Increasing the Qualitative and Quantitative output of Food Systems in Urban Areas and Their Environs
The first question we face is whether our efforts are to be aimed at improving national nutrition as a whole, or are they to be limited to a certain area. The answer to this query determines what strategies should be embodied in a national food and agriculture policy to achieve our objective. All things considered, we believe that it would repay to adopt a regional approach, and we will provide some cogent pragmatic reasons for doing so.
As indicated in the note intended to guide this discussion, the highest incidence of inadequate or inappropriate nutrition obtains in the large urban centra in Asia, Africa and South America. However, it must be pointed out these problems do exist even in affluent countries, but to a lesser degree. Meanwhile, in the above three continents, the availability of arable land in and around urban centra are constantly shrinking owing to the following reasons:
• As each city becomes an ‘economic miracle’ (Eg. Bombay), demand for land in a city for ‘property development’ increases; this is mostly due to the rising demand for accommodation posed by the growth of industries and the increasing number of more affluent citizens.
• As the migration of impoverished rural people into urban centra continues unabated while the city authorities are unable to provide them adequate shelter, squatting increases at an amazing rate. Any observer could notice that permanent slums and makeshift shelters are scattered over previously unoccupied areas in such cities.
• Even if small plots of arable land may be found in such cities, their infra-structure, especially with respect to irrigation would not permit agriculture. Often, most such urban centra are located on land unsuitable for agriculture.
• Human nature; it would be naïve to assume that most owners of urban land would allocate their grounds to agriculture when they could make large gains by setting aside their property to ‘land development.’
It may be objected that urban agriculture could be possible, hence desirable in smaller cities where enhancement of public nutrition is urgently needed. When this is so, one still encounters two serious difficulties:
• Pressure in and on the national authorities to invest in industrial development in and around cities irrespective of their size. As this becomes increasingly difficult in and around large cities, smaller cities are subjected to the same adverse influences mentioned above.
• Great diversity in the extent and kinds of nutritional needs, governance, climate, soil, infra-structure, etc., makes any general recommendation merely academic. It would be salutary to note that the once familiar allotment gardens have now disappeared from European cities where they once served such a beneficial purpose.
Therefore, we propose that our efforts ought to be directed at enhancing of agriculture in suitable areas surrounding urban centra in order to improve local nutrition. This pragmatic restriction of our target area would have a national benefit by relieving some of the other food systems from their burden of having to provide all the food needed by disproportionately large city populations. Our next task is to ascertain what coordinated measures are required to attain this goal.
Obstacles to Success
Unless all the obstacles outlined below are overcome, success will continue to elude us no matter how well we deal with some of them, for each and every one of them are critical in one way or the other.
• Not having a prior knowledge of the extent of actually available arable land and the nature of the soil involved. This is under constant pressure due to continuous migration and demand for urban industrialisation.
• Lack of a fair idea of what food stuffs are required and in what quantity; here, we are not talking about ‘research’ or precise numbers. It would be excellent to concentrate on fresh produce. In suitable areas, output of dairy and poultry farms, aquaculture and local fisheries may repay inclusion.
• Failure to ascertain the suitability of the chosen food stuffs to the soil, climate, available water supply and the agricultural competence of the food producers/harvesters. The latter constitutes one possessing the knowledge of how to produce/harvest one or more food items and having the skill to do so successfully.
• Lack of awareness of the actual state of other relevant sub-systems of the food systems involved. These include storage, preservation (cold storage of perishable items), transport and trade sub-systems. Often, the critical transport sub-system is a combination of state-run and private concerns which makes their improvement difficult.
• Paucity of a sound prior knowledge among the strategists of the actual financial and other relevant resources at the disposal of those in the field who are supposed to implement the strategy aimed at achieving the present objective.
• Failure of the policy-makers to distinguish between strategy, regional and field operations needed to implement an strategy; it also applies to their inability or unwillingness to ensure an intra-policy harmony among the strategies proposed to implement a policy.
• Institutional unwillingness and inability to ensure an inter-policy harmony among the governmental policies.
