Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Sir, Agriculture is the main stay economy of rural dwellers. The rural dwellers are not only poor financially, but poor in innovative ideas, technical know how and in Agricultural input. However, to eradicate poverty, the following steps are to be taken: 

(i) Employ the services of extension agent that will expose farmers to innovations in Agriculture, use of hybrid animals and improved seeds, inorganic and organic fertilizers.

(ii). Financial aids from governmental and non governmental organizations with no interest to encourage increase in production.

(iii). One of the greatest problem is market for produces. The farmer suffer waste of farm product due to no buyers or buying at very low price at the farm gate that may not even up to the cost of production. The government should be able to buy this products from farmers at a reasonable price that will encourage increase in production.

(iv) Provision of storage facilities. 

(v). Access roads and transportation facilities. (iv) Provision of basic social amenities in rural areas.

Dr. Dania Stephen Okhumata

Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma

In Kenya, small scale farmers try arrowroot farming which has been an orphanned crop for many years.It requires less management skills and is not so demanding in terms of farm inputs. 



 

Amazing aids of nature go totally unrecognized by us humans, who fail to realize the intelligence of nature, hoping for us to all succeed and trying vigorously to help us. For example :

(1) When people cutaway the forest to make their home or town, interesting new plants take hold over the recently cleared area, different than those that were removed.

Foods Gifted From Mother Nature in Our Back Yard

Once we clear and area for shelter making, or space for livestock, a new spread of shrub plants comes in for cows and goats and us, as if, a waiter in the restaurant of miracles brought it to us.

Dandelions, culantro which ends up getting mono-cropped too, water cress, certain mints, chamomile, are some of these ‘gifted’ species that people are familiar with and there are many known livestock targeting elements that come in also after clearing living areas, such as pasture grass for cows. There is a lot of benefit in these areas that is unemployed simply because we have not tested everything and do not know what the unknown plant’s qualities or toxic properties are.  Many of these plants seem clearly gifted by nature (really the ultimate intelligence that is behind the form of our world), powerful healing and helping herbs to us; the forest clearing primates.

Could the answer to the potential food crisis be all around us? A simple additional bit of knowledge to tell us what part of the jungle, the forest, the permacultures of God, exactly that we can ingest and in what dose. Remember that random eating of things without testing them and having expert level knowledge of the plant can kill you. Could it be that if you eat even these highly toxic plants, inside of a sufficient nutritional diversity, that the toxins become neutralized? With sufficient nutrition is there a highly powerful digestion process that can deal with one toxin among the many different diverse essences? Is the jungle digestible by humans at all? Are we ready to ingest it? Can it be ingested, with training, and digestive mechanism development such as seen in ketogenic diet examinations. Is it better nutrition than what is in the store? Stronger? Is it a pesticide and herbicide toxin free? Can we simply eat from God’s permaculture? Surely, we just don’t know what most of it is or how to utilize it, unlike filing bark for cinnamon powder which we have been taught for generations.

Crop Selections & Farming Methods

(2) Another example of failing to realize useful natural preparations in respects to food crisis prevention is over looking tree’s like the Jackfruit Tree, the Breadfruit Tree, the Mango Tree, and the Avocado Tree, and of course permaculture farming methods. There is really no excuse for such a avid food crisis wave that crashes around the globe variably. We should have total food security, no problem, I have named a few for the tropics, but there are millions of highly productive edible species, that can be grown in permacultures everywhere, shopping markets are the most insane facet our stupidity, and not one of us has any chance in modern social culture of figuring that out by ourselves. How many of us today in 2018 have the time or selflessness to plant trees, that won’t fruit for several years? I have a lot of trouble assessing why namely the Jackfruit is not seen in the crazy markets everywhere the stuff is delicious, comes in vegetable state, fruit state, the seeds are great food,  it is highly nutritious and one tree produces up to 2000lbs a fruit a year. It even has very industrious and marketable timber. Insanely productive tree is missed by agriculture study almost completely, while centrally distributed glyphosate plastic looking seedless foods flow through our kitchens and stomachs all day long. Much of this food is made in a factory and far from natural. We are crazy, and greedy or so greedy we are crazy or I don’t know but we are poising ourselves and the results are in. In respects to proper nourishment algae, mushrooms, and many many other elements are just completely overlooked in most looks at food crisis.

