From Food Production to Food Security - Global Environmental ...

agriculture in many parts of the world, coupled with what might be chronic (or worse, acute)food insecurity, staff in such units are often overstretched and under resourced. Despite theagreed need (and usually sincere desire) to engage in planning discussions and follow-upactivities, there is simply insufficient human capacity to do so; staff often need to respond toimmediate crises (e.g. a deepening drought, or an imminent hurricane) rather than concentrateon more strategic planning issues. Holding planning meetings in locations whererepresentatives from such bodies would most likely be able to participate (e.g. for southernAfrica in Gaborone, where SADC-FANR is based) can help gain input, and hence an insight,into policy interests. An innovation developed by the International Food Policy ResearchInstitute’s (IFPRI) RENEWAL project has been the establishment of Advisory Panels toensure ‘in-reach’. This model involves explicitly including policy-makers and otherstakeholders in the research from inception, ensuring that the project ‘asked the rightquestions’ that were relevant and important. These panels were established in the maincountries in which RENEWAL operates. Although an attempt was made to set up a similarstructure at regional level, it became evident that staff of relevant directorates (especiallyFANR) are heavily overstretched and the effectiveness of this was questionable.Despite the number of examples discussed above, it is questionable whether these tacticalapproaches really add up to a strategic decision at a political level to engage in systematicanalysis and preparedness for GEC/food security issues. An education/capacity-buildingeffort at a political and decision-making level that involves the food industry and otherstakeholders appears to also be needed. It is important to realize, however, that regionalbodies such as EU or CARICOM comprise member states, each of which has its own nationalconcerns and goals. What might appear a logical way forward for the region as a whole mightbe thwarted by political and economic concerns of individual members, or by conflictsbetween them, such as between India and Pakistan. For instance, since the 1980s, SADC hasbeen considering the establishment of a strategic food reserve to deal with the growingfrequency of natural disasters. Early proposals were based on considerations of enoughphysical maize stock for 12 months’ consumption. Despite this, most government reserveswere at record low stocks at the 2002/3 marketing year (Mano et al., 2003; Kurukulasuriya etal., 2006). This regional/national dynamic adds a further complication to identifying theregional ‘client’.Methods to engender research at regional levelWithin a given region there are often many research projects working at the national or subnationallevel addressing aspects of GEC and food system research (e.g. social, agronomic,fisheries, policy, economics, ecological and climate sciences). If integrated, these individualprojects could be very relevant both to the broader, interdisciplinary GEC/food securityagenda and to higher-level analyses of value to policy development at the regional level.Such integration depends on effective networking.90