"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
The GREAT food miles debate
Dear fellow Agents, for the past week or so we have been discussing different ways we can grow enough food to feed the globe sustainably and affordably.
In many developing countries smallholder export horticulture is aleady proving to be a powerful new engine for growth in rural economies. My country Kenya has been one of the quickest to develop as a supplier of air-freighted fresh vegetables from smallholder fields to consumers in Europe. More than a 1 million livelihoods have been created in farm production and a further 3 million in associated employment. Now other African countries including Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia want to follow suit.
However with rising concerns over climate change, consumers, environmentalists and politicians in the developed world are debating whether it makes environmental sense to continue to import foodstuffs with high food miles. The debate on if emissions caused by the airfreight of our fresh produce from Africa v/s this growth in rural economies is HOT.
Please share - are you FOR air-freighting of fresh produce from one country to or another or AGAINST?
Views: 143
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Comment by Rahul Dewanjee on March 18, 2010 at 3:05pm
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I would urge Simon and Samuel to take a re-look at my previous posts here and let me know which part of my writing appears questionable.
Free market based trade and commerce with all its imperfections is perhaps the best possible payoff for a developing country. An implicit endorsement of the fact that if exports are banned, people within the poor countries in Africa and else where will have sufficient food to eat. This is over simplification.
Consumption led demand is linked with affordability. One can't theorize an economic model for Africa without considering ground realities: high budget deficit, agriculture being primary competitive advantage, low productivity, near absence of manufacturing, non existent service industry, poor health, education and sanitation in Africa resulting in low skilled massive human capital that is weak to take up high end services and knowledge processing based models to leapfrog to prosperity.
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I spoke at length for the need for functional democracy and institutional mechanism to bring stability through governance and fiscal prudence. There is no viable market mechanism currently available in Africa to bring liquidity to the market and absence of money is a hindrance to execute innovation. Major land reform is needed to generate capacity for organized farming to happen in Africa that can increase yield or productivity of farm produce. In India, we had something similar called the Green Revolution.
African food security can be addressed by a combination of managing yield, soil renewal, water conservation, smart farming technology adoption, reforestation, better transport linkages and building capacity for storage and prevent post harvest losses. And it makes sense for African countries to partner with Israel in particular to seek access of next generation farming technologies, pest control, dry land farming techniques, soil and water conservation techniques that European and American businesses may never prefer to share.
Innovation requires a mindset change. European Union itself can't seem to rescue itself now under present circ**stances where several countries in EU are on the verge of bankruptcy (Portugal, Spain, Greece, Iceland). And it is unlikely that the current Obama administration in the US would allow Africa to access any critical technologies with which Africa can leapfrog agricultural productivity. The possible choices therefore could be participating with India which has very sophisticated agricultural research depth and Israel with both R&D and execution capacities to bring implementable change quicker and practically achievable.
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Just for the sake of innovation, something doesn't have to be 'out of the world' especially in the context of Africa which needs a generational improvement in every facet of macro economic fundamental.
Just like it is foolish to think of eating cakes for better nutrition when there is a shortage of wheat, similarly I would say that food miles at times like this is irrelevant for Africa now. Let the context change first.
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Comment by Samuel Freilich on March 18, 2010 at 3:30pm
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Rahul: Well put.
First, a correction: When I said above that "'fair trade' proponents don't seem to worry too much about grain subsidies", I meant to say "'free market' proponents". When I later talk about "Fair Trade", I mean the movement to improve labor standards through customer choice in the context of a free market (i.e. "Fair Trade Coffee" and the like).
Also, to be clear, when I mention the "objections" I cite above, my conclusion isn't intended to be read as "so stop buying vegetables shipped from abroad". The question as stated ("FOR or AGAINST") is of course an oversimplification. Just because the global food system that pushes farmers from local staple crops to global export crops isn't necessarily a huge win for farmers doesn't mean that if you stop buying those global export crops things will go back to the way they were before. A lot of farmers switched to export crops to keep "barely making a living", but notmaking a living is still a very real option, and clearly not a better one.
You say:
"Free market based trade and commerce with all its imperfections is perhaps the best possible payoff for a developing country."
While I don't necessarily agree, both of the solutions I discuss are in the context of the free market. "Fair Trade" products have to do with labor standards as consumer choice, not government regulation. And wealthy nations paying agricultural subsidies to their farmers is also not a "free market" policy.
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And just a quick reminder that the video that I have posted earlier is quite relevant. One needs to simply watch it first and hear what it is trying to communicate. I don't think there is actually any point regurgitating the message in the video all over in my words. Just watch and learn could be the better option.
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Along with all that, the role of private citizens and the world community to come forward and help fund initiatives to improve all areas of life in Africa is linked to what extent we can see positive change in agricultural output, water availability, nutrition and seed quality.
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To summarize what I have said earlier, I reckon that we can draw our strengths from our observations from around the world that we saw both in market based approaches and socialistic sets-ups over the last six decades and therefore we can safely conclude that any social innovation whatsoever in the African context would inevitably have to rely on institutional, private and external linkages in the social, political, economic, industrial, environmental and technological dimensions of overall African economy. No other form is perhaps feasible. And even if we adopt ideas emanating from Europe and America, such ideas though fundamentally strong will be devoid of any context that can leverage them to create value for the African people.
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Comment by Jenn on March 18, 2010 at 5:54pm
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Wow, Shakwei! You've started one of the best discussions I've seen on here. Would you (or anyone else) consider doing a post about SAP's in Kenya? I'm really interested how policies developed to support smallholder exports. If we had a better understanding about the history surrounding this, I think it would deepen the conversation. (At least for me it would, since I don't have a very clear hold on how economic issues should be resolved!) :)
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Comment by Ken Eklund on March 18, 2010 at 6:24pm
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I agree with Jenn – a great and wide-ranging discussion. Rahul, I appreciate your participation and am awarding you +20 Knowledge Share and +10 Collaboration.
I wonder, though, about some of the conclusions you reach. In your last post, you say that from "our observations from around the world that we saw both in market based approaches and socialistic sets-ups over the last six decades... we can safely conclude that any social innovation whatsoever in the African context would inevitably have to rely on institutional, private and external linkages in the social, political, economic, industrial, environmental and technological dimensions of overall African economy." I know little about economics, but this sounds suspect to me. First of all, it seems to assume that the next ten years will be a lot like the last 60 years, and I question that assumption. Also, it assumes that no grassroots effort will ever be successful at improving the lives of its people, and I question that as well. I think EVOKE is showing that there are options that have not been tried and indeed, were never before possible but are now.
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That's a really good point, Ken. Here's an example of a successful alternative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting#Implementation.... I'm still learning about all of this stuff, but I think it's important to recognize that there are options that don't rely on free markets and privatization of public services.
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