Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Dear all,

I had the honour and pleasure to take part in the APEC Food Security Workshop and would like to share some thoughts.

Food Security as we understand it today is defined as “existing when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

From this definition we can deduce that food security bases itself on four main dimensions: the physics availability of food, the economic and physical access to it, the possibility to utilize the food (dietary practices, food preparation, health, etc) and the stability of the three previous dimensions over time (see FAO's Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security).

Now, given the complex nature of food security and the vast differences between the APEC economies it is clear that the challenges faced are extremely diverse. APEC reunites mature market economies, countries in transition and developing countries across various climatic zones and with populations ranging from 1.3 billion in China to less than 0.5 million in Brunei.

It is therefore normal that policies aiming at ensuring food security need to be fundamentally different in each member economy. An urban resident in Sydney will have very different priorities and ways to feed himself and his family than those available to a farmer in a remote rural village in Peru. However, the responsibilities of the governments remain the same. They need to put in place policies that create an environment in which citizens can be food secure according to all four dimensions. In this, APEC economies can learn a lot from each other. Being in very different stages of development and employing different types of government, there is a true treasure trove of experience.

Could the poorer countries learn from China and the fantastic success it had in lifting people out of food insecurity over the last decades? But would this approach work as well in a society with a different socioeconomic background? Is a liberal trade system the best way to follow? But how can poorer countries then protect their own nascent economies and agricultural sectors? Should we focus more on private or public investment?

While the answers to question such as these are far from easy to find, looking at what other countries did and the results they had can provide some valuable guidance. Meetings like the one organized by CAAS and this discussion are valuable exactly because they allow for such an exchange.

Let’s take advantage of the remaining days to share how our own countries have addressed food insecurity and explore what we, as young professionals and students can do to draw the right lessons from the past.

Let’s keep the ideas flowing

Max

The "APEC Food Security Training and Workshop" was held in Beijing from September 7-9,2015, which was supported by China-APEC Cooperation Fund of the Ministry of Finance and hosted by Agricultural Information Institute (AII) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Please find the presentations of speakers by following the links below.

You are welcomed to give us your comments. Thank you.

Presentations Day 1 (Koyama, Chang)

Presentations Day 2 (Jia, Permani)

Presentations Day 2 (Wang, Blanck)

Presentations Day 3 (Pei, Nie, Bourgeois)

APEC Food Security Training and Workshop" was held in Beijing from September 7-9, 2015, which was supported by China-APEC Cooperation Fund of the Ministry of Finance and hosted by Agricultural Information Institute (All) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Please find the summary of the workshop, and the list of participants in the attachments. You are warmly welcomed to share your views on food security with us. Thank you.

Brief Summary of September 8 and September 9 Training and Workshop

Summary of September 8th Training

Summary of Presentation given by Professor Dr. Xianping Jia “Regoverning agrifood market and transforming agricultural production in China: from smallholders to pluralistic large farms”

The 2nd day morning was begun with presentation by Professor Dr. Xiangping Jia from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University on a very interesting topic relevant to “government policies in agrifood market and how it transformed agricultural production in China”. The presentation detailed about the contribution from smallholders to large supermarkets in this transition in the country. He mentioned that family farming has very effective role in agricultural production system in China as well as it has mixed opportunities and challenges to overcome. Opportunities: are as such ecological production process by nature, more efficient than hired labor, farmers organization is primarily subject to family governance, justice and equity is an issue of political argument and as whole small but beautiful. The Challenges are mainly transaction cost related to individual smallholder farmers are prohibited, new-wave of transformed agrofood market, farmers have to confront a rapidly changing technological environment in which substantial inefficiencies may arise, ecology-poverty trap. 

He has shared two of his case studies in transformation of agriculture in China. Among them, firstly, he presented a case study on dairy crisis in China which was the addition of Melanin in milk and China marked it as the dark time dairy sector of China. During this crisis moment, Chinese government took actions in several ways, like:

-Subsidies in the farm level

-Changes in marketing policies, e.g. forbidding mobile brokers

-Changes in production policies, e.g. encouraged farmers to move from backyard to Cow Complex/hotel (traditional to formal)

In the 2nd case study, he shared about the initiative in China on fragmented agrifood chain. He mentioned that China has started cooperative farming in 2006. From a survey among 157 farmers in five provinces he found that only 23%of them engaged them in modern super markets, modern marketing channels shoed better choice for the farmers.

