Asian Food Security

On an average day in the Asia Pacific region, a staggering amount of food is produced: one-and-a-half million metric tonnes of rice, a million tonnes each of wheat, fruit and corn, a half million tonnes of potatoes, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fish, beef, poultry and other meats.  This bounty is all part of a constant effort to feed the hungry mouths of the region’s 4.4 billion people.  Growing population, limited land, environmental degradation and climate shocks are among the challenges facing the region’s food production system, itself increasing tasked with producing more product with fewer resources, 50% more by 2050.

This week my trusted collaborator Tom Abke and I were busy preparing an article on the topic of food security in the Asia Pacific region.  We were able to tap the brains of some experts and innovators in the field.  As space was limited for the article, it’s my pleasure to share their thoughts on the subject here.

Remarks by Monika Barthwal-Datta

Monika Barthwal-Datta specialises in non-traditional security issues and critical security studies, with a regional focus on South Asia.  She is currently Lecturer in International Security in the School of Social Sciences at University of New South Wales, Australia.

Amongst our most powerful resources when it comes to meeting the challenge of feeding the world sustainably in the face of climate change is the small family farm.

There are now approx 475 million family farms that are no more than 2 hectares in size.  The UN Food and Agricultural Organization has estimated that up to 80% of all food consumed in the world is grown by small family farms.

Research shows us that small family farmers actually produce much higher levels of agricultural output per unit area than larger farms. They’re more efficient compared to large agribusiness.

Governments and policymakers need to understand that agriculture is a multifunctional activity. Farming provides income for the small family farmer, but it also provides food for the family and livestock. Small farming families tend to have a deep rooted emotional connection to and respect for the land.  We need to keep challenging the idea that agriculture is a purely economic activity.

Traditional, holistic, locally adapted family farming involves growing multiple crops at once. Crop diversity encourages natural pest control, soil enrichment and pollination. It also helps diversify risk for the family, there is no reliance on a single crop.

They are the most vulnerable to climate shocks: the least equipped, poor, with no asset backups in climate shocks or crop failures.

Family farms don’t always have enough for the family to eat and there are many months in the year when they go hungry.  50 to 80% of income is spent on food alone.

Could we really advocate the use of any technology – let alone GM seeds – without first taking into consideration the broader social and economic context within which this technology was being proposed? And the implications it would have on those who are at the heart of this picture, the small family farmers?

Those who are among the most significant actors when it comes to global food security are quite often the least influential when it comes to the very issues at the heart of this challenge.

By their very nature, small family farms are our best shot at meeting global food security needs in a sustainable manner in the face of climate change.

When small family farmers have tenure security, they invest, and use resources in  sustainable manner, they perceive a ‘long term future’ for themselves and their families on the farm.

In Asia, governments need to focus on the diversification of diets, and diversification of crops in the face of climate change, rather than focusing on limited goals like self-sufficiency in rice production.

Small farmers should be encouraged to diversify crops to become more resilient in the face of climate change.

Remarks by Shuyin Tang

Shuyin is one of the pioneers of impact investing in Southeast Asia and passionate about developing the entrepreneurship sector in the region. She currently leads Unitus Impact’s investing activities for Vietnam and the Philippines, identifying and supporting scalable business which improve the livelihoods of the working poor.

The genesis of our organization started in 2005/2006. The founders were a group of venture capitalists who had been successful in traditional markets and were looking for the next challenge. They first got involved in micro finance in India where they wanted to scale up MFIs in India, so they set up an accelerator and impact investing fund for this, which was exited profitably.

In the case of Unitus Impact, there was a desire to move beyond microfinance and India, to invest in social ventures in Southeast Asia. We closed our fund at the end of last year, a $45 million fund to invest in businesses with strong livelihood impact.

In agriculture we are involved in Indonesia, with Big Tree Farms which is the largest producer of organic coconut sweetener in the world whose product is now sold in outlets such as Whole Foods in the United States[Not 100% sure about this and would take too long to confirm, so let’s stick to WholeFoods]. Big Tree works with farmers, more than 7000 of them. These are small farms and these farmers have seen their in their incomes double to triple and their facilities improved. They have been helped to reach international markets.

Another investment of ours in Indonesia is Vasham. Vasham[Company is actually Vasham: http://vasham.co.id/ ] is not your typical business model for raising corn. This corn is raised for poultry feed. But what Basham realized is how inefficient the corn value chain is, so they set forth to improve efficiency in all areas: from access to finance for the smallholder farmers, access to high quality inputs, to access to markets. Vasham offers end-to-end improvements in all these areas, increasing the incomes of farmers by 30% on average. 3000 farmers are involved so far with 100,000 in sight by 2020. [I fact checked these numbers…]It is a very scalable model. It is one of the rare agricultural models that is so scalable.

Vasham is also considering how to apply its model to soybeans, and rice? This is what they are aiming to do. [I’m not sure that I made this comment in relation to Vasham moving into soybean / rice. If it’s ok, can we just split these points out?]
In general, apps to improve price transparency help, but a holistic approach is needed, that’s where Vasham employs a field force using technology to track yields, farming practices and disseminate information.

Partnerships are so important, including with input companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta. Vasham teams up with the local field teams of such companies for farmer education and to ensure timely distribution of inputs. Poultry feed manufacturers have also been keen to partner with Vasham due to the corn shortage in Indonesia. There is been a corn shortage since the government has banned corn imports.

Partnerships are also made with the government, as the government wants to improve the livelihoods of small farmers and support models that do this. Vasham has taken the lead in fostering such partnerships.

