Reflections on Food Security, Health and Impact Conference

Dr Month Jones, 
Executive Secretary of the Forum for Agriculture
Research Africa
gave the Behrens lecture

UKCDS' Deputy Director Kate O'Shea reflects on the recent Africa College Food Security, Health and Impact Conference:

"Over 1 billion people go to sleep hungry and roughly the same amount are obese. Many people suffering over- or under-nutrition are likely to suffer health problems as a result placing a massive burden on their often fragile healthcare systems. It sounds crazy but it’s a sad fact. So what can we do about it?

At a conference on convened by the Africa College at Leeds University on Food Security, Health and Impact Knowledge Brokering the problems were discussed along with some examples of where research on agriculture and health is having an impact.

From my perspective, one of the most thought provoking presentations was by Tim Lang, who is a bit of an unorthodox guru on UK food policy. He started by suggesting that the term ‘food security’ is a bit like God -it means lots of different things to different people. He went on to assert that the global food system is broken and unless there are some fundamental changes, our problems are only going to get worse. With a growing population and increasing demand from the expanding ‘middle class’ across the globe, many suggest that increasing production (getting more from less) is what is needed. There was, naturally, quite a bit of talk about how that can be done at the conference - and this is vital for small scale farmers in Africa. However, Tim passionately argued that focussing on increasing production significantly downplays the power structures at work, ignores food culture and does not recognise that a systems approach is needed.

The need for a systems approach to ‘food security’, incorporating interdisciplinary thinking across sectors, was repeatedly recognised and discussed. Like a lot of things in life, it is easier to discuss than to put into action. It’s difficult and a range of pressures means it is rarely done successfully.

Another thing that is easier said than done is to develop and maintain true partnerships across countries where the context, challenges and resources are very different. African research institutions do not want to be ‘data donkeys’ as one speaker named it. This has been changing over the last decade but true collaboration requires long-term commitment and funding, which can be in short supply, with funders budgets rarely being set for more than 5 years. Quite a bit has been written in recent years in how partnerships and collaborations can be made more equal (see my views on a recent OECD report).

Funders are now more than ever insisting that researchers demonstrate the ‘impact’ their research has. The extent to which ‘impact’ can be defined and assessed, and its role in driving academic research continues to be debated. At the conference there was a general feeling that researchers in this area are working to have a ‘real world’ impact as well as an academic one. But it is still clear that there is not an easy formula to follow for this.

The need to engage with and include the community in research was a strong theme throughout the conference and the knowledge exchange sessions provided examples of many interesting projects that were doing this well. A UKCDS sponsored prize provided recognition for some of these projects.

The importance of ecosystems was addressed on the last day and I get the sense that we are still struggling to take an overall ecosystems approach – where the integrated nature of humans and their environment is fully appreciated and at the heart of development. Tim Benton described sustainability as the elephant in the room and suggested that many attempts at sustainability were simply green washing. I would agree.

Finally I wanted to mention an interesting presentation describing how the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was established largely to prevent  ‘biopiracy’ (where Western corporation utilised genetic resources from developing countries to develop new products with no share of the revenue returning to the country of origin), is now hampering efforts to control pests destroying crops in developing countries. Researchers in developing countries working on biocontrol (itself quite controversial) are unable to export specimens from countries where pests originated because of confusion over how the CBD applies. This and other presentations can be found on the Africa College website.

You can view videos from the conference by visiting the Africa College website.
  
Photo credit: Africa College, Leeds University