. Join us for a presentation by report author Emmy Simmons and commentary by Susan Bradley, Henk-Jan Brinkman, and Edward Carr.

LOCATION: 

5th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center

DIRECTIONS TO THE WILSON CENTER

 

Event Speakers List: 

• Susan Bradley //
  Chief of the Technical Division, Country Strategies and Implementation Office, Bureau for Food Security, U.S. Agency for International Development
• Henk-Jan Brinkman //
  Chief of the Policy, Planning and Application Branch, United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office
• Edward Carr //
  Former AAAS, U.S. Agency for International Development; Professor, University of South Carolina

• Emmy Simmons //
  Author, Harvesting Peace; Independent Consultant
• Joseph Hewitt //
  Technical Team Leader, Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, U.S. Agency for International Development

For more information: 
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/harvesting-peace-food-security-conflict-and-cooperation-report-launch

Read More

Publications: Water and Food Security – Experiences in India and China by The Global Water Partnership (2013)

Water and Food Security – Experiences in India and China

Source: The Global Water Partnership, 2013

Executive summary

The twin challenges of accessing water and energy for food and agriculture are central to reducing poverty and hunger in Asia. Despite the green revolution's success, the continent is home to two thirds of the world's poor and hungry. Investments in the 1970s and 1980s in irrigation and energy have fuelled agricultural revolutions throughout much of Asia and increased employment and incomes. But with the near double digit economic growth, Asia has also experienced increasing inequality, the world's highest population densities, and growing competition for limited land and water resources. The 2030 Water Resources Group, an alliance of private sector organisations, concluded that historic rates of supply expansion and efficiency improvement will only close 20 percent of the supply–demand gap. The Group argues that the future 'water gap' can be closed if water scarce countries boost efficiency, augment supply, or reduce the water-intensity of their economies by ranking alternative investments in terms of their benefits and costs.

But water and food security pose a 'wicked challenge'. A complex mix of hydrology, engineering, constitutional, legal, political, social, inter-sector, institutional, and agronomic issues – with a mix of vested interests – drive policy and determine outcomes in each country. As yet there are few examples of well-documented sustainably managed land and water systems even after nearly 20 years of global acceptance of the Dublin principles (ICWE, 1992).

Water and land related conflicts are increasing within and across national borders. Economicm growth will likely exacerbate these conflicts. Defence and security experts warn that such conflicts pose the biggest threat to regional peace and security in Asia in the twenty-first century.

There is a renewed urgency to understand the determinants and dynamics of water demand, given climate change and demographic pressures, and the challenges that governance poses for harnessing water resources for their effective, equitable, and sustainable use. To further the debate and analysis, this paper identifies important strategic issues confronting the governance of agricultural water management in Asia and its integral relationship with energy management in irrigated and rainfed agriculture. This paper focuses on India and China as dominant and influential countries in the region. Comparisons between these two mega-countries have fascinated analysts for decades as they have each attempted to address similar issues under very different political systems. This interest has increased even more. Their populations now exceed 1 billion each, and together constitute nearly a third of the global population. And until the advent of the global recession they were experiencing near double digit growth. This paper compares and contrasts the ways in which these countries are tackling the same challenge of harnessing water resources to increase effectiveness, equity, and sustainability under conditions of growing water scarcity and competing demands.

Effective water management is a more complex challenge in democratic and decentralised countries, such as India. Here there are competing interests at the political, administrative, and basin levels and less central control than in unitary centrist states, such as China. The differences range from their constitutions to local management. According to the Chinese constitution, ownership of land, water, and other natural resources is vested in the nation state. In a federated India, ownership and user rights, as well as responsibility for the management of water, agriculture, and forests, is largely vested in the hands of the governments of the 28 states and seven union territories. The role of the central government is limited to transboundary issues between states or across national boundaries.

Each country offers useful insights into developing agriculture and water policies and raises issues about the appropriate balance between the exercise of central authority and decentralised management. Yet solutions are not easily transferable across countries and continents, e.g. between China and India, or between Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which also faces severe water and food security challenges. In the words of Douglas North, the Nobel Prize
winning economist, "the political choices and institutions are path dependent". Experience in China and India suggests that where governance and community capacity is weak, it is risky to undertake technologically demanding hardware projects. In situations of weak governance and institutional capacity, effective small-scale water management solutions are necessary, but are unlikely to be sufficient in the face of growing intra-country and inter-country transboundary
competition, impending threats of climate change, and differential state capacities for collective action. Three areas are in need of urgent attention:

• Better, more reliable and transparent information on the rapidly changing nature of hydrological, demographic, and socioeconomic pressures at all levels, and an understanding of their complex and changing interactions;
• Empirically based, methodologically sound analyses of the realities on the ground as an  essential input into developing normative policy prescriptions, including integrated water  resources management (IWRM) approaches; and
• Awareness raising, information, and advocacy campaigns among people and decision makers at all levels to develop consensus on the magnitude of the water challenge and the urgency to act on it. This is an essential ingredient for developing solutions that are  effectively implemented and independently assessed on a routine basis to determine their impacts and refine solutions.

Link to download the full document:

http://www.gwptoolbox.org/images/stories/gwplibrary/technical_focus/food%20security_gwp_tech_focus_paper_web.pdf

Read More

Publications: Climate Resilience and Food Security: A framework for planning and monitoring by IISD (Aug 2013)

IISD Publications Centre
Climate Resilience and Food Security: A framework for planning and monitoring» Daysi González, Andrea Rivera Sosa, Angie Murillo Gough, José Luis Solórzano, Ceferino Wilson, Xochilt Hernandez, Steve Bushey, Stephen Tyler, Marius Keller, Darren Swanson, Livia Bizikova,Anne Hammill, Alicia Natalia Zamudio, Marcus Moench, Ajaya Dixit, Ramón Guevara Flores, Carlos Heer, Daysi González, Andrea Rivera Sosa, Angie Murillo Gough, José Luis Solórzano, Ceferino Wilson, Xochilt Hernandez, Steve Bushey, 2013.Paper, 29 pages

This working paper was developed jointly by all partners of the Climate Resilience and Food Security in Central America (CREFSCA) project. It presents approaches to understanding and monitoring food system resilience to climate change. Based on an overview of existing approaches to understanding food systems as well as climate resilience, the paper describes a new framework designed to support the analysis of community-level food security in the context of climate shocks and stresses, as well as of resilience of food systems at larger scales. The document also explores how the framework can be applied in practice by researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.

Paper

Get the Paper

PDF

• English (PDF - 1.4 MB)
• Spanish (PDF - 1.7 MB)

• Hard copy not available.

• If you are having difficulty viewing a PDF or Flash Flip-page, please click here.

Related

• Related content from IISD
• Related publications:
  Climate Change, Natural Resources, Poverty,Adaptation and Risk Reduction, IISD Foresight Group

For more information: http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=2831

Read More