In regard to rice, there’s been a lot of innovation in developing new varieties of rice, with  different flowering times etc. What is needed is to bring these varieties to the market, we are looking for innovative business models to do this.

There’s a huge opportunity in the low to middle income bracket of Asia-Pacific families. Every investment that we make seeks to improve incomes of the low to middle income bracket. We focus on income improvement rather than yield improvement per se, as ultimately we want to see a clear impact on livelihoods.

In Precision Agriculture such topics as water scarcity quality of soil are all becoming pressing issues. How do you make smart farming accessible to small farmers who farmed just 2 to 3 hectares? This is the challenge. Mimosatek in Vietnam is a precision agriculture company in this part of the world. Precision agriculture is established in the United States / Europe but very new here. Mimosatek is using sensors, weather station dataand other technologies.

Climate shocks are certainly an issue. We are not a Cleantech fund. We are more concerned with increasing yields and improving incomes. But crop insurance is important in ensuring stability and mitigating the suffering from climate shocks. Finding the right premium structure, measuring the weather patterns accurately, etc. is difficult

We are aware of the ‘scandals’ relating to the big agricultural companies, but they are also the companies that are investing the most in terms of research and development. We take a neutral approach. We think carefully about how this impacts the small farmers, finding the right solution.

We are involved in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and India.

Remarks by David Dawe

David Dawe is a senior economist in the Agricultural Development Economics Division of FAO, and is currently working at FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. He is also the economics editor for the journal Global Food Security. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, and specializes in agricultural and food policy analysis, much of it concerned with the Asian and world rice economies.

Such issues as continued population growth, environmental degradation and reductions in arable land are all a part of the food security problem which continues to be a regionwide crisis in Asia Pacific. All of these factors are critical to food security.

Asia is rapidly growing in population, and won’t reach its peak for another 50 years. Much demand for food puts stress on agriculture, as does growing demand for biofuels. It’s not so much that people are getting richer but that diets are changing. There is a shift from rice to meat and to fish, and more agriculture is required to produce meat than rice. But it is good (from a nutritional perspective) to diversify diet, although it pressures food systems.  There is enough land for rice, but more land is demanded for meat production as well as to produce crops for biofuels.

There is climate uncertainty, including more extreme climatological events. This puts pressure on local water supplies and water reserves. There is also demand for housing and roads, which places demands on land. This is not the largest factor in the food security equation, but an additional stressor. Land in Asia is limited per capita, so all additional demand comes as stress.

Food insecurity solutions must include improving access to food. Most people can afford basic food, but many cannot afford a diverse diet. Famine is a thing of the past. But access to a healthy diet is limited, including many families in the agricultural sector. Getting the agricultural sector to grow more rapidly with fewer resources and to produce food more efficiently will help.

People in Asia-Pacific region typically, spend 60% of their income on food, both in terms of cash and produce. How to make food production more efficient? Cutting down on losses is a big part of the solution. Transportation costs need to be reduced, science and technology based solutions are needed. Many poor farmers have poor land quality; floods can wipe them out. But new varieties of rice can withstand floods for weeks. In the context of climate change, this is significant. Also having rice with changing flowering times to adjust for rising temperatures is an innovation that is potentially going to be helpful.

Turning non-arable land to arable land is difficult in Asia because it is so densely populated. There are limits on land. You don’t want to cut down forests, for example. The biggest example of underutilized land is in Indonesia where forests are being cut down to grow oil palm, but this increases emissions of greenhouse gases.

In India, a lot of the recent problem is the severe El Nino, which has been the strongest in recorded history and has caused drought in India, Thailand and Vietnam. We don’t expect more of this in the near future, as more normalcy should return.  Access, efficiency, transportation, finance; these are bigger issues than drought in terms of long-term problems.

Drought is, however, a big issue that can cause a cycle of debt. Dealing with climate shocks should not be discounted. They can set families back for generations. People born in years of drought will have lower paying jobs 35 years later, according to an analysis in Indonesia.

FAO has looked at insect-based diets. It’s not a panacea, but it has potential to contribute to a longer-term solution for food insecurity in Central and Asia Pacific. There are companies that are producing large quantities of insects for animal feed, which could be a bigger factor than human consumption. This feed could be used in fish farms. Fish farms are growing rapidly in Asia-Pacific as Marine fisheries are becoming overfished. Aquaculture in general is growing by leaps and bounds, so insects could be a big help there.

Population growth mainly results in the need for more food to feed more mouths. That’s the main issue.

I’m cautiously optimistic that technological change will overcome food insecurity, assuming enough resources are devoted to it. New techniques to grow new produce; new plants, better communication to reach out to farmers particularly small farmers is important. There are many small farms in Asia Pacific, unlike in the US where mainly large farms are present. So new techniques, new information require faster and better communications. Therefore, we see mobile phones playing a huge role in disseminating these new innovations to overcome food insecurity.

Food insecurity is highly correlated to poverty. Poverty drives it. It’s a dual challenge, boosting income, but also production efficiency. Because increased income means higher food prices. People are leaving the land, it’s inevitable. Richer economies demand manufactured goods, but the flow of people to urban areas should not be too fast. I don’t believe that there should be a big push back to the land, but the sector should be made more attractive to smart young minds to bring innovation and efficiency to the agricultural sector in Asia-Pacific.

There’s a lot of interesting work going on in this area. Asia has a dynamic private sector. Donors have less influence in Asia than in Africa. I was recently at an agricultural innovation Summit in Bangkok sponsored by USAID. Helping people with innovative ideas but no money is a big issue that was discussed at the conference. There were many venture capitalists there focused on these issues.