Food and Water Security

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Cecilia Chen, Dan Zook, and Dan Tuttle of Dalberg Global Development Advisors.   The global population is expected to grow from about seven billion today to over nine billion by 2050. Producing enough food for this population will require a 70 percent increase in agricultural production and $83 billion per year of investments in developing country agriculture. Yet, one third of the food produced globally—about 1.3 billion tons of food per year—is never consumed at all. This food is wasted or lost at some step of the supply chain between when it leaves a farm and when a consumer would typically eat it. The solution to feeding a growing population is not simply to produce more food, but also to save, preserve, or recycle the food already produced. Cutting current food wastage in half, for example, would yield enough food to feed one billion people—half of the additional population expected by 2050. The issue of food that is never consumed breaks into two discrete problems: “food loss,” which primarily affects developing countries, and “food waste,” which primarily affects developed countries. Food loss, which accounts for 90 percent of unconsumed food in developing countries, refers to the decrease in edible food mass during production, postharvest processing, and distribution. The primary drivers of food loss are a lack of skills training for actors within the supply chain in handling, packaging, and storing food; insufficient on-farm storage technologies or postharvest storage facilities; and farmers’ poor market access, which leads to spoilage before products can be sold. Food waste, on the other hand, refers to food that is fit for human consumption but is discarded by retailers or consumers. In developed countries, high aesthetic standards, stringent food company contracts, large portion sizes, and promotion-driven sales often lead to the overproduction of food, much of which is discarded. Food discarded by the consumer—the last actor in the supply chain—wastes the resources used in every previous step in the chain. Unconsumed food also has effects beyond food security, ranging from the economic—one year’s unconsumed food is worth roughly $750 billion—to the environmental—unconsumed food is responsible for 3.3 billion tons in CO2 emissions per year. Food lost early in the supply chain is particularly devastating for the world’s 470 million smallholder farmers, most of whom live beneath the poverty line. Many of these food producers are also among the 1.2 billion people who are food insecure. As a result of such on-farm losses, farmers are not be able to convert as much of their produce into income. A recent Dalberg analysis estimates that every year 320 million metric tons of food—17 percent of food produced globally—is lost during production and postharvest alone. From an ecological perspective, food wastage means that valuable natural resources are used to produce food that is ultimately not consumed. Globally, farmers use an amount of land equivalent to all of Africa’s cropland to produce food that is never consumed. Though this food is not used, the environment still pays a price: the production of wasted foods accounts for 10 percent of global greenhouse gasses and depletes a quarter of global freshwater. Through an assessment of global food loss and waste for the Rockefeller Foundation, Dalberg identified high-potential solutions underway in developing countries to reduce food loss and simultaneously improve farmer incomes. These promising interventions include: Market-based models for low-cost, farm-based storage, preservation, and processing technologies: For example, hermetically sealed bags that preserve the quality of grains, vegetables, and seeds allow farmers to store and sell products later in the season when prices are higher. Large commercial food companies’ expanded operations in emerging markets that bring technology, infrastructure, and management discipline: For example, in an effort to commercialize and formalize its domestic supply chains, Reliance Retail India is investing in its cold chain infrastructure to reduce transport time of fruits and vegetables, thus limiting the possibility of food spoilage in transit. Community investments in on-farm agro-processing solutions: For example, solar dryers can replace open-air drying, which is labor-intensive and leaves fruits and vegetables susceptible to weather and pests. Such dryers can be used in areas without access to electricity to produce export-grade produce. By pooling farmers’ produce, a community can improve its ability to purchase these agro-processing tools. Agricultural postharvest loss and consumer food waste have wide-ranging consequences, from smallholder farmer livelihoods, to food security and nutrition, to conservation of water and other environmental resources. Reducing loss throughout agricultural supply chains would not only address these concerns, but also tackle fears of future global food shortages and enable scarce resources to be shared more wisely. As the development community struggles to meet the nutritional demands of a growing population, policymakers should focus not on producing more and more food, but rather on reducing food waste and loss. The research that underpins this article was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