In the face of not just food crisis, but forestation crisis (which is also now) can I recommend honey? Bee farming, can help rejuvenate the earth, is easy to do and produces lots of honey that can help sustain healthy life.

More Insanity

(3) The nutritional and human health crisis often times has a lot to do with the lack of diversity in diet. Lack of knowledge and simple tools for cleaning water, and consuming a diversity of elements, is largely responsible for malnutrition deaths in poor areas. If a human only consumes a few things, they are not consuming sufficiently whereas several cultures do exactly that and interestingly have done for a long time. Something that really shows have strong the human organism really is, to be able to sustain generations on inadequate and insufficient eating.

To act like humans could possibly run out of food on this earth, is ludicrous. People can simply become nomadic, leave the cities and eat from the Garden of Eden. This is the only way to be free.

To discuss population control, global warming, climate change, food crisis, is to be somewhat of a human monkey, that lacks imagination, vision and the intelligence to see our race progressively advance in a healthy way.

I am committed to continue working to working on the Nutritional Diversity Answer to human health and frankly harmful human codependency issues that stand in way of our natural human cultural progression.

https://nutritionaldiversity.com/food-crisis-answer/

First of all one has to recall that agricultural interventions are formed by the governments’ policies and politics and that no one fits all; moreover, there is not one best approach to eradicating extreme poverty in low income countries. Extreme poverty afflicts the populations living in these countries. Social and economic are the principle pillars to sustainable development in any given setting.

Agriculture is the backbone of population health nutrition and therefore, food insecurity leads to poor population health that causes inability to execute agricultural interventions in sustainable manner. With this note, eradicating extreme poverty needs integrated interventions that leverage streams of problems, policy and politics. The act of integrating problems stream, policy stream and politics stream must establish coordinating mechanism as a process by which society promptly determines who gets what and where, when they get it, and how they get it in the very local settings.

By leveraging the streams of problems, policies and politics; one can know why the problem of extreme poverty exist? The policy stream enables the actors to create various solutions to solve the policies problems. The coordinating mechanism must be in position to ensure the politics stream accepts policies intending to solve the existing problems.

The coordinating mechanism to eradicate extreme poverty must formulate analyze concepts and theories related to agricultural policy issues, be able to evaluate public policies and their effect on agricultural delivery. Sustainably analyze ethical, legal, social, economical, technological and any implications at local, national, regional and international level.

The coordinating mechanism must be empowered to analyze agricultural policy research and be aggressive to differentiate options for agricultural reform. Demonstrating the use of a positive political strategy to influence agricultural interventions and analyze strategies for empowering aggregate and communities to influence agricultural policy to eradicate the extreme poverty.

Allow me to share with you this file on What Makes African Development Projects Fail? Joel Samson RUVUGO, President of EBAFOSA Tanzania 2017, http://tinyurl.com/yc639chs

I have read with interest the contributions and attempted to answer the questions. Apologies if this is off track. In general I am missing a chronological/historical perspective at local level: when did extreme poverty appear? why? how did people attempt to cope?

1.     Under what conditions can agriculture succeed in lifting people out of extreme poverty? Particularly those households with limited access to productive resources.

Two questions:

• What do we mean by agriculture? If we include food processing, marketing and catering, but also eco-system services, eco-tourism etc, we stand a much better chance to improve the livelihoods of extremely poor households – in particular those with limited access to productive resources - and to contribute to sustainable local development
• Who are the extremely poor people? Smallholder farmers who have fallen in destitution – often because they have lost their access to productive resources -, landless labourers, migrants from rural areas? Or people who have never been involved in agriculture before but re-engage in agriculture-related social and economic activities (e.g. community gardens, social and solidarity economy)?

2.    What is the role of ensuring more sustainable natural resource management in supporting the eradication of extreme poverty?