Agrofood chain is getting better coordination through farmers Professionals Cooperative (FPCs). However, the coordination of agrofood market through FPCs in China is maintained by impersonal rules and relational agreements. It is challenging to assure traceability and food safety. Brand becomes an important asset specificity of reputation for FPCs to achieve vertical coordination with contracts. Certification to food safety and quality standards, however, is not facilitating the vertical contracts. Chian`s farm Organizations are being backward integrated by agribusiness companies (of processing, trading, agr-chemical, etc.). Decision-making within FPCs in China is still decentralized to individual farmers. However, there is a trend that the decision rights of marketing rights tend to be collectively in right-value sector. The governance structure of FPCs inn transition China presents hybrid forms of both hierarchy and family farming, and there exist dynamic and multiple trajectories. Government policies (direct subsidies on initiation) are limited in promoting. In conclusion, family farm is till the dominant system of agricultural production in China. However, a variety of new forms of production are emerging, leading to pluralistic system. Family farms travels on multiple trajectories with local viability. China faces mixed opportunities and challenges to transform the smallholder farming to large one.

Summary of Presentation given by Dr. Risti Permani in Food Chain Development:

Next Presentation was given by Dr. Risti Permani who is from Global Food Studies, University of Adelaide has presented interesting research outcomes on how food value chain needs to be developed. In her presentation, she termed Marketing Good Policy as:

-Relevance                 

- Political economy

-Efficient                   

- partnership

-Regional view                      

- smallholders

-Information              

- Whole of chain

In Indonesia, retail sales value growth increased from 2007 to 2012 which was highest in convenience store. She explained the current trend of dairy value chain in Indonesia. She added that we need increase in importance of standards in Indonesia, China and USA difference in standard, qualities and traceability may varied. It is also very important to know that there is always a lead firm and vertical coordination in supply chain. Form her personal experience, product differentiation is a interesting point in value chain like milk for pregnant women (maternal milk) which she meant that farmers should produce what consumers want to produce. She suggested to follow value chain demand pull rather than traditional supply push that may bring sustainability in the market. According to her presentation, the complexity of value chain depends on: the number of ways in which the commodity is being utilized (and thus transformed); whether it can be stored; how widely it is distributed (e.g. locally consumed vs export) and the number of different participants.

The most interesting change is shifting from domestically oriented to globally integrated. Among what essential changes needs are in coordination, attention in middle segment (hidden middle), Govt. vs. Govt. interactions and governance analysis. There are few steps in Value Chain (VC) Analysis: i) mapping value chain, ii) determine the demand and supply condition of the value chain, iii) determine the dominant coordination arrangement(s) in VC, iv) analyze how target populations participate in the VC, v) identify rules and regulations, vi) analyses the impact of rules on VC participants (including enforcement, rewards and sanctions), vii) analysis target sector knowledge and awareness of rules, norms and standards, and indentify key gaps, viii) analyze how information and services are provided internally through the VC and externally.

The success factors for strengthening smallholder-buyer business models within VC includes:

- Non-politically aligned organizations

- High quality service provision

- Social and enterprise strategies

- Network membership

- Focus on core business

- Low cost value additional through organizational innovations

-there is no “one-size-fits-all”

- Understand the needs and risks of agribusiness companies.

She mentioned, among the future challenges top priority should be nutrition-sensitive value chain and ensure sustainable food value chain in manner that is profitable throughout, has broad-based benefits for society, and does not permanently deplete natural resources.

Connecting the value chain is an important issue. For an example, she told about her personal experience that in cocoa farmers in rural community (in Vanuatu) of Indonesia did not know where their beans went and what is the test of chocolate. It is necessary to build partnership with public sectors. For instance, she found a new model in Indonesia was dairy farms produce yoghurt and introduce it to school program in their locality.

In a conclusion, Dr. Permani recommended:

·       A whole of chain concept: upstream, midstream and downstream approach

·       Broad focus of value development

·       There no “one-size-fits-all” which means to highly consider the local culture context

·       Constant dialogue with stakeholders to met industry demands

·       Strong role of research and policy communities to alleviate constraints.

Summary of Presentation given by  Prof. Dr. XiaoLin Wang.  

