全球粮食安全与营养论坛 (FSN论坛)

I would like to share the working paper: "Cities and Spatial Interactions in West Africa”, published in the OECD West African Paper series, which can be downloaded at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/57b30601-en.

The paper presents a geo-spatial analysis of urbanisation dynamics in West Africa based on Africapolis data (http://www.oecd.org/swac/topics/africapolis/) and may be useful for the preparation of the SOFA report.  

English version below

Saludos cordiales:

¿Está la Ética contemplada como elemento de valor inherente en las acciones y/o factores que se ejecutan en las diversas circunstancias del fenómeno migratorio ? ¿ El componente de la cultura está dimensionado en el contexto particular de los migrantes - y de sus país destino -, dada sus costumbres, creencias religiosas y políticas ? Esto desde la situación de migración por crisis, de la índole que sea, política, religiosa o ambiental. El abordaje me parece, casi siempre se da en la óptica de la afectación comercial y de recursos implicados, dejando en cierto grado el carácter de el impacto a nivel personal, humano, cultural o espiritual con poca atención.

Las estructuras sociales, políticas y económicas según los enfoques de desarrollo por nación o región, tienen particularidades que siempre estarán sujetas a acciones con carácter ético o moral y que tendrán un efecto mayor o menor en la sensibilización hacia el migrante, sobre todo en la población rural, llena de tradiciones, supersticiones y hábitos característicos. La “ ruralidad “, viene aparejada de condiciones de por sí ya difíciles en muchos casos – generalmente en países pobres y propensos a migraciones constantes -, y por ello, a sus prácticas agrícolas y concepción de desarrollo. La comprensión de esas realidades nos dará mejores insumos para la atención de los migrantes, y una mejor identificación de las herramientas y recursos para generar estrategias adecuadas, con ese elemento humanitario, lo ético y moral, que haga diferencia en una relación de mutuo beneficio, ante las relaciones de intercambio entre pueblos.

Dependiendo de los contextos, y el origen de la migración, será la capacidad de amalgamar diversos factores, los que permitan asentar condiciones de “ tolerancia y disponibilidad “para la incorporación de las `poblaciones o individuos en las actividades económicas, en cuyo caso, identificar con claridad la condición cultural de los migrantes será determinante en su incorporación, en este caso, a las actividades agrícolas. En el caso de migraciones transfornterizas, las destrezas y habilidades compartidas en común, serán factor determinante para una incorporación y asimilación del sector productivo agrícola positiva, brindando mayores oportunidades al migrante, aunado a otros factores. La diferenciación de los aspectos de identidad cultural, se dan en diferentes escenarios en los ámbitos nacionales también, por tanto, ese valor cultural es elemento a profundizar en toda migración, para establecer los parámetros de convivencia y oportunidad, sobre todo en la vida rural.

Is the Ethics contemplated as an element of inherent value in the actions and / or factors that are implemented in the various circumstances of the migratory phenomenon? Is the cultural component dimensioned in the particular context of migrants - and their destination country - given their customs, religious and political beliefs? This from the situation of migration by crisis, of whatever nature, political, religious or environmental. The approach seems to me, almost always occurs in the perspective of the commercial affectation and resources involved, leaving to a certain degree the character of the impact on a personal, human, cultural or spiritual level with little attention.

Social, political and economic structures according to development approaches by nation or region have particularities that will always be subject to actions of an ethical or moral character and that will have a greater or lesser effect on the sensitization towards the migrant, especially in the population rural, full of traditions, superstitions and characteristic habits. "Rurality" is accompanied by conditions that are already difficult in many cases - generally in poor countries and prone to constant migration - and thus to their agricultural practices and conception of development. Understanding these realities will give us better inputs for the attention of migrants, and a better identification of the tools and resources to generate adequate strategies, with that humanitarian, ethical and moral element that makes a difference in a mutually beneficial relationship, to the relations of exchange between peoples.

Depending on the contexts, and the origin of the migration, it will be the capacity to amalgamate diverse factors, that allow to establish conditions of "tolerance and availability" for the incorporation of the populations or individuals in the economic activities, in which case, to identify clearly the cultural condition of the migrants will be decisive in their incorporation, in this case, to agricultural activities. In the case of transformer migrations, shared skills and abilities will be a determining factor for the incorporation and assimilation of the positive agricultural productive sector, giving greater opportunities to the migrant, along with other factors. The differentiation of aspects of cultural identity, occur in different scenarios in the national areas also, therefore, that cultural value is an element to deepen in all migration, to establish the parameters of coexistence and opportunity, especially in rural life.

