On 31 October 2012, the second Agri-ProFocus ‘Food Security Forum’ expert meeting took place at ICCO in Utrecht. The subject was Inclusive Food Security: HOW to design and evaluate effective food security programs and policies, taking all four pillars of food security into account where possible and useful?

By Jan Willem Eggink, Network facilitator Food Security

The Food Security Forum is an initiative of the Agri-ProFocus network, in which member professionals discuss food security topics in small in-depth expert meetings. This time, four speakers presented a case or programme from different perspectives before an audience of 20:

Abby Onencan from the Nile Basin Discourse in Uganda explained the drawbacks of blueprint planning (a.o. top-down approach leading to farmers not taking the responsibility for common infrastructure). When local communities were involved and got ownership, maintenance of infrastructure improved, crop yields increased and conflicts on water decreased.

Harma Rademaker from Cordaid presented the NASFAM program in Malawi which aims to develop resilient livelihoods through promotion of agricultural diversification and farming as business. Cordaid used a monitoring instrument which measured changes in purchasing power of a panel of beneficiaries over time.

Marijke de Graaf from ICCO shared some experiences with the self-developed Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). A lively discussion on the scale and monitoring covered issues such as whether it is appropriate to ask specific questions on hunger; the ‘strategic’ responses of interviewees; timing in the year in relation to growing seasons; farmers coping with other problems; capabilities of interviewers; other methods e.g. families keeping diaries; and costs.

Marianne van Dorp from WUR-CDI argued that to support the claim that increased food production leads to increased food and nutrition security, one has to analyse the whole chain, starting with the dietary intake of the target group and then down to the land and the circumstances where the food is produced. Linkages between agriculture/food production and nutritional status of the population exist, but M&E on nutrition still has to be improved.

The presentations of the concrete cases were received as very informative. A few general conclusions from the discussion that followed are:

• Several cases show the importance of proper checks and balances to induce efficient cooperation between different stakeholders,
• The cases show many different roles for NGOs to enhance food security: broker between competing visions at local, national and regional level (e.g. a short-term versus a long-term focus); involving farmers; combining advocacy with commercial business; changing local consumption patterns,
• The role of the private sector (risk taking, investing and up-scaling) was underexposed during the meeting,
• There is an urgent need to know what good food security indicators are and how to monitor them in different contexts.

The various presentations can be downloaded on our online platform Agriculture, food security and climate change. The next expert meeting on Food Security will take place in April 2013.