Dr. XiaoLin Wang gave his presentation on “Policy on accurate Multidimensional poverty alleviation in China”. He highlighted that poverty in China is closely related with the concept of “Sustainable Development”. He began his discourse with the notion that if poverty is only attributed to US$1.25 per day, although the measurement issues will be easier, but the income concept does not successfully link with the idea of “sustainable development”. If we have to decrease the poverty rate especially in rural areas, we have to link together two concepts, “Sustainable development” and “Poverty Reduction”.

Along the lines of Sustainable development, Oxford University developed Multidimensional Poverty Index. That is one step closer to link Sustainable development and poverty reduction. Oxford university defined that health, education and living standard should be measured to calculate poverty and not only based on income or consumption. Although the larger Multidimensional Poverty index has 10 indicators, in short, health income and consumption captures the essence of poverty better than $1.25 per day. This multidimensional poverty index is an starting point to combine poverty reduction with sustainable development.

The Chinese meaning of poverty compromises two words “Pin” and “Kun”. While Pin is the income aspect Kun reflects social wellbeing. So, the Chinese thinking of poverty is not always associated with income only. Thus China government is more focused on sustainable development along with poverty reduction. People need to have social, natural and environment rights besides improving their income level to jump out from poverty level.

At the end participants raised question to understand “what is the meaning of poverty in their own language? Does it capture only income or other aspects like in Chinese language as well?” Most of the languages reflected that it is associated with wealth unlike in Chinese language.

Summary of Presenation given by Dr. Max Blanck.

Dr Max Blanck gave presentation on “Involving stakeholders in the food security policy debate: experiences from the Global forum on the food security and nutrition”. Dr Blanck begun his presentation by exploring why stakeholders are important in food security debate and who are stakeholders and who are not stakeholders? He gave several definitions to distinguish stakeholders from non stakeholders and discussed ways on how we can include different stakeholders in the food security policy debate. He emphasized that stakeholders are consulted while designing the whole process of policy and not just taken stakeholder consultation as a part of public relation. He gave examples of various countries from west Africa to central Asia on how FAO is engaging in stakeholder consultation.

Dr. Blanck emphasized that online consultation is also an effective way of engaging stakeholders and with less cost good arguments can be generated online. Thus, FAO has created the Global forum on food security and Nutrition where different issues related to food security can be discussed.

Participants basically raised question in the online whether it is possible to have onsight language translation facility as comments are in different language. It has been experienced that first few comments are in one language, say for example French, all other comments will be in French. So language translation facility can solve that problem to include other language speaking participants also.

Also, how do we make sure that the online opinion is representative of the people as only a fraction of population participates in it. Dr. Blanck replied that while they do not want to see online as representative, FAO is more concerned with the quality of the discussion.

Summary of the September 9th Training                                                           

Summary of Presentation given by Professor Guo Pei

In the first part of this session, Professor Guo Pei, Dean of the College of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University gave a long speech on financial support for poverty reduction in China. He states that agricultural financing remains a prevalent problem among all the developing nations. In order to further develop the rural areas to reduce poverty, the Chinese Government has promulgated a number of monetary and fiscal policies to support agricultural financing, which include discounted loans, microcredit, subsidies, etc. Although financing conditions for agriculture have significantly improved after introducing these policies, still more can be done in the future. Professor Guo’s speech was followed by an active discussion among all the young professionals present. Professionals abroad have also shown their particular interest in China’s agricultural financing policies.

Summary of the Presentation given by Dr. Robin Bourgeois.

After a coffee break, the second part of the session began, which features Dr. Robin Bourgeois, the Senior Officer at the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and his training on getting young professionals thinking about the futures of agriculture. He emphasizes that young professionals are not only expected to predict the future, but also have foresight of the future. Foresight is one step beyond prediction, and it means to explore, intervene and influence. It does not only forecast the trends, but the breaks, ruptures, disruptions and discontinuities as well. Following Dr. Robin’s line of thinking, young professionals were divided into six groups to practice the use of foresight in six different scenarios, namely rural stations/ghettos, rural poles, rural continuums, rural niches, urban farming and farming cities. Each group engaged in a half-hour discussion and then exchanged their results with other groups. Dr. Robin’s training method of combining theory and practice was widely acclaimed by the participants.

In the end, Professor Fengying Nie, Director of the International Division of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, delivered the closing remarks of the training session. She hopes that through this training session, young professionals will not only learn knowledge and skills, but also some new ideas, new ways of thinking to inspire their agricultural career in the future. She also adds that the end of this training session is also a beginning, a beginning of the long friendship among all the participants from various countries. From this training onwards, young professionals can still learn from each other in their lifelong agricultural undertakings.