This is a guest post by Thomas Zuber, intern for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in International Political Economy and Development at Fordham University.  The Ebola crisis in West Africa has distracted international attention from developments in other parts of Africa, notably in the Central African Republic (CAR). On September 15, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Central African Republic (MINUSCA) initiated peacekeeping operations in a country divided by civil war. It began working alongside two thousand French soldiers already on the ground and is integrating African Union troops into what will be a twelve thousand strong peacekeeping mission. Since October 7, violence has escalated in CAR’s capital, Bangui. This most recent renewal of hostilities has already displaced 6,500 people. On October 9, a UN convoy was attacked on the outskirts of Bangui. The mission repelled an attack on the interim president’s house on October 11. These developments serve as reminders of the obstacles facing MINUSCA: continued sectarian violence between two main factions, the Selaka and anti-balakas (anti-machete), the weakness of the current interim government, and one of the worst food crises in the country’s history. As of September 12, Associated Press estimated that 5,186 people had died from the violence since late 2012. In December 2012, a loose coalition of rebels, the Seleka, marched on Bangui and overthrew the government in March 2013. In the following months, self-proclaimed president Michel Djotodia lost control of Seleka factions, which perpetuated violence throughout the country. In response, anti-balaka militias formed, resulting in extreme violence between the two groups. In January 2014, Djotodia resigned due to pressure from regional leaders; in his place, Catherine Samba-Panza, a non-partisan, was installed as interim president. She inherited a country torn by a conflict that was taking on religious-ethnic dimensions and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. MINUSCA starts at a time when the government is faced with a crisis of legitimacy, compounded by the recent allegations that president Samba-Panza mis-used aid from Angola. Seleka and anti-balaka factions exhibit no faith in the government. On October 8, Bangui experienced violent demonstrations by anti-balaka forces demanding Samba-Panza step down. These demands were subsequently withdrawn, though violence in the country seems to be increasing. Despite reticence to present this conflict in religious terms, religion has been used to foment division among the population. Earlier this week, a faction of the anti-balaka beheaded a Muslim man in Bangui. Many Muslims (the religion of most Seleka) are fleeing as they are often targeted by the anti-balaka. The violence of this year has created a partition between Muslims and Christians within the country on a scale not seen before. These political developments are exacerbated by a serious humanitarian crisis. According to the World Food Program (WFP), as of May 2014, more than 600,000 people have been internally displaced and 1.6 million people (over half of CAR’s population) are food insecure. Despite these realities, WFP’s restricted budget has not been able to focus on CAR’s humanitarian crisis, instead concentrating on Syria, DRC, and South Sudan. Furthermore, persistent threats to aid organizations by in-fighting constrict their ability to provide basic services to the population. Within this context, MINUSCA and the Central African government face a great deal of challenges. Despite foreign governments reestablishing full embassy missions in Bangui, conflict persists. The Seleka have refused to recognize Samba-Panza’s government. The vast numbers of internally displaced people and refugees add a further strain to the country and the region’s numerous challenges. MINUSCA faces great challenges and great responsibilities, in what has been dubbed the UN’s most ambitious mission. The months ahead will be a test for the Samba-Panza government and the international community’s responsiveness in stabilizing a country already too ravaged by war.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Gregory Myers, director of private sector engagement at Cloudburst Group and former division chief for the Land Tenure and Property Rights Division at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Over eight hundred million people in the world do not have enough to eat. In fact, hunger kills more people every year than malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis combined. But feeding the world’s growing population cannot be achieved through government action and public resources alone. Instead, governments and international organizations should encourage responsible investment in agriculture from a wide range of private sector actors, particularly those with large land-based investments. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, both based in the United States, have already begun reviewing their supply chain processes and are doing more to foster responsible investment. In Europe, Unilever, Nestlé, and Rabobank are also working to address challenges related to “land grabbing.” Yet governments and the private sector need to do more. Achieving genuine progress on this front will require coordination by a variety of actors. It is encouraging that many groups—NGOs, companies, international donors, and governments—are now focused on this issue. In August, the UN Committee of World Food Security (CFS) negotiated a long sought-after set of global principles to guide responsible investment in agriculture (RAI), mainly for application in emerging economies. Although the ten RAI principles are not without controversy, the document marks an important step toward reducing food insecurity for women, men, and children while promoting sustainable economic growth. Paired with another set of principles, the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests, the RAI can facilitate clear, transparent, and predictable rules, laws, and policies that secure property rights and promote investment in ways that both benefit local populations and contribute to global economic growth. Together, these principles could dramatically improve the nature and outcomes of global development efforts by changing both how investment in agriculture in emerging economies takes place and, most importantly, who benefits from these investments. These principles complement other investment guidelines, such as the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Protecting land and resource rights is essential to responsible investment, the fight against hunger, and economic growth. With secure property and resource rights, local people and communities are granted new economic opportunities: they can rent out land to prospective investors or enter into joint ventures with them. In addition, when people believe their land and resource rights are secure, they are more likely to invest in their property, which can increase crop yields and thereby improve household incomes and reduce hunger and food insecurity. Respecting and protecting