Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ultaneously considered, but where an integrated policy approah aknowledges the
bio-cultural and sociocultural legacy of human history.
If we value social and bio-diversity, ecological feedbaks and a fair global food
system, it appears logical to reassess the contribution that multiple forms of food
provisioning play in pursuing nutritional security. These include the self-provision-
ing practices of hunter-gatherers as exemplified by modern day gleaners and com-
munity and home gardeners; the commercial market, accessed by cash or financial
credit transactions; harity and aid, oten entailing donors some considerable dis-
tance away providing one-off assistance in times of calamity; and development as-
sistance brokered between governments and multilateral agencies.
Eah has its place depending on circumstances, and eah has downsides. Self-
provisioning in bio-spherically difficult environments does not guarantee desired di-
etary diversity, and hence there has to be reliance on others for food supplies. Food
provided through aid pakages, development assistance and global free trade is es-
sential in many places and at particular times, but eah of these 'foodways' has often
supplied plentiful calories but not plentiful nutrition, perhaps because they have also
been a mehanism for oloading surpluses from developed world producers.
In context, where there is no sure route to nutritional security, governments need
to closely interrogate the many food security agreements that they are signing up
to. In the Asia-Pacific region alone, the following frameworks are among the many
more to have been promulgated in the last two years alone: the ASEAN-FAO Region-
al Conference on Food Security; the ASEAN Multisectoral Framework on Climate
Change and Food Security; the APEC Food System; and the ASEAN Plus Three
Roundtable on food security cooperation strategies. In an encouraging sign, there is
increasing recognition in these documents that producer-community survival is de-
pendent on environmental sustainability and fair terms of trade. Thus, development
concerns are being aligned with environmental concerns, and, in reference bak to
the metabolic rit concept, feedbaks between social development and natural re-
source depletion are being considered. However, most adopt without question the
1996 World Food Summit deinition whih does not aknowledge that it is possible
to have energy security and not nutritional security. It appears that what is amen-
able to measurement (caloric energy) 'counts' in a way that insights from ecological
history do not.