>> English translation below <<

La question centrale à notre avis est celle de la pauvreté élevée qui règne au sein des petits exploitants et le retard dans la transition agricole dans certaines régions du monde, notamment en Afrique et en Asie. Autrement dit, pour assurer la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle des petits exploitants du monde, il faudra veiller à la réduction de la pauvreté, et surtout de la pauvreté chronique, en leur sein et mettre en place des politiques économiques qui favorisent la transition agricole, c’est-à-dire la réduction progressive de la part de l’agriculture dans le produit intérieur brut (PIB) et la population active. A cet effet, il serait utile de promouvoir l’agroécologie envers ces petites exploitations et prendre des mesures pertinentes pour valoriser les produits agroécologiques sur le marché, comparativement aux produits agricoles conventionnels. Ce faisant, ce serait en même une stratégie d’atténuation de l’insécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle, de réduction de la pauvreté et d’adaptation aux changements climatiques. Mais, il faut rappeler que dans cette entreprise de promotion agricole, il est de plus en plus recommandé de tenir compte de l’hétérogénéité de la classe que constituent les petites exploitations agricoles. Hazell (2013) distinguait à ce sujet trois groupes de petites exploitations agricoles :

1) les petites exploitations agricoles commerciales, qui sont déjà connectées avec succès aux chaînes de valeur, ou elles pourraient y parvenir avec un peu d’aide. Ce groupe comprend des agriculteurs à temps plein ou à temps partiel ;

2) les  petites  exploitations  agricoles  en  transition, qui disposent  ou  disposeront  bientôt d’opportunités non-agricoles favorables. Elles seraient en meilleure situation si elles abandonnaient complètement l’agriculture ou tiraient la majeure partie de leurs revenus d’activités hors-exploitation. La plupart des agriculteurs en transition quitteront  probablement  l’agriculture,  ce  n’est  qu’une  question  de  temps  et  de manière. Ceux qui resteront seront agriculteurs à temps partiel et seront sans doute assez peu tournés vers le marché ;

3) les petites exploitations agricoles de subsistance, qui sont marginalisées pour diverses raisons difficiles à changer, comme la discrimination ethnique, la contamination par le virus du sida ou leur implantation dans des régions reculées, au potentiel agricole limité. Nombre de ces facteurs empêchent ces agriculteurs d’entrer dans la catégorie des exploitations en transition. Ils vendent fréquemment une petite part de leur production au moment de la récolte, pour gagner de l’argent, mais ils restent invariablement, sur l’ensemble de l’année, acheteurs nets de nourriture.

L’importance relative de ces trois groupes de petites exploitations varie considérablement d’une région à l’autre. D’où, la nécessité d’adapter les interventions à leurs contextes. 

In our view, the main question is the high level of poverty which prevails over small farmers and the delay in the process of agricultural transition in certain regions of the world, particularly in Africa and Asia. In other words, to ensure food and nutrition security among the world´s small farmers, reduction of their poverty must be ensured, especially entrenched poverty among them; and economic policies implemented which encourage agricultural transition, that is to say the progressive reduction of the part played by agriculture in the GDP and among the working population. For this, it would be helpful to encourage agroecology in these small holdings and to take pertinent steps to highlight agro-ecological products in the market, rather than conventional agricultural products. In this way, there would be an all-in-one strategy for mitigating food and nutrition insecurity, for reduction of poverty and for adaptation to climate change. But, one must not forget that when undertaking agricultural promotion, it is increasingly recommended to take into account the heterogeneous character of the class constituted by small farmers. In this regard, Hazell (2013) distinguishes three groups of small farms:

1) Commercial small farms which are already successfully linked to the value chains or could get there with a little help. This group includes fulltime or part-time farmers;

2) Small farms in transition which have or will soon have favorable non-agricultural opportunities. They would be better off if they would leave farming altogether or derived most of their income from activities other than actual farming. Most of the farmers in transition will probably give up farming; it is just a matter of how and when. Those who carry on, will be farming part-time and will no doubt be less oriented towards the market;

3) Small subsistence farms which are marginalized for many reasons difficult to change, like: ethnic discrimination, contamination by the AIDS virus or their location in remote regions, with limited agricultural potential. Several of these factors prevent these farmers from becoming part of the category of farms in transition. They often sell a small part of their production at harvest time, to earn some cash, but they invariably remain net buyers of food for the rest of the year.