My contribution for the question: Are you aware of important sources of information that could be useful for the preparation of the report?

While developing my paper ''Forced migration: Case of Syrian-Armenian Refugees'' I came across with a very good study developed by Migration and Remittances Unit & Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network of the World Bank Group ''Impact of Migration on Economic and Social Development: A Review of Evidence and Emerging Issues''

The paper provides valuable insights into economic and social impacts of migration for origin and destination countries and most importantly it concludes with arising immigration issues covering environment and climate change, demographic trends, democratic processes and national security questions.

Although concentration is not on rural migration, the paper discusses challenges that arise as a result of rural migration and presents the information as case studies sharing the experience of different countries in the world.

Authors: Dilip Ratha, Sanket Mohapatra, Elina Scheja

Link: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/617151468332982240/pdf/WPS5558.pdf

This is a submission under’ Do you have individual experiences or are you aware of case studies that are useful for informing parts of the report?’

Micro level evidence: the case of Kosovo in Western Balkans

We have undertaken a detailed analysis of agricultural household survey data for Kosovo. Kosovo is an interesting case study for studying rural migration given the sustained and high levels of out-migration from a traditionally, rural society. The key findings are:

• Migration has, overall, a negative effect on farm technical efficiency which is amplified when migrants from farm households are better educated workers.
• Regarding who migrates, household and family connections matter enormously. For instance, having another household member as a migrant in 2008 had a significant, positive effect on both propensity to migrate and the length of migration of another household members in 2012.
• Regarding the relationship between the likelihood of a household member migrating and household income we find a non-linear pattern. Individuals from poorer and richer households have a higher propensity to migrate – ones pushed by poverty, others pulled by the expectations to achieve better returns to their skills in more developed labor markets and have the financial means to migrate.
• Despite a priori expectations, differences in the drivers of male and female migration are, overall, fairly minor. One notable exception is the role of education. Whilst males with better education are less likely to migrate or stay longer away from the household, females with better education are more likely to migrate. This most likely reflects gender divisions in the nature of labor market opportunities.
• Rural migration is more likely where farmers stop working the land because they face a lack of inputs, manpower and equipment, and farm profitability is poor. However, some security concerns may keep family members on their land to protect loved ones, homes and other property.
• Overall, the results suggest that policies seeking to decrease rural out-migration should include initiatives to develop market institutions in rural areas, as well as stimulating competitive input markets and outlets for the sale of farm produce.

Sources:

Sauer, J., Gorton, M. and Davidova, S. (2015) 'Migration and farm technical efficiency: evidence from Kosovo', Agricultural Economics, 46(5), pp. 629-641.

Sauer, J., Gorton, M. and Davidova, S. (2017) Security and rural out-migration: Insights from Kosovo, working paper.

In case of interest, we can submit more detailed report on analysis in this post-conflict country.

S Davidova

Migration for better quality of life is a part of history and the new world -present Americas- is the resultant of such human venture. Migration needs to be encouraged in highly populated countries to lowly populated areas where human resource is the limiting factor. Per capita income from agriculture is declining compared to other avenues of employment. Space, water, energy and human labour are getting limited. The great migration of human labour from India to South Africa primarily to meet the labour requirement in sugar cane fields is history. Mechanization became a necessity once labour became costly and scarce. Only 3-5 % of working labour are employed for agricultural production in USA while 35-40% are used in India and in real numbers the figures will be quite astonoshing.

I am editing a book "ZERO HUNGER INDIA: POLICIES AND PERSPECTIVES". Any one interested to contribute chapters are welcome.

Dear all, 

I want to thank all the contributors for the thoughtful and constructive interventions so far. They will certainly be of great help to us in preparing a better report.

It is difficult to summarize and cover the richness and variety of the interventions received. I would like to just mention a few significant areas. Several contributions highlight the challenges involved in defining and empirically assessing rural migration due to heterogeneity in definitions and measurements. Others highlight the complexity of impacts of migration both on rural labour markets and livelihoods. Important insights were also presented concerning the challenge of structural transformation, in particular in relation to dwindling farm sizes and poor agricultural labour productivity resulting from demographic pressures in rural areas. Gender issues were also prominent, as well as reminders to go beyond mere economic impacts of migration and include broader social impacts.