• Technical partisanship; the commonest manifestation of this involves invention of superfluous terms and their vigorous promotion. In this discussion, we advocate the use of ecologically sound agriculture whenever it is feasible rather than insisting on one form of it which is undoubtedly benign to our environment.
The last three obstacles are most difficult to overcome; the first of them owing to universal lack of competence in achieving intra-policy harmony, advocacy of institutional autonomy, indifference and corruption while the last is often driven by a fervour akin to that elicited by a religion. Since our approach is pragmatic, we will direct our attention primarily towards overcoming the first six obstacles noted above.
Policy and Strategy
We believe that it is self-evident that our objective embodies one of the strategies employed to implement a national policy on food and agriculture. We have read with regret that some believe our goal to be the objective of a policy. Nothing could be more erroneous, for emphasis on agriculture in a certain area is not a policy objective, rather it is a strategic measure subsumed by a national policy on food and agriculture. Unless and until this obvious fact is clearly understood, all actions could only end in fragmentary results of varying success.
A lucid and cogent food and agriculture policy shorn of superfluous verbiage would express the following:
• The authorities shall undertake the appropriate actions required to found or modify the national food systems as well as the other adjunctive measures necessary to enable the people to procure at an affordable cost an adequate quantity of wholesome food they need to enjoy a varied and a balanced diet relative to their individual dietary requirements. They shall undertake all requisite measures to ensure that the food systems used are sustainable, robust, resilient, environmentally benign and promote the increase of agricultural bio-diversity.
We prefer environmental benignity for obvious reasons viz., as the urban poor greatly suffer from hunger and malnutrition, it is imperative to produce the greatest amount of wholesome food by methods least harmful to the environment rather than championing one’s own favourite approach. Now, it would be clear that one of the strategies used to implement the above policy would have to be directed at the enhancement of the output of the food systems in and around urban areas.
Such a strategy, if it is intended to be practical and comprehensible, could be expressed in surprisingly few words:
• In order to achieve the objective of the national food and agriculture policy, the authorities shall among others, implement an appropriate strategy to increase the qualitative and quantitative output of the food systems in and around urban areas; if such are absent but appropriate, they shall assist in their creation and successful operation.
So far, we have not outlined what this strategy is going to be. However, the preceptive reader would have noticed at once that such descriptions could only be undertaken when we have sound information needed to overcome the difficulties mentioned in the previous section. Thus, the very first operational component of our strategy would be the following:
• Procure all the relevant information, the lack of which poses the greatest obstacle to success; meanwhile, investigate how to minimise the pernicious influence of the three last obstacles to success and undertake actions required to mitigate them.
At this point, some theorists may object by claiming that in some target areas food production is already carried out, hence, such preliminaries are unnecessary. However, that does not mean whether optimum methods are in use in such places, crops and household animals employed are those best suited to the area and finally, it ignores the possibility of food production in places where it is not now undertaken even though such an endeavour would repay one’s efforts.
• Once the above strategic information is available, it would be comparatively easy to determine the requisite field operations with reference to them. We will not enumerate any such concrete action because there is an immense regional and local variation in what specific actions are most suitable. Guided by the strategic information, types and methods of food production should be decided in close consultation with local farmers/fishermen and practical agronomists.
However, we will point out certain general operations agricultural authorities may carry out to support our target group of food producers; they are intended not only to increase food production, but also to enhance the quality of life of those engaged in it. Achievement of this dual goal requires us to consider two logically inseparable divisions of a food system viz., food production and its disposal. We will now consider how both may be improved for everyone’s benefit.
The Way Ahead
Before we undertake any other action, it is necessary to ascertain whether it is possible to establish or to expand food systems around an urban environment. Here, the first piece of strategic information given above should be obtained; if no adequate area of arable land or irrigation facilities are not available, such urban areas or their environs should not be considered for further action. When this requirement is adequately met by a given area, we can proceed to the next step.
