المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

One of the important contributions of the proposed study is the compilation of the various ways that countries are addressing water and food security (last paragraph of Section 2, Governance).  Such a comparative study has the potential to be quite useful in helping countries choose among alternative paths to water and food security.   To serve this purpose, however, the study needs to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, against certain parameters.  I would suggest that the parameters used should go beyond water efficiency or economic efficiency (though both are clearly important) to a broader vision of agriculture.  The parameters I suggest (and which I have applied in my own work on water ethics) are the following: (1) environmental sustainability and impacts on water ecosystems and agricultural lands; (2) social benefits such as equity, employment, nutrition, institutional capacity-building, etc.; (3) cultural benefits such as identity, empowerment, and capacity for cultural self-determination; and (4) economic efficiencies, including water efficiency and managing ecosystem services.

By articulating these (or some other) parameters, the study will be able to offer assessments about the particular strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to food and water security, in terms of the particular parameters.  I am attaching the agricultural chapter of my book, "Water Ethics: A Values Approach to Solving the Water Crisis" (Routledge 2013) to illustrate how these four parameters can be used in assessing alternative agricultural strategies.  

The reason I feel we need to be very explicit about the parameters by which one agricultural strategy is considered better than another is that there is an unstated default prameter of monetized costs that is typically applied.  In order to weigh additional factors of social, cultural, and envrionmental benefits, these need to be explictly addressed, or they will inevitably be overlooked.