Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
in the Americas, and one quarter in Europe. Anaemia causes 65,000
maternal deaths per year in Asia, and severe vitamin A deficiency affects
100 million to 250 million children worldwide. 2
What can be done? Lisa Smith and Lawrence Haddad's review of the
past 25 years of child malnutrition suggests that improved food avail-
ability is only one of four factors that are important in overcoming child
health problems. The other three are improved female education, access
to family health services, and status improvements for women relative to
men. Women are disadvantaged in agricultural systems. They produce up
to 80 per cent of food, but have access to less than 10 per cent of credit
and extension advice, and also own very little land. The United Nations'
fourth report on the world's nutrition says:
Investing in maternal and childhood nutrition will have both short- and long-term
benefits of huge economic and social significance, including reduced health care costs
throughout the life cycle, increased educability and intellectual capacity, and increased
adult productivity. No economic analysis can fully capture the benefits of such
sustained mental, physical and social development. 3
It is clear that an adequate and appropriate food supply is a necessary
condition for eliminating hunger and food poverty. But increased food
supply does not automatically mean increased food security for all. What is
important is who produces the food, who has access to the technology
and knowledge to produce it, and who has the purchasing power to acquire
it. The conventional wisdom is that, in order to double food supply, we
need to redouble efforts to modernize agriculture. After all, it has been
successful in the past. But there are major doubts about the capacity of
such systems to produce the food where the poor and hungry people live.
These people need low-cost and readily available technologies to increase
food production. A further challenge is that this must happen without
further damage to the environment.
All of this leaves us with three choices for agricultural development
if we are to increase food supply. We could expand the area of agriculture
by converting new lands to crop and animal production, but with the result
that important services from forests, grasslands and other areas of
important biodiversity are lost. We could increase per hectare production
in agricultural exporting countries, mostly industrialized, so that food can
be transferred or sold to those who need it, but with the result that the
poor will continue to be excluded. Or we could seek to increase total farm
productivity in developing countries that most need the food.
We know the first two choices work in terms of increased food
production. The third has also worked for farmers with access to sufficient
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