The productivist approach to agriculture development and the economic model which have been promoted in the last decades have often ignored sustainability and led to the degradation of natural resources (soil, water, forests, biodiversity) but also to the marginalization of vulnerable households, increased socio-economic differentiation and disruption/erosion of traditional social networks.  Social and environmental issues are closely related. Agenda 2030 can only be reached if we ensure that the social, environmental and economic dimensions of development are jointly addressed.

4.    What set of policies are necessary to address issues connecting food security and extreme poverty eradication in rural areas?

I am not sure why we should limit ourselves to rural areas. Food insecurity and extreme poverty exist in urban areas and in a context of accelerated - transitory and permanent - migration, it is increasingly difficult – and counter-productive - to draw the line.

We should first identify the policies responsible for increased food insecurity and poverty at territorial level, modify them and proceed with the necessary adaptation of the legal and regulatory framework.

We should adopt a territorial approach and promote sustainable local development, giving priority to local markets and resilience and generating employment in post-harvest activities.  Identifying and reviewing promising practices and feeding them back into policies and programmes (including removing regulatory and legal obstacles), as well as participatory planning and capacity-building of local institutions will be essential.

Dwelling on the discussion on #what set of policies are necessary to address issues concerning food security and extreme poverty eradication in rural areas?

Empowering the smallholder farming households and other key factors would not be out of place in achieving this goal.  About two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 475 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. Many are poor and food insecure and have limited access to markets and services. I believe these smallholder farmers are critical stakeholders in ensuring food security in our economies owing to the fact that when they are given proper interventions and also considering other germane factors,  they have the potentials of reducing if not eradicating extreme poverty in our rural areas. These suggested policy interventions include the following;

1. Proper access to nutritious food through comprehensive approaches to food and nutrition security:

 Policies, programmes and investments geared towards  strengthening food and nutrition security on the part of the smallholder farmers should  aim at: (a) focusing on access as well as availability of foods, (b) recognizing the importance of diversified diets made up of nutritious foods, especially for pregnant smallholder farming households and young children, (c) preventing excessive food price volatility, (d) enabling poor smallholder farming households  access both social protection and social services, and  ensuring that the services contribute to adequate child care and feeding practices, and mother and child health care services, with sufficient access to clean water and sanitation. All forms of malnutrition – including nutrient deficiencies and obesity – should be addressed. This means dealing with the global transition to high energy and low nutrient diets and the shift away from unhealthy food consumption patterns.

2. Identifying the key role of agriculture and rural development in eliminating extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition:

 Smallholder farming households are essential and critical contributors to resolving these challenges which are most pronounced in rural areas. Adequate provision of necessary public goods and support to raise rural incomes and productive capacities,  giving them the opportunity  to participate actively (both in input and output markets)  and benefit from national and international markets  And also, in  pro-poor development through investing in rural economies, both farm and nonfarm.

3. Maintaining enduring investment in agriculture and food systems:

  Enduring  investment can be strengthened by (a) recognizing that the main investors in agriculture are the smallholder farmers  themselves, (b) engaging smallholder  producers and their organizations fully in the design and implementation of national strategies for agriculture and food security, (c) ensuring their secure tenure of land and improving their access to improved technology and innovation, (d) ensuring they benefit from key public goods - market infrastructure, price stabilization instruments (for both producers and consumers), affordable financial services, and functioning extension services. This calls for a combination of public and private investment involving farmer associations, agribusinesses, government, civil society groups and sources of financing.

4. Prioritizing on food security and post harvest losses along value chains:

 Virile functioning of interfaces between food and health systems will lead to reduced risks of disease, especially for food that are unsafe for human consumption. This is increasingly relevant as ecosystems change, due to climate change or human activity. Moreover, there is universal concern over post-harvest processing and handling losses and food consumption waste: they undermine the sustainability of food systems.

5. Building resilience to natural and man-made disasters: Poor rural and urban societies experience crises – such as those linked to volatile food prices or climatic shocks – with increasing frequency threatening their food and nutrition security. The sustainability and resilience of their livelihoods can be reinforced by developing a range of capacities and entrepreneurial skills, promoting non-farm rural employment and empowering smallholder farmers (producers) to diversify their on-farm and off-farm activities.

