The Farming First guide outlines the key policy objectives of each global and regional initiative and how they identify these policies should be implemented.

Last year in L’Aquila, Italy, G8 leaders pledged US$20 billion (since revised to $22 billion) to address global food security.

Since the food crisis erupted in 2008, a large number of  food security initiatives have been launched or strengthened in response. The L’Aquila statement and the subsequent launch in 2010 of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) are important illustrations of the commitment to action of countries around the world.

Food security is a complex issue requiring concerted efforts over the long term. The increased attention and leadership around this issue is a very positive development.  However, while this renewed attention and action are welcomed and needed, the proliferation of parallel separate initiatives also requires that the risk of overlapping, competing or disjointed activities is addressed.

As we move towards action on these food security policies, Farming First urges G8 leaders to:

1. promote a clear joint focus on a common goal for food security at the global level through policy and operational coherence
2. encourage increased transparency on how much of pledged funding has been committed and to what types of programmes
3. engage a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that our efforts are coordinated, clear, collaborative and ultimately successful.

How the many current programmes are coordinated and jointly contribute to food security is unclear. In the UN system, the Secretary-General’s High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF) represents an effort at giving an overarching direction but how non-UN efforts relate, for instance, to the Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA) developed by the HLTF, is not articulated.

Additionally, despite a great amount of funding pledged by many countries to support food security initiatives, we do not know how much and in what ways it has been delivered. For instance, the L’Aquila statement included targeted investments as well as support for innovation, research and technology as essential components of long-term food security.

Finally, how the relevant stakeholders required for successful policy implementation can interact with these programmes is also in many cases undefined. Farmers, scientists, civil society and the private sector need to be involved in order to ensure plans meet existing needs and are successfully implemented. For instance, Farming First suggests that the GAFSP does have a dedicated seat for farmers and the private sector on its Steering Committee, given the essential role that the Committee will play in supporting initiatives around the world that will affect farmers.

Farming First urges G8 leaders to renew their commitments to food security at this year’s summit, and we welcome the opportunity for further collective action in addressing the hunger and poverty concerns at the heart of sustainable development.

But since much of my time these days is spent thinking about agriculture (from a variety of perspectives) on behalf of my clients, it struck me when two “food security” articles appeared in the Financial Times on the same day, one highlighting a surge in global cereal stocks and the other lamenting a serious famine in the West African country of Niger.

Below is the resulting letter to the editor, published in today’s FT (or read it here online).  It alludes to two interesting pieces of client work in which I am currently involved.  The first is the Farming First coalition which advocates for a farmer-centric, science-based set of solutions for sustainable agriculture; the second is a sub-Saharan African seed security initiative being implemented by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) – which also received coverage in the Guardian recently.

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(from the May 14 edition)

Sir, Two FT articles highlight how complex, and often befuddling, the issue of food security can be to manage. On one side, Javier Blas reports the US Department of Agriculture’s claim that “surging [cereal] production has … allayed recent concerns about the world’s ability to meet rising food, feed and fuel needs” (“Crop stocks set to rise for third year in a row”, May 12).

On the other side, Tom Burgis reports from Niger of “a food crisis spanning the Sahel” due to “high prices and lack of rain” (“Niger is on brink of food shortages”, May 12).

Whether it be food surge or food shortage, what these articles reveal is that food security at the global level is about much more than food availability. It is about local access to inputs and information as well as a set of policies that reflects farmers’ needs first. For example, the Southern African Development Community is piloting an innovative scheme to harmonise the seed regulatory systems in Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe so farmers can access quality seeds more reliably and at a lower cost.

Food security is about production, but it is also about policies.

Self Help Africa promotes and oversees long-term rural development programmes in nine African countries — Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Ghana, Togo and Burkina Faso.

Self Help Africa was formed in mid-2008 from the merger of two charities, each with nearly 25 years experience of working on long-term solutions to address hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Michael has been working informally with the organisation for the past nine months, and he hopes to continue lending his background in international development and his experience working in agricultural communications to Self Help Africa in the future.

Last month, a global conference took place in Washington D.C., organized by CropLife and CAST, where a panel of science and policy experts gathered to debate how best to address future food insecurities. The panelists discussed the possibilities of innovation in agriculture, highlighting the need for increased investment in agricultural research and in enabling farmers to access new technology.