these rights can also benefit investors by reducing the financial and reputational risks of investing in economies with weak property rights systems. Implementing these principles and turning good ideas into real change requires more than setting guidelines. Therefore, world leaders, international donor organizations, civil society, and the private sector should create an independent, multi-stakeholder platform to develop practical tools to make the promise of the RAI and the guidelines for responsible governance a reality. An example of such a platform is the Kimberley Process, which prevents trafficking in conflict diamonds. A multi-stakeholder platform could develop a gold standard industry certification, which would set clear expectations for how investors should conduct business with respect to land in emerging economies. These standards would also empower civil society to monitor investments in a more systematic way and allow consumers to reward companies that behave responsibly and pressure those that do not. Next, policymakers should experiment with models at the local level to create more profitable investment relationships between commercial and smallholder farms that result in better food security, nutrition, and economic outcomes for all. These could be piloted through country-level, multi-stakeholder partnerships similar to those launched under the Group of Eight (G8) last year. Finally, this multi-stakeholder platform should improve information sharing and learning by establishing common data standards and procedures that allow information to be compared and shared more easily. The time is ripe to capitalize on the growing investor interest in agriculture and the movement to develop more responsible investment models, and thus achieve powerful results for local people and communities. Through concentrated efforts, responsible agricultural investments can drive local economic growth and propel millions out of extreme poverty.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Ashok Sircar and Tim Hanstad of Landesa, a global development non-profit that works to secure land rights for the world’s poor. Here they discuss how coordinating development projects can help lift families out of poverty. In 2005, our non-profit, Landesa, partnered with the government of West Bengal, a state in eastern India, to develop a micro-plot program. The goal was to provide hundreds of thousands of landless rural families with a plot of land about the size of a tennis court (one-tenth of an acre) – enough space to build a small hut and plant a kitchen garden. Our research and previous experience elsewhere led us to believe that this could help save families from extreme poverty and constant hunger. We expected that after our government partners provided land, these families would soon build their homes, start planting crops, and begin their newly improved lives. Some did. But others did not. After speaking with officials, farmers, beneficiaries, and those who had not yet benefited, we learned that obtaining land was an essential first step, but that some families needed more support in order to move forward. In particular, they needed help building hand pumps to obtain drinking water and toilets. That’s when we started working on what we now call our “convergence model.” National and state government agencies in India spend billions of dollars every year helping the rural poor. In West Bengal, there are organizations that provide land, work, food, housing, drinking water, sanitation, electricity, livestock, farming supplies, and many other goods and services. A poor family may need all or some of these benefits. The challenge we faced in West Bengal was that these benefits often did not come together, in the right order, or at the right time. There was no coordination of projects. After determining that a family needed to own land in order to qualify for most government benefits, we spoke with our government partners about better coordination with the micro-plot program. The program, we thought, could begin a cascade of support and services. In theory, the plan was simple. In reality, it was not; each government support program had its own guidelines, funding mechanisms, bureaucracy, quotas, target populations, and waiting list of candidates. Nevertheless, all of the implementing agencies eventually agreed to collaborate and formulated a new model: a location-based development plan, focused on land. We tested out the new model in Bagda, a small village near the Bangladesh border where officials and local leaders agreed to coordinate aid to seventy-five families who had recently received land. These families previously lived on the margins, squatting on government land for years after losing their homes in a flood in 2000. First, our government partners provided each family with a small plot. Then the Total Sanitation Campaign Fund provided simple sanitation hookups, Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission provided water, and Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Program provided electricity, the Indian government’s national rural housing program provided small grants to help the families to buy homemaking materials, and the Agriculture-Horticulture Department provided government-subsidized seeds and saplings. The total cost was about $1,000 per family. Over time, families invested $90-$300 of their own money in purchases such as livestock, animal sheds, and saplings. They finally had the security, opportunity, and incentive to climb out of extreme poverty. Spurred by its success, governments in eleven districts across West Bengal began following this model. Today, more than 4,300 formerly landless families have started new and productive lives on their micro-plots. The cost is one that the government was already investing, but in a less coordinated and effective way. We learned that once families have what they cannot provide themselves, they do the rest by the sweat of their brow. They invest in the land, become environmental stewards, provide their children with nutritious food, and pay school fees. More than 450,000 people in eleven Indian states have now received micro-plots. It seems all they needed to climb out of poverty were the right tools at the right time.