6. Ensuring agricultural food systems sustainability and climate sensitivity. As demand for food increases – as a result of population growth, urbanization, and changing dietary habits (dietary diversity), greater attention is given to the ecological footprint of agriculture and food systems. What are the options for enabling these systems to be socially, economically and environmentally sustainable, while becoming more productive and nutrition-sensitive? The dilemma is faced by all nations and issue of changes in climate, which is currently threatening agricultural production.  Climate-sensitive agriculture makes growth more sustainable, while improving the management of ecosystems, including soils, forests, water, fisheries, oceans, watersheds and biodiversity.

Empowering the women smallholder farmers:

 Smallholder farming households (Women) are very important in the food production and processing value chain. Equally, they are the drivers of change in ensuring nutrition and food security in the farming households. If women had the same access to productive resources as men, agricultural yields and output would increase and there would be a significant reduction in the number of impoverished people especially children. These women smallholder farmers may be empowered by enhancing their access to credit and control over land and other productive resources. Also, ensuring that women smallholder farmers are able to overcome institutional, social, and economic bottlenecks. Furthermore, Investing in the nutrition of women and their children and ensuring active participation of women in decision-making at all levels: from the household to public policy and development planning. By focusing on equity of access or opportunity, decision makers emphasize the interests of vulnerable people.

Climate Smart Agriculture Practice (CSAP) and Best Agronomic Practices (BAP) including integrated crop management, integrated nutrients management, integrated water management, integrated weed and pest management practices improve soil health, soil fertility, soil sustainability, crop productivity, crop quality, growers income; and reduce water and soil pollution thus improve health of small and poor growers. The FAO and other international organizations must sponsor the projects of faculty and researchers in poor countries to achieve the sustainable development goals, thanks.

Dr. Amanullah

Dear Members of the forum,

Thank you once again for your contributions. You continue to raise very important points in relation to making agricultural interventions reach the poorest of the poor, which is challenging. Also, thank you for pointing to specific case studies from Kenya, Pakistan, Cameroon, Belgium, and others.

Some of you have pointed to the fact that the poorest have very little land and few or no inputs, and therefore, dedicated programmes are needed to reach them, using a multidimensional approach: cash transfers, asset transfers, credit, skills development, continuous support, and empowering structures such as self-help groups and farmer organizations. The land access question is also fundamental and it is also very difficult to address from a policy level.

Thank you also for pointing out the need to understand poverty from a multidimensional perspective. Income measures of poverty are less useful when trying to address the drivers of poverty, particularly when looking at agricultural interventions for the poorest. I think that a better understanding of how poverty manifests itself in rural areas is still much needed, and these diagnostics need to be participatory, but also the process needs to be empowering.

The role of nutrition in the eradication of extreme poverty is fundamental. Several studies point to the fact that despite progress in poverty reduction, nutrition is not a given. It is the “hidden poverty” as some of you have mentioned. This is an invitation to reflect on the state of our food systems and how we could make them more beneficial from the nutritional point of view, but also from the employment generation and suitability of resources. There will be trade-offs for sure, but giving more value to the “basics” of a sustainable healthy life should be at the basis of policy making, which is reflected in our Agenda 2030.

Also, thank you for pointing the role that FAO has in advocating for sustainable peace. Conflict affects food production through the loss of land, infrastructure, and the displacement of farming communities. In conflict situations, poverty reduction efforts become more challenging, including the strengthening of local institutions who are the ones making development sustainable in the long run.

I look forward to reading more of your contributions during the last days of this discussion. 

Ana Paula

Food and Nutrition security of ultra poor (about 10-12 % of total population) and poor where hard to reach them by Micro Credit Program is really an issue. We should reach them through safety net programs as well as ensuring assets transfer, employment generation, links with basic health service, WASH & hygiene and education. Moreover marginal farmers (at least 50 decimal land) and small land holders (51-100 decimal) in Bangladesh and others who have land for integrated crop, livestock and Fisheries program with ICT based technology delivery, quality inputs supply especially biofortified nutrients rich crops like high zinc rice & wheat, Provitamin "A" rich (high beta carotene) orange flesh sweet potato & Maize and iron rich lentil & beans etc. These are potential and very important for human consumption especially for under 5 childs, pre primary school or kinder garden school and primary school feeding, adolescent girls & boys and adult women are priority. Moreover, video based training (whole family) followed by ICT based monitoring and feedback for ensuring Food and Nutrition security, improving livelihood and sustainable. ICT based Technology delivery, asset transfer and inputs supply in group approach for ultrapoor, poor, marginal and small holders and effective monitoring and feedback are limiting at this stage in Bangladesh. There are cope and huge potential for expansion of nutrient rich bio fortified crops to targeted peoples in safety net programs in Bangladesh and beyond in Asia and Africa.