• Next, we should correlate the food stuffs needed, preferably fresh produce with what is appropriate to the soil, climate, the available water supply etc. This will enable us to determine with reference to the real world, what food stuffs may be produced, what production help and enhancement of competence are required to make a qualitative and quantitative increase in local food production. We have previously mentioned the general types of food involved here.
• The step above will enable us to identify not only the kinds of food to be produced, but it would also enable us to see what measures are to be taken to enhance the competence of food producers, what financial and technical aid is needed, etc. Once clearly identified, it would be a comparatively easy matter to undertake the necessary field operations needed to meet those requirements. The attentive reader would have noticed that it would be useless to generalise here as the variations in the relevant requirements are legion.
• The equitable disposal of food has eluded us since the demise of barter system; otherwise, it is impossible to reconcile the poverty and low social status of actual food producers with that enjoyed by the middlemen engaged in food trade. We hold that it is imperative to device a means of disposing of food that would enable its producers to earn a decent income while
Its end-users could procure wholesome fresh food at an affordable price.
• Once we agree on this consideration of common decency, we should ascertain the status of the following sub-systems of the local food systems viz., storage, preservation (unchanged or modified food), transport and trade. The trade sub-system may be concerned with raw or food ready to be eaten as seen in restaurants.
• At this point, the perceptive reader would have observed that these sub-systems are governed by different authorities. Hence, the vital importance of inter-policy harmony with reference to the requirements of achieving our objective. Food and agriculture authorities have no control over those sub-systems, especially in the present context.
• We are sceptical as to the possibility of inducing the authorities to ensure the necessary inter-policy harmony required for our success. We doubt very much whether we could even achieve an adequate intra-policy harmony in the food and agriculture policy of many a country. Committee’ism in decision making, undue respect for irrelevant qualifications, vociferous promotion of a variety of hobby horses, incompetence, indifference and corruption are indeed formidable obstacles to both types of policy harmony.
• Therefore, we propose an alternative mode of action to dispose of food yielded by the current production. We assume that the actions necessary to ensure a sustainable and an adequate production of wholesome fresh food in areas around urban centra has already been undertaken.
• It involves the establishment of cooperative outlets for fresh produce or ready-to-eat meals in family-run establishments. These are to be located in urban areas close to where food is produced to minimise the cost and delays in food transport. Food production and disposal are to be run on a linked cooperative basis which deprecates the formation of outlet or production chains of well-known kinds. Thus acting together, both producers and sellers of food may be able to share some common expenses such as transport and storage to their mutual advantage. Moreover, it would ensure that the end-users would have rapid access to fresh food.
• Our aim is to achieve the greatest nutritional and financial benefits to the largest possible number of people. Hence, we deprecate the so-called ‘ecological food’ production in our target area by wealthy entrepreneurs who may employ some poor on minimal wages while offering their produce to the affluent in cities at high prices. This ‘green food trade’ would only enrich the few with a minimal impact on urban nutrition and decent employment for the poor.
• We pride ourselves on our sense of realism; we know that in most urban settings where the need for food is acute, the type of family-run food outlets and even food transport is often liable to the depredations of a variety of legal and illegal protection racketeers. Unless the authorities are willing and able to guarantee their security, such projects will have little chance of success. In some instances, one may be able to form groups of vigilantes to ensure the safety of the enterprise.
Conclusions
We have offered a rational check list one ought to use before deciding on whether to engage in food production near urban environs. It is difficult to conceive of growing food in a semi-arid city like Luanda with a population of over 34 millions. The same difficulty obtains in nearly all big cities in the three continents mentioned earlier. Unless this discussion is merely academic and not aimed at lending a helping hand to ameliorate nutrition and income of the poor, we should insist on following the clear guidelines laid down here.
Inertia of the past reactive and reductive thought and action still looms before us like the incubus it has been for centuries. Thus, nobody would have the courage unequivocally to state that drastic population reduction, rational rural development and sound public transport using rail, water and road transport are essential for real progress. Furthermore, it is vital to restructure our education, i. e., make it individual-centred rather than aimed at the needs of some trader who does not create wealth nor any invention, but profits from the work of the creators and innovators.
Lal Manavado.
先生 Lal Manavado