Last week the UN’s latest “High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons” released a long-awaited report on global development. The resulting document—A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development—is not only a good read, it’s also a compelling blueprint for extending prosperity to the world’s poor. Formed in July 2012, the panel of twenty-seven luminaries had a clear mandate: to craft a “single, universal… agenda” to guide development cooperation once the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. The panel—cochaired by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and British Prime Minister David Cameron—succeeded admirably. While building on the MDGs, the report widens the aperture of global development to consider new horizons and avenues to reach them. The MDGs, as the report notes, have mobilized unprecedented global support for development cooperation, particularly when it comes to foreign assistance. While the MDGs’ precise impact is hard to gauge, the years since 2000 have witnessed “the fastest reduction of poverty in human history.”  The number of people living in absolute poverty has declined by 500 million, and the incidence of infant mortality has declined by thirty percent. These are monumental achievements. At the same time, the MDGs were heavily focused on meeting basic human needs. As such, they overlooked other preconditions for sustainable development, among these security from violence, the provision of good governance and the rule of law, protection of human rights, reliable infrastructure, access to energy, and responsible environmental stewardship. The MDGs also framed development cooperation, narrowly, as essentially an aid-driven relationship, in which wealthy donors provided charity to the tin cups of demanding recipients. This ignored the many other policy instruments both sides could deploy, from trade to investment to technology transfer. The new report corrects these gaps by proposing an innovative post-2015 agenda organized around five broad themes, accompanied by twelve “illustrative” goals. The five themes are: “Leave no one behind”: The report embraces the goal of “ending” (not just reducing) poverty and hunger. Beyond these baseline objectives, the panel recognizes the imperative of improving equitable access to education and health care, as well as to the infrastructure of electricity,  transportation, and communications. Sustained progress on these fronts requires, as a matter of justice, reaching out to formerly excluded and marginalized communities. “Put sustainable development at the core”: In a long-overdue shift, the panel insists that the environmental aspects of sustainable development must be given equal weight with economic and social dimensions. In the past, the philosophy was “grow now, clean later.” But that “business as usual” path will only further degrade the ecosystem services—including fisheries, aquifiers, coral reefs, arable land, and forests—upon which humanity depends. “Transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth”: Ensuring decent employment and secure livelihoods for a swelling global population will require unprecedented investments in human capital and productivity. The report is bullish on the potential of technological innovation and private sector initiative to “unleash” entrepreneurial dynamism, diversify developing country economies, and turn the world’s swelling cities into engines of growth. “Build peace and effective, open and accountable institutions for all”:  For too long, as Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont point out in their new book, well-meaning donor nations have ignored  the fundamentally political nature of development, even as a growing percentage of the world’s poor is concentrated in fragile states plagued by arbitrary rule, corrupt elites, and endemic violence. The panel acknowledges the centrality of good governance,  civil liberties,  stable property rights, and peace as preconditions for human development. “Forge a new global partnership”: For all their value, the MDGs framed the development cooperation as principally an aid relationship between wealthy donors and poor recipients. The panel offers a more encompassing vision, celebrating the range of partnership possibilities between private and public sector actors, including international instituions, governments, local authorities, corporations, and civil society. The panel exhorts donors “to go beyond the aid agenda” by expanding trade and investment links, as well as transferring technology, to poor nations. Finally, the report calls on donors to get their “own house in order” by eliminating practices that cripple development, like tolerating corrupt business practices, providing havens for tax evasion and money-laundering, and exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions. So far so good. But how to realize these broad shifts? Here, the report pulls its punches a bit, offering only an “illustrative” (rather than “prescriptive”) list of twelve new goals to replace the MDGs. This decision may disappoint some readers. But it’s strategically wise. The ultimate goals will be hammered out within the UN General Assembly (UNGA),  which guards its few prerogatives jealously. In such a context, the panel’s subtle, indirect approach may pay greater dividends. The report’s twelve proposed post-2015 development goals are: 1.  