Take care and best regards -- Krishibid Dr. Md. Abdul Mazid

The Role of Agriculture in Eradicating Extreme Poverty

This is an attempt to offer a higher-level framework that may be freely fleshed out by different levels of authority to suit their particular conditions with respect to the available resources like people’s know-how, material and financial resources, political realities, and not the least, local soil and climatic conditions and their food culture.
First of all, it will be useful to look at what possibilities agriculture could offer in real life to alleviate extreme poverty among a given group, and to what extent they could be expected to succeed on the ground. At this point, another problem faces us at once, viz., can the extremely poor with their present skills successfully make use of the resources that may be made available to them to improve their lives?
Once again, our lack of consensus on a sound definition of poverty becomes the greatest stumbling block to progress. I have consistently rejected the untenable notion of ‘measuring’ poverty in monetary terms. It may seem facetious to say, “you can’t eat Dollars and hope to live.”, but this is the implied belief of every poverty measurer who uses the Dollar tape to measure human deprivation.
Let us admit the obvious at the expense of unjustifiable inherited notions of poverty, just as many a supernatural belief has been consigned to history books. Poverty represents deprivation of any one or more of our six fundamental needs, viz., nutrition, health, education and security in their inclusive sense, procreation, and a set of non-material needs. They are non-material, because satisfying them does not entail any material gain, æsthetic appreciation of literature, music, art, sports and games, entertainment, etc., are example of this.
Now, when one is extremely poor, it implies extreme derprivation with respect to any one or more fundamental needs. It is here that a major difficulty arises, for if faced with a great difficulty to meet any one of the first four needs, i.e., nutrition, health, education and security, its ill effects adversely affect one’s ability to meet the three remaining needs.
Let us begin with nutrition. A malnourished person is often predisposed to contracting a variety of diseases, finds it difficult to acquire know-how, and is both tempted to steal food thus threatening someone’s security, and is unable to do much to ensure the collective security of a social group. As one is increasingly deprived of the possibility of adequately satisfying one of those four needs, one becomes correspondingly unable to satisfy the remaining three needs. When this evil has happened, it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of tenability what deprivation triggered off the final state of misery and squalor.
Agriculture emerges here as one of the vital means of ameliorating not only nutritional deprivation, but becoming a useful tool to enable people to meet the three other crucial needs, viz., health, education and security. However, while good nutrition offers many health benefits, its impact on our ability to satisfy our educational and security needs are indirect. It is crucial to understand this and act accordingly, for adequate satisfaction of each of those four needs is a necessary condition for being able to satisfy the other three. This is a logical fact that cannot be questioned by justifiable argument.
Indirect satisfaction of a need involves mediation of an exchange of values like trade as an enabling method. For instance, one may sell some of one’s agricultural produce, catch in the case of a fisherman, etc., to get money to purchase what one needs to meet some of one’s health and educational needs. Tax from such income would enable some central authority to ensure general security while individual may take care of some security issues like that from inclemencies of the weather (shelter and clothing) at one’s own expense.
I have gone on about this to underline the unavoidable necessity of having to address at least four of our fundamental needs simultaneously if we are to make a significant impression on extreme poverty. As action of FAO and its affiliates is primarily directed at nutrition via agricultural pursuits, I will devote most of the following comments to nutrition, but would make some observations on how it may facilitate improving the people’s ability to satisfy the three other fundamental needs through the mediation of its sister organisations.
I will take up the latter first even though both lines of approach ought to be pursued synchronously if optimal results are to be achieved. While the nuts and bolts of the actual field work needs careful assessment for its relevance and appropriateness, one can still envisage some pathways FAO might explore to ensure its efforts in food production and wasteless consumption are either much enhanced or made at all possible. For instance, in some cases where lack of security is acute, no progress in agricultural production may be made until and unless that issue has been resolved even though wide-spread abject poverty and starvation may prevail in affected areas.