The relative importance of these three groups of small holdings varies considerably from one region to another hence, the need to adapt interventions to their particular context.

Small farmers can benefit from the global algae value chain of co-products for nutraceutical Omega 3 EPA/DHA, cosmetics, food, feed, fertilizer and bioplastics at the same time sequestering CO2.

Algae farms can be built on non-arable land, recycle 80% of water used and sequester CO2.

It's renewable, has no effect on the food channel and consumes CO2.

Algae can also be used to clean wastewater. Today high school students are growing algae using off-the-shelf existing algae production technologies. For a global conversation feel free to contact: [email protected]

First, thanks to the organizers for giving us the opportunity to share opinions with young researchers on agriculture from different countries and different backgrounds. It's a good workshop!!! and the part of group work is pretty good; everyone can really join in the discussion. Although it's not very common in China, I think most of participants enjoy in the group work.

And I want to know:

1. What is the definition of "organic farm" of china? Are there some differences between China and Europe? If so, what is the main difference? How to narrow the gap?
2. The sustainable agriculture is a hot topic. We usually discuss about the environmental or resource agriculture, but to a certain extent, the sustainable agriculture is not an "effective "system of agriculture production in China with more input but less output. So, how to make such systems appealing to economies in developing countries?

Last I share the food systems outcomes. I think it's helpful to think about the sustainable agriculture and food system.

1. How can smallholder farmers benefit from global value chains?

They can grow ecologically green products that generate high profit

 2. What is the most striking example of measures that have improved Food security and Nutrition in your country in the last decade?

 

The government has changed cropping patterns and decided to stop growing single-crop of cotton in order to address food security challenges and grow grain crops and vegetables.  

According to Decree of the President of Uzbekistan No. UP 4041 “About measures for optimization of crop areas and increase of food production” of 20 October 2008, the actual cotton area was reduced by 78,100 ha (5.7%) in 2009. At the same time, the area under spiked cereals extended by 49,000 ha, and the area of vegetables and fruits and oilseeds increased by  29,100 ha. In 2011, the cotton area was reduced by 109,600 or by 7.2%.

Dynamics of supply with main foodstuffs per capita (based on medical standards),  %

Foodstuff

2005

2010

2012

2013

Change, %

Wheat

99.2

106.0

102.3

104.6

5.4

Potato

64.7

109.0

126.6

136.3

71.6

Vegetables

123.1

204.1

238.8

257.9

134.8

Fruits

47.3

78.4

89.8

97.5

50.2

Grapes

176.3

249.6

291.4

314.4

138.1

Cucurbits

119.9

211.7

242.9

262.8

142.9

Meat

52.5

66.8

73.1

76.9

24.4

Milk

105.9

131.8

149.3

158.6

52.7

Eggs

25.4

36.3

44.0

48.9

23.5

3. What are the challenges for policy implementation in your country related to food security research?

In terms of policy, the country should orient towards green growth in agriculture. Taking into account water scarcity and the need for transboundary water cooperation, it is necessary to develop integrated water resources management in the Central Asia region.

 Because of insufficient supply and consumption of milk and meat based on the national medical standards, it is necessary to developed livestock and diary sectors. To this end, the area under fodder crops needs to be increase and non-irrigated pastures need to be reclaimed.

4. How can we ensure the participation of youth in the wider food security dialogue?

Uzbekistan has the system of secondary and higher education and a lot of agricultural colleges and institutes. For special food security training, it is necessary to organize youth forums on how to grow and consume rationally food.  

Dr.Stulina Galina 

Leading Researcher

Scientific - Information Center SIC ICWC

The fourth "APEC Food Security Training and Workshop" was started this morning of September 7th, 2015 in Beijing Friendship Hotel.

The committee of opening Ceremony welcomes all of the participants and all friends from the different countries all over the world. The event brought together researchers and students, and some YPARD’s leaders.

This event was supported by China-APEC Cooperation Fund of Ministry of Finance and hosted by Agricultural Information Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The objective of this “APEC Workshop and Training” is designed to expand the channels and platforms for the APEC economies and international organizations to exchange ideas on food security issues. It especially aims to train and work with young researchers of APEC economies and enhance their research capacities on food security issues

The opening remarks committee is composed by:

• Xianxue Meng
• Tan Sum
• Sixi Qu
• Bingsheng Ke
• Dongxin Feng
• Weiqin Wang (Director of Ministry of Agriculture) 

Xianxue Meng, was the Chairman of opening Ceremony. He welcomes all of the participants and gave speak to some member from the committee.

