Food Resilience

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

What is the importance of food resilience?

All of us engaged in the ﬁght against hunger and recognize the need to shift the way we work with food insecure communities to help them become more resilient.

The Rome-based United Nations agencies are championing this shift by aligning our policies and programmes with six core principles.

PRINCIPLE 1: People, communities and governments must lead resilience-building for improved food security and nutrition

Resilience-building strengthens the capacities of vulnerable households and communities to adapt to changing circumstances, manage an increasingly complex risk environment, and cope with shocks they are unable to prevent.

Efforts to assist vulnerable groups to manage risks and build their resilience must be developed through country- and community-led efforts. Government leadership brings a more holistic approach that transcends any institutional barriers partners might have to working together. Capacity-building of local authorities and better engagement of community leaders increases the likelihood that activities will be relevant to local needs and deliver sustained gains. All efforts must focus on people, their organizations, and build on their current risk management and coping strategies.

PRINCIPLE 2: Building resilience is beyond the capacity of any single institution

Building resilience must be a joint effort. No single activity on its own is likely to build resilience, yet together and if taken to relevant scale, each can contribute to improved resilience overall.

PRINCIPLE 3: Planning frameworks should combine immediate relief requirements with long-term development objectives

Building resilience means addressing the immediate causes of vulnerability, food insecurity and malnutrition, while building the capacity of people and their governments to better manage underlying risks to their lives and livelihoods. We can no longer divide development from humanitarian action.

Better risk management and strengthened resilience are as central to the development agenda as they are to humanitarian action. They are a prerequisite for enabling vulnerable people to cultivate a new crop, start a new enterprise, or take any new action to overcome hunger and poverty.

PRINCIPLE 4: Ensuring protection of the most vulnerable is crucial for sustaining development efforts

Productive safety nets are a cost-effective way to achieve longer-term solutions to hunger and increased ﬂexibility to manage risks.

Only 20 percent of people in the world today have access to social protection. The poorest, most vulnerable and food insecure among us typically have no access to social protection or safety nets. For this reason, when disaster strikes it has a more dramatic effect on the lives and livelihoods of poor people.

PRINCIPLE 5: Effective risk management requires integration of enhanced monitoring and analysis into decision-making

Better monitoring and early warning will provide decision makers at all levels with the information they need to manage risks, adjust plans, and seize opportunities.

Our approach begins with the vulnerable communities and continues through local, national and regional levels, helping ensure that action at every level is mutually reinforcing. This allows for better responses to shocks, but it also saves a lot of money.

PRINCIPLE 6: Interventions must be evidence-based and focus on long-term results

Building resilience is complex and dynamic. It requires a concentration of resources to address fundamental challenges faced by vulnerable populations. To ensure the most effective use of resources, we must rigorously evaluate the resilience-building impacts of medium- and long-term interventions on household food security and nutrition.

Our choice of a world without hunger and poverty requires us to help vulnerable people build resilience against complex risks. We need to support their livelihood, risk management and coping strategies. We must encourage and support the leadership of the governments and people we assist so they can build their own resilience. We must work together more effectively.

To do this, we must improve our policy and planning frameworks to combine our short-term humanitarian work with longer-term development objectives. We must change the way we grow, share and consume nutritious food. We must make concerted efforts to assist the most marginalized people through safety nets and other investments. We must bolster risk management services, including insurance for poor and vulnerable populations, to encourage investment and development of their livelihoods. And we must act on a more robust evidence base to ensure we use the limited resources that we have in the most efﬁcient way possible.

If we do these things, we will help build a future where periodic shocks no longer plunge people into hunger and poverty, and communities thrive where the threats of hunger and poverty once ruled.

This information was taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ertharin-cousin/global-food-security_b_2546075.html

Thursday, 13 March 2014

Notes taken from farmers and farmers forum

The farms we visited are part of an NGO called the Greater Orlando Environmental developmental group, which focuses on producing organic and permaculture gardens. Permaculture is only 80% organic as they make use of paper and cardboard which is not organic.

They mix garlic and chili to use as pesticides, which is organic as there are no chemicals used.

The farmers forum helps the connection between the farmers, it is a platform where they can share knowledge and information. They are business based and encourage the farmers to make money to support themselves financially.

We have been socialized into buying shop food. We don't have to grow our own food anymore which has created a generation that does not know about our own environment. We don't know which plants have what nutritional value or what their medical benefits are. Instead of using our gardens to grow plants that can help with things like headaches, rashes and burns we go buy products from pharmacies to heal it, when that is not the most natural or organic way.

Since organic farming can take a while to grow and produce crop, they have to make sure they have plants all year round. They do this by having a chart that tells them exactly when to plant what and how long it takes. This creates a sustainable garden, they can also harvest and keep some crop, which helps meet demands of consumption.

They want to focus on creating a local interest in the crops. They want to sell the vegetables and plants to the locals and not to shops. This creates a bigger profit and it also encourages organic local businesses, which helps create sustainability in the long run (food miles). The nutritional value also decreases with age, and it you buy it fresh it will be better for your health.

They want to create a spiritual, cultural and social connection between plants and they community.

They make use of raised beds. This is when they dig a whole and start to layer it with organic matter and then top it with soil. This is so that when they plant the seedling, the roots will grow easily in the organic matter and it will have lots of nutrients and not have to struggle. They then cover it with mulch - this is so they only have to water it every other week and it locks in the moisture and nutrients.

At the second farm

The farmers market will be held there. They want stalls and benches along the plant so people can go sit and interact. They also want branded packaging for their vegetables.

They sell their spinach for R5 for 1kg, and anybody can just come and buy it straight from the farms.

They also give their food to the feeding scheme and it gets prepared into food for the children at the schools.

When they harvest the plants and vegetables, they keep it in a fridge to keep fresh, they need a bigger fridge to keep a bigger stock.

They can also make jams, pastes and dried herbs which will help them get rid of more stock and get more income.

They could possibly incorporate street vendors later, by providing crops for them to sell.

Marketing material to appeal to higher end class as they can afford to spend more and pay for organic jams etc.

The farmers forum needs more farmers to join their community to create sustainability. The more farmers they have the more they can farm, produce and sell. It creates a collaboration where they can all sell their produce form one place to create a sustainable economy.

Third farm

This farm was much more technology based and had a lot more infrastructure set up. They have greenhouses and have heaters for the plants in winter.

They supply hawkers with plants to sell they provide the feeding scheme, as well as provide food to the old age home and for any funerals nearby.

Adcorp sponsored in 2005, they built the structures and sent them for training.