Perhaps, FAO ought to be more proactive in its work with the UN even though the current procedures may limit its possibilities. In any event, as general security has a major impact on food production and related pursuits, and as food supplies criss cross the world, it is in every country’s interest to underline this, and take some pragmatic action to secure peace.
I know that the WHO and FAO closely cooperate to combat diseases connected with diverse forms of malnutrition, and especially the so-called NCD’s. However, this cooperation would be even more fruitful if it would be extended, because malnutrition at its earlier states often makes its victims predisposed to many kinds of disease including infections and parasitic infestations owing to their reduced resistence to them. Such inabilities makes it difficult for the already poor to engage in agricultural work or acquire new skills.
It requires no expensive ‘research’ to know that the agricultural skills among the extremely poor is often rather limited. FAO in conjunction with UNESCO may launch relevant and appropriate training programmes to raise the target group’s agricultural skill level. However, no training scheme will succeed unless the trainees receive a decent diet during their training. Hungry and malnourished ‘students’ are beyond pedagogic theories, while full bellies would often make them receptive learners. It would be salutary to remember that successful cultivation of earth requires down-to-earth programmes.
Two other areas that would repay the FAO in the present endeavor are cooperation with the World Bank/IMF in order to secure very low interest loans for the extremely poor to procure the necessary land and other requisites for agricultural pursuits. Here, cooperative enterprise rather than competitive trade should be adopted in order to avoid dog-eat-dog competition that characterizes what is called agro-business in the developed nations, where deserted farms and monoculture seem to prevail. After all, it is obvious trade competition would result in losers i.e., poverty-stricken farmers, something the current effort is designed to avoid.
It is not very obvious how FAO might enable the target group to obtain secure land tenure, which is a prime necessity here. I believe all international bodies should work in unison to encourage countries to institute an enforceable legal framework to guarantee the land and other rights of those engaged in agricultural activities. In some areas, this is of crucial importance, while in others, some progress has been made.
Our last necessary condition for successful application of agriculture to benefit the extremely poor is the improvement of suitable infra-structure and availability of appropriate and relevant technology. Let me emphasise that the last item does not involve the so-called ‘cutting-edge’ or the latest implements or electronic gadgetry. It is far more important to build a sustainable irrigation installations, provide crops and animals suited to a given climate, soil and local food tradition than to spend money on an expensive network of transmitters to provide cellular telephnony to youth who are often functionally illiterate.
Most people might find the foregoing very obvious, but even a casual look at a considerable number of efforts to render agricultural pursuits means of earning a decent income for both rural youth as well as others, have failed to meet our expectations precisely because they have not paid sufficient attention to the above necessities or because they have overlooked the vital importance of relevance and appropriateness of the methods used.
Now that we have cleared the ground of most important disabling factors, let me concentrate on activities directly connected with agricultural pursuits which may be used to help the extremely poor towards better living conditions. Provided that adequate resources are available, the envisaged activities should conform to the following requirements as much as possible if a successful result is to be achieved. Here, success will be measured according to its sustainability and its qualitative impact on the life of the target group.
First of all, we need to ascertain certain facts before undertaking concrete action in order to ensure that they have a reasonable chance of helping the very poor in a meaningful way. The following is a non-exhaustive check-list to be used to screen the suitability of the target groups and the agricultural pursuits proposed:
1. Location of the target group; obviously, extremely poor slum-dwellers in big cities will have no access to sufficient grow-areas to engage in agriculture per se, but they might be assisted to engage in retailing agricultural produce on a cooperative basis provided that they are protected from being bought out by some chain of retailers. Here, ‘free-trade’ really frees the poor from any chance of earning a decent living by trade. Whenever it is appropriate, small family run restaurants/cafes/bistros, etc., where home-cooked hot meals may be sevved at a reasonable price.