1st speaker: Sixi Qu (2nd speech)

2nd speaker: Dongxin Feng (3rd speech of the opening remark). After greeting all of disgusting persons of the event and others participants of the event, she mentioned the importance of the research in many field like climate change, and how agricultural development plays a big role in APEC economic for Agricultural Ministry. She said that, from 1991, when China joined APEC, and national deal of agricultural development was a national deal for China. And it made a big progress in in genetic research innovation. APEC becomes the most network for members to develop their capability skill. To conclude, she wishes a successful APEC –Economic coordination for all.

Today’s presentations centered on (1)Agricultural development and food security issue in China;(2)Comprehensive food security measurement;(3)Assessment of food loss and waste.

The following provides highlights of the key issues of each speech.

1- First Presentation: Agricultural development and food security issue in China (President Bingsheng Ke, China Agricultural University)

Prof. Bingsheng Ke made a brief presentation on agricultural development and food issue in China. He talked about the share of agriculture in the GDP and different sectors. China's effort to produce enough to feed its growing population has long been recognized. After, he talked about international market. He mentioned what happen between demand, income and population growth. Indeed, agriculture sector share in term of percentage 30% of GDP, 81% of population, 69% of employment, 20% of export, 15% of import, 57% of food share in household budget and 62% of rural. The output increases from 1978-2014 for grains, meat and milk. The agri-food trade in China is more important in term of import than export. This is explained by the current situation where demand is high than production.

China faces the great challenge of feeding its growing population with declining land, water, and other food production resources, and increasing opportunity cost of labor and domestic food production cost. Food supply availability in China is important not only because it concerns a large proportion of the world's population and consumption, but also because rapid industrialization has led to competition for resources between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, strong income growth, rapid urbanization, and population growth. All of these stimulate demand for agricultural products.

The urban income is also bigger than rural income and the combined effect is that demand for meat, eggs and milk is more. For feed, there are more corn and soybean.

China produces more Paddy rice and corn than wheat from 2000 to 2013. China imports more soybean than it exports.

The migrant to urban cities change the structure of China due to their influence of the demand. What is the consumption of all these workers? This makes a huge demand in construction and industries sectors. According to the result, the average of the direct food consumption is 100kg higher than it is in the rural areas because the average income is higher than in rural areas. The migrant demand in food especially for meat and eggs is really big. They have easier access to food. Why is the demand higher than for rural residents? Because the urban population has high income and therefore high consumption. The migrant workers will play a big role in the development in China in the future.

Some Challenges to produce more, better and safer food with less farmland, water, labor and less chemicals is to increasing demand in quality and safety is important for food security. Issue is to reduce the input use of pesticide and less chemicals with less farmland, the agricultural industry in China need to show our responsibility.

About the farmland, protection policy of farmland must be the solution. The process of organization is developing farmland. In the future, the water scarcity will be critical in North and Norwest of China. In china, Agricultural Development is related on Labor. Nowadays, farm labor is declining due to migration to cities and rising in labor costs. And labor cost will continue to increase in the future. This will take long time. It’s a culture of consumption. In the future, may be some change in the consumption. For soybean domestic production, we need farmland, which is difficult for China.

The way to secure the future is to increase domestic production, protect the farmland, improve infrastructure, mechanization, science and technology, farm scale and Public service.

Conclusion, food security is a long term issue, particular for DCs. The production will catch up for demand and it’s necessary for trade cooperation and economic cooperation. The dieting pattern must be changed and trade structure need to be adjusted.

2- Second Presentation: Comprehensive food security measurement (Prof. Osamu Koyama, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences-JIRCAS)

The afternoon presentation, Prof. Nie Fengying made brief introduction of Prof. Osamu Koyama and his research field in agriculture in Japan and international work.

Prof. Osama Koyama talked about his topic “Compressive food security measurement”. He introduced itself and tried to defined what food security is based on three pillars: Food availability, food access and food use. All of them are not independent. Food security is commonly based on components, levels and dimensions which are difficult to measure. He also talked about food security indicators. Beside this, food security is also considered like safe based on FAO definition and measurement.

