According to the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) globally there are 815 million
undernourished people with a further 40 million considered as ‘Food
Insecure’. In Lesotho where 60% of people live under the
internationally recognised – Poverty Line, as a country there is no
doubt that food security is one of the biggest issues facing Lesotho
this century. Government statistics show a marked decline in both
food production and food imports in the past forty years. The new
government document ‘The Lesotho Food Security Policy’ sets a
challenge for all organisations, government, NGO’s, CBO’s and the
private sector to work together to ensure the most vulnerable in
this society are provided with enough food to survive and thrive.
We examine whether this document and the associated plan of action
will be able to deliver FAO’s challenge to halve food insecurity by
2015.
The formation and consultation of the document, was undertaken by
the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and has undoubtedly
been a thorough process. Since March 2004, the Ministry have been
consulting members from NGO’s, government departments, commercial
associations and specialist farming and livestock producing bodies.
Indeed James Otema from DFID said that ‘the Ministry of Agriculture
and Food Security are attempting the most high profile
implementation of the Lesotho ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy’ of all
the government ministries, as a direct result of this initiative’.
This has resulted in the production of the ‘Lesotho Food Security
Policy’ yet to be adopted by the government.
Looking back at the basic facts about human nutritional requirement
an average adult requires 1400 kilo calories to maintain a
functioning body, a further 200 calories to enable light work and an
extra 400 calories for a full days work. Therefore with an extra 25%
more food, your energy supply is tripled. Therefore without adding
in factors such of HIV/Aids, literally the energy of this nation is
being sucked away as a direct result of lack of food intake.
The World Food Summit 1996 described Food Security as a situation
when;
‘All people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access
to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs
and food preferences for an active and healthy life’
For this to be fulfilled people must have;
Availability – Food Supplies must be sufficient adequately to feed
the population
Access – All people must have physical, social and economic access
to sufficient food
Stability – Access and availability must be ensured at all times
Effective Utilisation – The food consumed must be safe and
nutritious.
So how does the Lesotho Government propose to meet this challenge?
Food Security Policy Elements
The main objectives of the Lesotho Food Security Policy are to
improve adequacy and stability of access to food at household level,
improve the utilisation of food at household level and improve
adequacy and stability of food supplies at national level.
Strategies to achieve these objectives as follows;
- Employment promotion
to ensure sufficient and stable access to food – maximising impact
of employment policy, increase on-farm employment, ensure access
to food for structurally and temporarily un and under-employed
- Effective monitoring
of the impact of employment policies on food security
- Promotion of
agriculture and food production – ensure input supply,
conservation farming, block farming, homestead gardens,
irrigation, livestock, land conservation and rehabilitation
- Promotion of
infrastructure and services to support livelihoods – improving
extension services, access to micro-credit, marketing, processing
and trade, rural infrastructure improvements
- Promotion of public
transfer and social safety nets – for very vulnerable – free food
distribution, cash transfers and voucher schemes
- Mainstreaming
HIV/Aids within the Food Security Policy to maximise impact of
policy measures on households affected by HIV/Aids – boosting
economic productivity (conservation farming, home gardens,
livestock, micro-credit, land reform), supporting community safety
nets, supporting food consumption directly through food assistance
- Effective management
of commercial food imports, food aid deliveries and food stocks –
maintaining economically justified balance between commercial
imports wherever possible, studies on establishment of food
stocks/ food reserves, use of grain futures and options market as
an alternative to national physical food reserves, improve
definitions of food aid requirements and better delivery
modalities by donors
- Promotion of
improved utilisation at household level – food quality network,
processing, preservation and safety issues, research on dietary
requirements and interventions to improve patterns and post
harvest grain losses, policy on genetically modified food,
feasibility study on abattoir, intensify public media campaigns
and nutrition education
Two other related
supporting strategies to the above are to improve food security and
vulnerability information systems and strengthen the institutional
framework for implementing, monitoring and evaluating food security
measures
So that’s the theory how does the government intend to implement
those strategies? After a recent conference on ‘Up scaling of the
Special Programme for Food Security’ held on the 26th, 27th & 28th
April, 2005, with invited guests from Food & Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) Rome, World Bank, DFID, GTZ, local NGO’s and
Government line ministries the task was set to develop an action
plan that links with the PRSP and Vision 2020. The donor
organisation, in-line with the ‘Commission for Africa’ stance, that
donors should not undermine government policy have said that they
will consider support of the government in forwarding the Food
Security Action Plan. As a result the Ministry of Agriculture and
Food Security are forming a ‘Task Force’ to work on designing the
Action Plan to implement the Food Security Policy. The major donors,
government line ministries and NGO’s (Care & LCN) have been invited
to participate in this urgent planning.
A strong indication from the Minister of Agriculture & Food
Security, Minister Parrow was that he sees a big role for NGO’s in
taking this plan forward. He said ‘ The government will give
financial support to NGO’s currently working in the field of food
security’. After presentations by Rural Self help Association and
Care on the LRAP “ Livelihoods Recovery through Agriculture Progamme’
the minister commended their work, but warned that care should be
taken to carefully record their work for monitoring the PRSP in
terms of households reached and kg of production up - scaled.
Presentations were also made in FAO’s programme the ‘Neheletse
Progamme’ (pass on to the other) where community flocks are managed
by ‘master farmers’ and animals and poultry are passed on as
production increases. The dimension of community management was
expounded, however there appeared to be a failure to recognise
issues in natural resource management in Lesotho, such as the impact
of increasing livestock levels on Lesotho’s massive soil erosion
problems.
Strangely, the Minister saw soil erosion as an opportunity to create
small dams rather than acknowledging the true extent of this problem
in Lesotho, despite a presentation by from Alemneh Dejeune, Senior
Officer on Natural Resource Management, FAO Rome who showed a causal
link between lessening food production and soil erosion. Perhaps a
greater understanding on the importance of biological top-soil is
needed as you just cannot grow crops on desert. If Lesotho allows
this huge problem to continue then the future generations of
children in Lesotho will only have us to blame for their decreasing
food availability. However the Minister did acknowledge a need for
change in pastoral management, although perhaps his suggestion of
moving livestock from the lowlands to the already severely eroded
pastures of mountain areas needs more thought. Indeed it appears
that Lesotho’s own, local NGO’s RSDA, Boseele and indeed LCN’s LRAP
Food Security Programmes have all considered the need to conserve
this most fundamental of resources in the careful management of
agricultural land and homesteads.
In this case, the Minister was right in his final address to the
conference to take what is working in Lesotho and up-scale it, as he
believes it is only through these initiatives, that work on the
ground that actual food poverty will be addressed. In this respect
as NGO’s we need to be pressing the ‘Task Force’ set up to put the
bones on putting the new policy into practice to build capacity and
upscale our food security programmes. Perhaps the NGO sector also
need to take some of this responsibility on ourselves and work more
closely in a co-ordinated response to food insecurity, combine our
evidence that shows that local approaches to this issue are working,
continue to pressure government to support the up-scaling on NGO
projects and co-ordinate more thoroughly the impact on the ground?
This can only be done through increased communication and agreeing
on a way forward from all the NGO’s working in this sector from the
smallest to the largest. Indeed the NGO approach to building
capacity in their members and communities in enabling people with
the skills and power to pull themselves out of poverty fits with
Minster Parrow’s warning that;‘ Poverty should not be used as an
excuse for an over-dependant society’ . This fits NGO’s fundamental
goals of empowerment of the most vulnerable people in Lesotho.
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