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Moderated e-mail conference on small farms and food security

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My name is Ana Afonso from Spain, a researcher linked to GESPLAN Research Group at the Technical University of Madrid. My research lines are Human Development, Food Security and Rural Development.



My contribution addresses the third set of questions 3.3 regarding the role of small farms in food security and nutrition.

As stated in the background paper, small farms are important to achieve food security contributing to all the four dimensions as well as addressing the triple burden of malnutrition. But my view is that they have a particular role to play in some specific aspects:



- With regard to the level/scale (question 3.3.3), the focus should not only be individual or household, but also local level.

- With regard to the four dimensions of food security (question 3.3.2), the focus is in the second dimension, access to food, more specifically “physical access” including “social programs to ensure access to nutritious food”

- With regard to the triple burden of malnutrition (question 3.3.5), family farms have a role to play when tackling the increasing concern of the so-called hidden hunger or micronutrient deficiency, contributing to a more diversified diet.



The combination of these three aspects may be on the basis of policy measures to be implemented at local level as shown in the figure below.



Figure: Goals tree for policy makers at local level



[Imágenes integradas 1]



Quite often, social food programs are addressed to subsidise staple foods (such as rice or wheat) to make them more accessible for low-income families. This measure can help to increase energy food intake for these poor families contributing to lower undernutrition. But by doing so, the micronutrient deficiency issue is being neglected. Usually, poor families that are eligible for food social programs have an unbalanced diet with too many cereals and lacking vegetables and fruits that could be provided by local family farms. Giving them staple foods results in an even more unbalanced diet “hiding their hunger more and more” (question 3.3.6).



Implementing local policies within the framework described in the above figure could help to a better and more diversified diet of the poor small farmers by encouraging self-consumption and by increasing their incomes as providers of fruits and vegetables for food social programs. In this way, social food programs tackle the issue of micronutrient deficiency which used to be a challenge for poor people whose diet is strongly unbalanced and depends only on staple foods (question 3.3.6).



Promoting the recovery of traditional food products is also a way of maintaining the world’s agro-biodiversity and the sustainable use of natural resources.



The implementation of the policies within the framework described above would require:

- A previous diagnosis and assessment of the diet of both, the farmers and the beneficiaries of food social programs, to identify what they are lacking

- A study of the feasibility to cultivate the desirable products to improve the diet in the local small farms.



The two variables should be considered in a multi-criteria analysis to identify which products should be promoted for cultivation in small farms to improve the diets at local level.



Ana Afonso

PhD and Agronomist Engineer

Grupo de Investigación en Planificación y Gestión Sostenible del Desarrollo Rural Local (GESPLAN)<http://ruraldevelopment.es/>

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

ETSIAAB

Av. Puerta de Hierro, 2

28040 Madrid

Spain

www.ruraldevelopment.es/<http://www.ruraldevelopment.es/>

E-mail: ana.afonso.gallegos (at) gmail.com





[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. The last day for receiving messages is 23 October].



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