End Poverty 2.  Empower Girls and Women and Achieve Gender Equality 3.  Provide Quality Education and Lifelong Learning 4.  Ensure Healthy Lives 5.  Ensure Food Security and Good Nutrition 6.  Achieve Universal Access to Water and Sanitation 7.  Secure Sustainable Energy 8.  Create Jobs, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Equitable Growth 9.  Manage Natural Resource Assets Sustainably 10.  Ensure Good Governance and Effective Institutions 11.  Ensure Stable and Peaceful Societies 12.  Create a Global Enabling Environment and Catalyse Long-Term Finance Each of these goals is accompanied by 4-6 “measurable targets,” ideally allowing one to gauge progress. (For example, a target for “securing sustainable energy” includes “doubling the share of renewable energy.”) As the report concedes, refining these targets, as well as developing accurate indicators with sufficient global coverage, will require a lot more technical work. One of the report’s most promising recommendations is its call for a “data revolution for sustainable development.” It has become a cliché, of course, that we live in an era of “big data.” What is less well known is the degree to which digital connectivity, including mobile telephony and social media, has begun to change the development landscape, empowering individuals and enabling communities to make large improvements in the quality of their lives and livelihoods. The same technologies can be usefully marshaled to gather timely data on local conditions and needs, domestic and international responses, and development outcomes. Recalling how far the world has come since 2000, the authors are “convinced that the next 15 years can be some of the most transformative in human history.” Their report offers a useful roadmap for that journey.

The Africa Research Institute has published a succinct Briefing Note that outlines the problems of land reform in South Africa and the inherent contradictions in the government’s approach. The Briefer also includes an excellent map of the agricultural regions in the country from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). As part of the political deal between the victorious British government and the defeated Afrikaaners after the Boer War (1902), about 90 percent of the country’s land was reserved for whites. As late as 1996, the Briefer points out, 60,000 white commercial farmers owned almost 70 percent of the agricultural land and leased a further 19 percent. South Africa has the most developed commercial agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa and is a food exporter. (Joe Slovo, a long-time leader of the South African Communist Party and a minister in Nelson Mandela’s government, famously commented that he had no interest in destroying the most effective commercial agricultural sector in Africa to create a class of African peasant proprietors.) The apartheid-era agricultural sector was heavily dependent on government subsidies. The Briefer shows that as they have been removed, the number of commercial farmers has declined to some 40,000, of whom half have a turnover of less that U.S. $32,000. Agriculture is now only 3 percent of South African’s gross domestic product. Meanwhile the rural unemployment rate is 52 percent. The Briefer is particularly useful for outlining the contradictions between constitutional guarantees of property rights, and the state’s obligation to “enable” all citizens’ access to land. It highlights the fact that successive African National Congress (ANC) administrations have devoted only small sums to land reform. Yet land reform appears to be a compelling issue for much of the ANC’s core constituency. Its purpose was to redress apartheid injustices, promote the redistribution of wealth and address pervasive rural poverty. By that benchmark, land reform has failed. The Briefer suggests that a focus on the transfer of acres of land from whites to blacks is the wrong focus. Instead, land reform should be part of a broad restructuring of agriculture and the creation of a smallholder sector—Joe Slovo’s African peasant proprietors. This would have the potential for reducing rural unemployment and increasing food production without dismantling the commercial sector. It would also go some way toward redressing the injustices of the apartheid era. But, it would cost money and require the South African government to shift its funding priorities—in a country that is now predominately urban. The Africa Research Institute is a relatively young think-tank based in London.