2. Procurement of produce by such small retailers and cooked-food outlets should be linked as directly as possible with the food producers. Farm and fisherman’s cooperatives seems to offer the ideal choice, for it avoids the long middlemen-chain, thus ensuring a fair price to the food producers and end-users, and enables the retailers earn a decent living. Moreover, it gives the food producer the power to dispose of his produce through a fair exchange of values, and avoid delays. These two lines of action assume a reasonable level of security, a sufficiently adequate transport system, and financial and other resources needed for the purpose.
3. In order to counter waste of food due to spoilage in transist or storage, it is often necessary to preserve some food items before storage and transport. I suggest as much of this ought to be undertaken on or near where the food is produced, so that such facilities could provide a source of employment for the local poor. As for preservation methods used, one should be careful to use technology familiar to most such as drying, salting, smoking, etc, which are often required by the local food culture. Such methods are effective and inexpensive, and easy to learn and improve. Moreover, their storage does not require costly regrigerated installations that entail expensive running- and maintenance costs.
This is not to deprecate the value of freezing and refrigeration as sound methods of food preservation. But, if we wish to stay down-to-earth and recall the skill levels of the very poor, what resources are actually available, it will be agreed that a combination of simple time-proven methods of preservation and quick transport are a more realistic way forward. Transport of non-perishable items ought to prefer water and rail transport owing to their great advantages over road transport, as they can often employ the relatively unskilled poor.
4. After this sketch of food distribution, transport and preservation, we come to its production. Stating the obvious, unless the three above conditions are satisfactory, pfood production cannot succeed in enabling us towards our goal. At this point, I will reject the idea of concentrating on cash-crops for the extremely poor cannot improve their lives just by having an income from such crops, because a balanced diet they need for the purpose will have to be grown/harvested somewhere, and not enough food is produced in countries where expreme poverty is endemic.
5. Before we proceed to food production/harvesting, it is vital to establish a reliable link between food outlets and producers/harvesters like fishermen. If we wish to achieve our goal, the purpose of such a link would be provide information that benefit three groups of people, viz., end-users, food outlets and the producers/harvesters. They will be benefited if they can engage in a fair exchange in values and not by competition where some well-informed producers try to exploit the demand for food for higher prices rather than sharing a given demand more or less fairly among all the producers of the same item. This unfair practice is precisely what promoters of rapid ‘market information’ advocate through the use of cellular phones and software by the rural poor! This merely adapting the high-tech methods of agro-business that has led to abject poverty among the rural farmers in the first place.
6. Therefore, I suggest the establishment of independent national and regional market monitoring bodies that could advice the production cooperatives on what is needed and where. They do not have to have huge bureaucracies, and local people could beconsulted often on their food needs and the availability of dietary items. A walk down the lanes of a town or a village is often more informative about its food needs than the most sophisticated ‘market-theory’ predictions.
7. Once the sustainable food production/harvesting appropriate for an area has been ascertained, the next step would be to ensure a reliable mode of financing the actual work. Naturally, how much is needed here, depends on the following:
I. Relevant and appropriate equipment, training, types of seed and animals needed to initiate the action.
II. Construction of storage, processing, irrigation, etc., facilities required.
III. Cost of infra-structural improvements.
IV. Support period needed before a project could become self-sustaining.
V. Enforceable anti-corruption measures.

Once we have come this far, it remains to select the participants and assign them to roles for which they have some aptitude before initial training begins in earnest. Here, I am convinced that formal education is an advantage, but it is not essential for the work in hand. The poor are eager to leave their poverty behind, and concrete action that yields results within a reasonable time, is what is needed to attract and retain them in their jobs.
On-the-job vocational training could be supplemented by formal education for few hours twice a week, or as often as it does not interfere with job training. It may prove motivating to teach them that agricultural pursuits are among the most important things a person could do, and it it deserves real respect unlike many a vaunted profession.
In the discussion so far, many contributors have made suggestions applicable at the ground level. However, it is important to ascertain their relevance and appropriateness to the people and the place involved before they are taken up. What I have tried to do is to outline a possible way of using them in a holistic manner. I hope it would be of some use.

Best wishes!
Lal Manavado.