I would also like to thank those who have made specific suggestions for improvements to the contents and outline of our report, as well as those who have provided specific references to literature and ongoing work or concrete country examples from your own experience examples. We are very much interested in concrete country cases, and I would like to encourage further contributions in this direction.

I look forward to the continuation of an interesting discussion.

Andrea

I want to share the experience of my rural area (upper swat) which is well known as peach producing area. The prices of agricultural products are minimum in rural area, and are too low in our country e.g equal to cheating poor farmers. The example of peaches produced in rural areas indicates that the farmers in rural areas sell their products at one USD (100 PKR) to the rich people outside (middle men). The middlemen then sell that product at 50 USD in the fruit market of big cities of Lahore and Karachi to rich men. The peaches are processed in big cities and the products of peaches (jam and juice, etc.) are sold back in rural areas at very high prices, which poor people cannot afford to buy.

This is the cheating of rural people (80% to 90 % smallholders). This is because of the weak policies of our government which give no attention to rural people. This is the major cause of rural people i.e. agriculture people migration to big cities. This has a negative impact on agriculture development in rural areas. The government, FAO and other donor agencies must concentrate on rural development in Pakistan. The very bad political system is responsible for non development of rural areas.

Installing processing units for vegetables and fruits in rural areas can make the rural area highly developed and will significantly stop rural migration to cities. I am ready to help free of cost FAO if FAO is interested in rural area development in our country.

I will write more in detail. But at the moment I don't have access to a computer.

Dr. Amanullah

Associate Professor of Agronomy

The University of Agriculture Peshawar

MANAGING THE ROOT CAUSES OF MIGRATIONS FROM AFRICA THROUGH THE COHESION OF CITY-REGION FOOD SYSTEMS

The phenomenon of migration

With the increase of the migratory phenomena since 2014 on the all coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, migrations appear to be a destabilizing element both in the whole European context and in Italy, that is the first landing place. In fact in 2014 in Lampedusa (the first Italian island) landed 170,000 people, compared to the 25,000/year from 1997 to 2013. This unexpected growth has brought an unprecedented media coverage, which has fostered the perception of migrations as a threat. The public's attention results in a general mood of confusion and concern.

These elements make the efforts to be focused only on the final effects of the migratory process, i.e. when migrants have already abandoned the African coasts. Little has been done to fully understand the phenomenon, to observe its deep causes, and to outline a medium-long term trajectory.

From several European and African research centers are emerging a smart contribution to take action on migrations through the nexus among climate change, food security, rural-urban and intra-Africa and international migrations towards Europe. The initiative seeks to provide original interpretations, that is to say a bridge between disciplines, themes, geographies, actors and tools to act in the African context towards a greater territorial cohesion, considered as the key to re-balancing African territories between cities and countries. There is indeed more and more convergence on the dynamics that act on this Nexus: a dynamics that will always tend to grow due to the overpopulation of the African continent.

Nexus among climate change - food security - urban growth - migration

The model want to simplifies the complexity of the phenomena that act on this Nexus, wishing to be merely a starting point that is useful for the emerging of the main drivers. The first environmental causes appear to be the overpopulation of the African continent and its vulnerability to climate changes: these two factors increase the distance between the two food security flows (rising demand and deceasing supply) and push towards the scarcity of natural resources that causes, in addition to food insecurity, also strong social tensions. The mixture of these dynamics, linked with psychological factors, lifestyles and personal aspirations, first generates a large internal migratory flow from rural areas to cities (both major and secondary cities), then international intra-African migratory flows and, in the end, towards European countries.

The basic drivers (overpopulation, climate change, social tensions) are growing ever more, and along with them, migratory flows too. This is a highly complex challenge that requires the activation of resources: relational, economic and cognitive resources.

Good practices and knowledge emerging from African cities

Looking at African cities with the lens of the food system, a range of themes emerges concerning the existing local debates and policy initiatives. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, with 152 cities globally and 23 in Africa, can support this framework with local solutions. These include urban farming programs developed in dozens of cities across the continent, climate change adaptation and/or mitigation actions, activities to ensure access to land, actions on migratory flows from rural areas to cities, access to water for urban nutrition and agriculture, urban planning that can affect food production issues and other themes. All these elements of urban interest could be managed at sectorial level by specific policies and institutional departments, but can also strongly increase their impacts if gathered within a single strategy that acts in an integrated way on the city's food system.