What world traveler hasn’t declined at least one local “delicacy”? A decade ago in Oaxaca, Mexico, I turned up my nose at chapulines, a steaming plate of toasted grasshoppers. “Tastes like chicken,” my waiter smiled unconvincingly. But overcoming disgust for “edible insects” may be the easiest way to meet global food needs, according to a fascinating, if occasionally stomach-churning, report from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Agency (FAO), based, of all places, in Rome. The notion of meeting caloric, especially protein, needs from insects (as well as grubs, worms and other creepy-crawlies) is hardly new. It’s something humans and their hominid ancestors have been doing for millions of years. Paleoanthropologists and biologists speculate that our Paleolithic ancestors consumed prodigious quantities of insects—a fact conveniently omitted by most contempoary aficionados of the “cave man diet”. More recently, nineteenth century European arrivals to Australia marveled at aboriginal tribes’ insatiable appetite for insects, and the dramatic impact such a diet could have on their health and appearance, as documented in a fascinating ethnography, The Moth Hunters. What’s surprising is how enduring the human taste for class Insecta remains. According to the FAO, more than two billion people—thirty percent of humanity—already supplement their diet with insects. And given the number of insects out there—1 million distinct species have already been identified and nearly two thousand proven edible—diners have a crunchy smorgasbord to choose from. “The most commonly eaten insect groups,” we learn, “are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, cicadas, leaf and planthoppers, scale insects and true bugs, termites, dragonflies and flies.” Most of today’s insect-eaters live in the developing world, in countries where insects are perceived as a perfectly acceptable and convenient source of energy—readily (or at least seasonably) available, highly portable, and requiring fewer inputs than agriculture or animal husbandry. In terms of nutrition, insects provide an outstanding advantages, having “high fat, protein, fiber, vitamin, and mineral content,” and can be a particularly important diet component for children under the age of five in poor countries. While many in the West may recoil in disgust, the FAO makes a compelling case on food security grounds for entomophagy (eating bugs, in science-speak). Often dismissed as “famine foods,” insects may offer at least part of the answer to the global food crisis. And a crisis is what we have on our hands. Based on current demographic and dietary trends, as I’ve written before, the world needs to double its food production over the next forty years—an effort that will require unprecedented productivity gains while risking ecological calamity. Here’s where insects come in. Insects, it turns out, are far more efficient than livestock—perhaps ten times so—in transforming feed into edible meat. And they largely avoid the huge greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other environmental pollutants, associated with livestock. While most edible insects continue to be collected in the wild, more organized forms of insect farming have emerged, including “cricket farming” in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Insects are also being increasingly used as animal feed, particularly for poultry and acquaculture. By providing employment opportunities, the edible insect sector has a potential role to play in rural development, from Southeast Asia to Central Africa. To have a real impact on food consumption patterns, however, edible insects must go global. Today, the international trade in these commodities is neglible, limited to niche markets like fulfilling the dietary desires of diaspora populations. Expanding global trade in edible insects will require expanding existing national and multilateral health and sanitary regulations. This will include updating the Codex Alimentarius, created by FAO and the World Health Organization in 1963 to harmonize international food standards and codes of practice. The biggest stumbling block to expanding global consumption of insects is cultural. The very idea of eating bugs remains taboo in many countries, particularly in the wealthy West, where they tend to be confined to “novelty snacks.” There may be ways to make inroads against this stigma, however. A few celebrity U.S. chefs have put insect items on their restaurant menus. In the future, one could imagine trend-setters like Anthony Bordain competing with counterparts to see who can make the tastiest dragonfly confit. Who knows? With Manhattan and L.A. foodies leading the charge, would Middle America be far behind? So, if you’re inclined to strike a blow for global food security, or just want to set the trend in your hometown, you’re in luck. Since 2010, the FAO has created a useful “Webportal of Edible Insects,” listing your culinary options. Be sure to check out the chapulines. I hear they taste like chicken.

Last week on my blog, I reviewed USAID’s Water and Development Strategy, focusing on the link between water and food security. As I write: As the global population continues to climb toward 10 billion, and more people enjoy the higher caloric intake of middle class life, finding sustainable ways to improve agricultural productivity is increasingly important. As the USAID strategy makes clear, more careful water management will be a critical part of the solution. You can read the full post here.