• For measurement, Food balance sheet is important
• For food supply, we have to produce more for more people (9 billion)
• Water scarcity, China is a water scarce country.
• In global situation, food demand will increase, but supply may be not.
• Solution: We have to control population and limit demand, use vegetable base food intake and also increase food supply.

Prof. Nie Fengying thanks Prof. Osamu Koyama on his wonderful presentation and hard work. She also opens the questions time for those who have questions. The following provides some questions and answers for this issue.

Questions:

Q 1: Does Japan have some policies or measurement on food nutrition for children and of the nutritional properties of that food?

Q 2: Why the “shokuiku” drawing that shows a balanced food intake is invers of pyramid form?

Q 3: Why Africa countries could not produce more food for countries like China and deal with hunger as they have more water resources and land?

Q 4: Research-recommendation-implementation?

Q 5: Mr. Robin Bourgeois wants to know why we do not focus on food insecurity and who will be the next generation of food insecure people in the world?

Answers:

A1: Due to influence from the USA food nutrition of children policy after the WWII, Japan has a kind of food who helps children to get high height. Some way show how to prepare, and how to eat food.

A 2: The answer was not really clear.

A3: African people must apply more technologies and put more investment in agricultural production.

Comment on African resources abundance and his food problem.

3- Third Presentation: Assessment of food loss and waste (Prof. Ching-Cheng Chang, National Taiwan University)

According to FAO, Food losses represent a waste of resources used in production such as land, water, energy and inputs. Producing food that will not be consumed leads to unnecessary CO2 emissions in addition to loss of economic value of the food produced. Economically avoidable food losses have a direct and negative impact on the income of both farmers and consumers. Given that many smallholders live on the margins of food insecurity, a reduction in food losses could have an immediate and significant impact on their livelihoods (Robert van O. et al.,2011).

About one-third of edible parts of food produced for human consumption, which is about 1.3 billion tons per year, gets lost or wasted (Gustavasson, et al., 2011)

Definition

Food losses refer to the decrease in edible food mass throughout the part of the supply chain that specifically leads to edible food for human consumption. Food losses could happen during the production, postharvest and processing stages in the food supply chain (Parfitt et al., 2010). Food losses occurring at the end of the food chain are rather called “food waste”, which relates to retailers’ and consumers’ behavior. (Parfitt et al., 2010).

In the dairy sector high income countries witness their highest levels of loss and waste during the consumption phase, with estimated losses and waste at 7 percent of produce purchased. 4 percent losses are seen in the agricultural production phase with minimal losses and waste between the farm and retail. Middle income countries, however, see the highest levels of losses during agricultural production (over 20 percent), primarily due to poor cattle management and milking practices. Processing, distribution and consumption losses are also 5 percent and higher, reflecting technological and cold chain deficiencies, leading to losses and shorter storage and shelf-lives of products. Low income countries reported their highest loss levels during processing, due to poor sanitation and primitive technologies

Challenges for Asia-Pacific

In developing countries

Causes of food losses and waste in developing countries were primarily linked to financial, managerial and technical limitations in harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions, as well as in infrastructure, packaging and marketing systems. There is a need of compressive research results to deal with this.

In developed countries

Strict hygiene and safety rules inhibit recovery of uneaten food. Costly to reduce loss or to safely collect, store, and transport food to food banks. Change in consumption pattern.

Who should be responsible for loss reduction? And How to get started?

• APEC Multi-year Project Work Plan(based on 3 phases)
• Relevance to APEC. This is important for China
• Capacity Building seminars 2013-2014( fishery and livestock loss)

How we do in assessment?

Before doing any assessment, we have to:

1. First , defined the area and make investigation of the product
2. Second, the methodology and procedure. Like a production, loss also has quantity and quality aspect (e.g: of bananas), the package need more technology to reduce the loss. The same for mangoes ‘tree, reduce the tree height to make it accessible for everyone and for consumption. Fisheries also have some issue in food loss. In many countries, some part of fishes is thrown away, because is not edible for some people, but in other countries, all parts of the fish is considered good for eating. Byproducts: In china, blood of pigs for example is edible and may not eatable in some country.
3. Then collect the data and finally the results.

She also talked about two common methodologies used:

• Commodity System Analysis (CSA), based on Postharvest and marketing data. Quantity and quality is important for this study.
• And Mass Flow Model (MFM), based on available food balance sheet data.