Acting on these levers will help to rebalance the territorial dynamics that got into crisis due to overpopulation and climate changes, trying to ensure food security and, consequently, to limit social tensions. This will address the deep and long-lasting causes of migrations, by integrating the efforts to manage the effects of this territorial unbalances and migrations in Europe with the aim of supporting a more sustainable development of African countries as a key for limiting migration flows.

The picture that emerges is extremely stimulating: from these first wide analyses that need further insights and interpretations, it can be observed how cities are, more or less explicitly, already taking political and programming actions on some parts of their city-region food system.

From this point of view, it would be possible to test some actions aimed to increase the territorial cohesion through linking rural-urban areas, rural areas, secondary cities and major cities, within a territorial armor able to specialize territories and to create opportunities for local development within the frame of a wider strategy. In this territorial tension, actions should be taken to intervene directly and/or indirectly on the three typology of economy of the African continent: the traditional, the informal and the formal one. Obviously, acting on the formal economy to access the other two, that are often usually excluded from international cooperation processes.

www.foodcities.org

The drivers of rural to urban migration are: poor rural infrastructure (health, education, transport, services & entertainment, etc.); lack of employment opportunities; growing agrarian crisis and indebtedness; climate change and natural disasters. If we allow free flow of able bodied, but not fully trained and equipped people to urban areas, the productivity, economy, environment, housing, and health problems will mount in both rural areas and urban centers. We need a complete paradigm shift in national development:

(1) What we need urgently is to build smart villages rather than smart cities. This will help improve the rural infrastructure which in turn will help distribute the population evenly over the entire country, avoiding over crowded slums and the related problems in cities.

(2) In population-dense countries like India, the economic growth must be decentralized with labor intensive micro-small-medium enterprises and distributed components manufacturing at homes and assembly units at strategic locations will help generate the much needed jobs in the rural and urban sectors and will help reduce the overall poverty in any country. Jobless growth is the curse of the modern economy producing billionaires and a decent national GDP, but increasing rural and urban poverty and disempowering hundreds of millions of people.

(3) Farming and the related processing and value addition industries must be developed fully in rural areas to enhance the rural economy, REDUCE RURAL POVERTY AND TO MITIGATE THE AGRARIAN CRISIS and reduce the rural indebtedness, reduce rural to urban migration, and to build the national economy in a sustainable manner.

Thank you for a timely and important report. Some comments/considerations by sections below.

Section 1.1

Define the term and scope of "food security"  which will help add the necessary nuance to the discussion of the multi-level bi-directional linkages between migration flows and food security.  In defining food security, some considerations to take note are:

• Food security at what level? Global, national, household, or individual?
• Which domains of food security? For example, Coates et al. 2006 breaks down household experiential domains of food insecurity as 1. insufficient quantity; 2. inadequate quality; 3. social unacceptability; and 4. uncertainty/worry.
• Which duration of food security? Chronic vs. transitory vs. seasonal?

It would be immensely helpful to provide an overview of the conceptual and empirical linkages between migration and these different levels, time frames, and domains of food security.

Section 1.2/1.3

Include a discussion of the transnational migration experience (ex. some household members remaining behind in 'origin' rural areas) and discuss the legal and cultural context which underlie a household's 'decision' to migrate. Report should explicitly  note that migration is not just about those who go but also those who do not/cannot and the political, social, and economic context (see UN-INSTRAW's conceptual framework on gender, remittances, and development) of the migration experience.

General

• Include gender- and age-specific (and other demographic chracteristics ex. caste/ethnicity) discussions throughout the report. For example, in Far West Nepal where male labor out-migration is a key livelihood strategy, our qualitative work has shown that the elderly population dependended heavily on the remittances sent back by their adult children to make ends meet. When remittances did not come (which was often the case), these respondents were unable to take up alternative casual labour opportunities (given their physical conditions) and had to rely on loans/credit and handouts from their neighbours. In failing to discuss the demographic groups which may be differently affected by the migration experience, their differential vulnerabilities and the policy/programmatic implications to support such groups may be overlooked.
• There is a tendency to focus on the economic effects of migration experience, it would strengthen the report to include a thorough discussion the non-economic effects of migration on rural development (ex. social remittances; women's status/decision-making roles; children's educational attainment etc).
• Please include findings and conclusions from quanititative, mixed methods, and qualitative studies
• Vignetts/case studies in different contexts would be helpful to illustrate the report's major points and could help highlight specific examples.

Thank you and I look forward to reading the report.