Yesterday on my blog, I discussed the Obama administration’s proposed reforms to U.S. food aid. As I note: A 2010 interview with former USAID administrator Andrew Natsios serves as a sobering reminder of what’s at stake. “I’ve seen children starve to death when there was a surplus of food in their local markets, but there was no one to buy the food because we didn’t have the money to do that, so people died.” You can read the full post here.

You read this right. The British media, citing French sources, is having a field day with the report that the camel given to French president Francois Hollande during his February 2013 visit to Mali, has been eaten by its care-takers. According to the French media, the minister of defense broke the news to Hollande. Embarrassed, a Malian official said, “as soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel,” according to Reuters. The French president had left the camel, an expression of thanks for French military intervention in Mali, with a Timbuktu family. The replacement camel will be shipped to a French zoo. A serious side to the story, beyond the camel’s fate; it illustrates the pervasiveness of food insecurity in Mali and, indeed, in the Sahel in general. That said, the British are enjoying the story, perhaps not least because it is at the expense of the French. Sky News headlines, “Camel Given to Francois Hollande Put in a Stew.” The more restrained BBC titled its story “Francois Hollande’s Camel: Mali to Replace Eaten Animal.” Comments posted to the Sky News story include: “I thought the French smoke camels anyway,” and “really what do they think he wants with a camel anyway?” And, “did they go "supersize" for the meal?”

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Amanda Richardson, an attorney and land tenure specialist with Landesa. She discusses the benefits that secure land rights can bring to women and their communities. The Council on Foreign Relations Development Channel recently posted an exciting article by Stephanie Hanson of the One Acre Fund on empowering female smallholder farmers. The article highlighted four obstacles women farmers in the developing world face: poor quality seed and no fertilizer, no access to credit, limited education and training, and no access to markets. We at Landesa agree strongly with this assessment. However, we would add one fundamental obstacle that presents a significant burden for women across the developing world: their lack of secure land rights to the land they rely on. The fact is that women make up only a fraction of the agricultural landholders in most developing regions. In fact, the number is often less than 5 percent and generally less than 20 percent. This means the overwhelming majority of women farmers in the developing world don’t have secure rights to the land they till. As Hanson’s article points out, women are often unable to access credit in rural communities because they do not have a formal title to their land. In fact, studies have shown that women with land rights are more likely to receive credit. However, secure land rights mean more than just access to credit. When women have secure rights to the land they use, they have incentives to make the land more productive with, for instance, better seeds and fertilizer. In Rwanda, a study found that women are the primary farmers but are granted only temporary, insecure use rights to the land they farm. These weak land rights contribute to a lack of investment in land that has led to severe problems with soil erosion. Furthermore, women with secure rights tend to practice traditional conservation methods, such as mulching and intercropping. In many countries government services cannot be accessed without a title deed. In India, for example, the government provides many agricultural extension services, from education to seeds to fertilizer, but only if the recipient has a land title. And as we know, the vast majority of women don’t have a title and therefore can’t access these services. In fact, in India, women own less than 10 percent of the land. When women have secure rights to land, it also improves their status in both their households and their communities. This enhanced status can empower women to participate more effectively and fully in community-level organizations, such as collectives that negotiate with traders, making those institutions more responsive to women’s needs. Improved status can also render women less vulnerable to domestic violence. A study in India indicates that women who own land or a house face a significantly lower risk of marital violence. Furthermore, these benefits accrue to the next generation. Women with land rights contribute a greater proportion of their own income to the household and exercise greater control over the household’s agricultural income in general, according to a study in Nicaragua and Honduras. They are also more likely to spend these funds on food for the family, leading to better nutrition for children. In fact, a study in Nepal found that the odds that a child is severely underweight are reduced by half if the mother owns land. Furthermore, when women in the household have land rights, as the Nicaragua and Honduras study found, children are more likely to go to school and have higher levels of educational attainment. Organizations must recognize the importance of targeting women and tailor their programs to meet their needs, as the One Acre Fund does so admirably. However, secure rights to land are of fundamental importance to women smallholders. In many ways they are a foundational first step. Organizations looking to help women farmers would enhance their impact by incorporating this issue.