As the five panelists sat in front of an audience of a couple of hundred, thousands of others around the world watched the debate live online. Joined up to the webcast, a twitter conversation gave people the chance to ask their 140-character questions that were then addressed by the panelists within the studio.  Policy and science-heavy conversations are often shut away from the general public and left for the industry players to discuss amongst themselves. This time however, the global nature of food security was given prominence by becoming an interactive universal debate.

At the conference, Dr. Norman Borlaug’s last words were revealed, written shortly before his death last year. Borlaug, known as the Father of the Green Revolution, has been called the ‘man who has saved more lives than any other’ for his research into increasing rice and wheat productivity in the 1960s. Fifty years on, whether or not to proceed with a second green revolution is subject to debate, but the level of discussion it does inspire is integral to assuring that agriculture retains a high position on the political agenda.

Glasshouse Partnership is here on behalf of one of our clients, discussing the role of agriculture as part of a climate solution.  (Agriculture is responsible for 14% of total emissions, more than the entire transport sector, yet better farm practices can help reduce carbon emissions and the amount of other resources, like water, used to grow the world’s food.)

Inside the convention center, it is truly a microcosm of the “global community” at large. From NGO representatives to businesspeople, policymakers to policemen, the task of communicating on climate change is fascinating to watch as it unfolds.

Here are some observations if you weren’t able to make it here yourselves:

• A COMMUNICATIONS MAELSTROM:  There are so many people here from all over the world that those who have not firmed up their communications strategies before arriving seem to be running to stand still.  Apparently, more than 25,000 conference hopefuls were turned back at the door this morning.  (We made sure to get some good coverage ahead of the conference in the Guardian, on the official COP15 website, and on sustainability blogs like justmeans.com to make sure our messages were being heard.)

• SHOCK TACTICS: Many civil society groups are attracting attention by staging public stunts within the conference centre itself.  There are singing polar bears, climate pirates, and people wearing masks of world leaders in various positions/costumes. (That’s quite a juxtaposition from the average delegate’s dress code.)  These tactics draw media interest, but risk aggravating decision-making delegates or sending the wrong message.  For instance, a recent shock advert (depicting polar bears falling from the sky) from Plane Stupid was widely criticised as unhelpful to the cause.

• COMMUNICATING TO DIFFERENT AUDIENCES: More than perhaps anything else, I have watched how a complex issue like climate change has been communicated to different audiences who have different interests and levels of knowledge.  Climate spans economic issues (subsidies/tax/trade, ‘green’ innovation, risk management) governance issues (who gets funding, who is the watchdog, who determines priorities, how carbon markets should be established), scientific issues (emissions targets, counting carbon, geo-engineering) as well as social issues (food security, rural livelihoods development, environmental sustainability, migration).  While it has been fascinating to hear different views on these subjects, some of the most compelling communications have been the simplest (for instance, “COP15: No Agriculture, No Deal”).  Getting this balance right makes communications so much easier.

Art meets transparency in one exquisite package for any farming bibliophile – you know who you are!

Check out PIG 05049.

My copy’s on order. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Her next project is an interactive expose of the workings of a farm, in the form of a colouring book. Maybe we should commission her to support Farming First?

The BCC programme, hosted by journalist George Alagiah, poses the fundamental question, “Can world food production keep up with growing demand, and what will be the likely impacts back in the UK?”

We at Glasshouse have been engaging with the issue of food security via our work with the Farming First coalition.  Farming First is supported by a broad cross-section of global organisations along the agricultural supply chain, including farmers, scientists, business, and NGOs.  They’ve proposed a six-point plan which outlines how to empower farmers to continue feeding the world and to accomplish this feat sustainably and responsibly.

Assuming that current projections hold true, the global population will have increased to 9 billion people by 2050, and demand for energy-intensive diets including more meats, dairy, and oils will increase, especially in developing economies such as China and India. While consumers in the developed world have largely been protected thus far, the experts interviewed in the BBC programme warn of the possibility of increased food prices, a less reliable and less diverse selection of products.

Meanwhile, a new book launched in the UK (Waste by Tristram Stuart) estimates that 50% of harvests never end up on our plates, 35% of school lunches get thrown out, and an incredible 25% of purchased food goes to waste from rot or lack of use.  And the average UK consumer is eating imported food that took 3000 litres of foreign water to grow, a concept referred to as our “water footprint”.

It seems to me that we are facing a tipping point in how the mainstream western consumer is going to have to look at and consume food.