She mentioned also, what is Food Value Chain. And the future plan –challenges base on loss assessment and how to establish a food loss reduction target?

Prof. Nie thanks Prof. Ching Cheng Chang for her excellence presentation on methodology, analysis and on some commodity.

Questions:

Q1: Waht does FAO do about this issue?

Q2: Estimation of food loss and waste is difficult and give different results, could she give us more about this?

Q3: Food security in Taiwan situation?

Q4: How to estimate food loss of products?

Q5: Do you use FAO methodology to estimate food loss in your county?

Q6: If we consider some of your research, we use fertilizer to produce, do you think is good for food security?

A1: Based on FAO expertize, they have constructive methodologies and also good literature review. It’s based on different opinion.

A2: The weather could influence the result for the same product for 2 years. Now, China has many diversity environments, so many of technology have been introduced. Each country can has his specific for every country.

A3: In Taiwan, we have the same situation as in Japan. And it’s relaying on environment of the country and efficiently allocation of insurance of food supply, Public story system which provide food security system.  Beside, some Public policy failure, we have very organized market share for some products.

A4: Many don’t know if the estimation of food loss is possible and it’s difficult, but we have to explain this to them. We have a way to convince them to change.

A5: FAO has the way to estimate this by survey, but very country supposed to define his way to estimate food loss and waste.

A6: We don’t need to produce more by using this way and wasting them later. But, we could use organic material to produce.

Conclusions of the first day

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Household food security is the application of this concept to the family level, with individuals within households as the focus of concern.

- Agricultural development and food security: China is generally capable of solving its food problems. The government may play a substantial role in improving both national and global food security. Full knowledge of present policies and their impacts on food production, stability of supply, trade, and household food security are essential to design appropriate policy measures and the institutional framework to improve food security.

- Measurement of food security: Food balance sheets are important to measure the availability dimension of food security.

- Improved monitoring and reporting of losses and waste is possible by engaging national associations supporting private sector Agri-food chain actors, who have expressed strong interest in the helping their members reduce losses. FAO could support such an initiative by coordinating loss and waste monitoring and reduction initiatives by interested low and middle income countries in the region, promoting

In conclusion, the day was really fruitful for all of participants in term of the presentations we have and also for the speaker’s answers.

Dear colleagues, I found many valuable reflections on the guiding questionы, and would like to share my view on the question: How can smallholder farmers benefit from the GVCs.

Recent years the growing awareness of the contribution of smallholders through the value chain to income, employment and exports is observed.

The economic factors of the development of Global Value Chains (GVC)s in developing countries, such as access to and use of natural resources, such as oil, mining and agriculture products is tremendous (UNCTAD, 2010). It allows smallholder farmers to participate in global economy through resource supply, production, processing, marketing, distribution and consumption. Also, they benefit from participation in GVCs, as it unpacks the opportunity to attain financial stability, increase productivity and expand their markets.

However, because of smallholders' plot size and small production output, their role in the GVCs is often underestimated. Besides, the participation of smallholders in global value chain is challenging because it requires more managerial and financial resources to meet international standards. And, they are most vulnerable for economic, financial and food crises, as the decrease in demand, volatility of prices, or changing consumers preferences can negatively affect their positions in GVCs.

Lead and advanced agricultural, agro-processing companies can support farmers in pre-chain to meet required standards. For example, Nestle has helped local suppliers in developing countries to meet better standards in agricultural produce, offering training and technical assistance in field care, post-harvest practices, storage and transportation. The same assistance can be provided by Rural Advisory Services, and, under the public support programs/interventions, in the countries with high share of population depending on agriculture and food system.

Small-scale production and resources, e.g. labor, agricultural product, like livestock and crops, provided by households and family farms is at the downstream of GVCs. Outsourcing these activities implies considerable advantages for downstream partners, mainly because they can rapidly cover demand of wholesalers and buyers while minimizing risks and investment in collecting channels. With such mechanism, the networks of smallholders are organized and it creates a channel for flowing returns and small-scale innovations back against providing inputs by smallholders. It also creates opportunities for small-scale suppliers, i.e. smallholder farmers to develop their competencies and skills to move to a new value chain.

However, this requires more attention of big and key actors of the GVC to downstream actors, e.g. smallholders and small-scale producers; creating incentive mechanisms for that, and increase of awareness that agricultural and rural population are most vulnerable, sensitive and responsive to the changes, either those changes are positive or negative, either exogenous or endogenous.