Food security must be studied

With climate change becoming more and more of a buzz word, the UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Food and Agriculture is urging regional leaders to pay greater attention to the impact of food insecurity on migration patterns.

Excerpts taken from a release prepared by Faculty graduate students Meera Mahase and David Forgenie, stated that over the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of migrants and refugees. According to data taken from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) data, there are roughly 244 million international migrants, as well as 763 million people who migrate within their own country.

These stats, Mahase and Forgenie state, prompt a few queries, including: What is the cause of this mass migration? Are people leaving their country because they want too? Are they forced to leave? Do migrants have a choice? Are they welcomed or ridiculed when they arrive? Do local folks understand the circumstances they are coming from, or is there a rush to judgement?

These are only a few questions that one must ask when trying to understand what lies at the roots of migration, not to mention food insecurity. There are several reasons why people migrate or leave their country. People flee their homes because of famine, hunger, poverty, political instability, conflict, and even the effects of climate change.

For example, extreme weather events have led to drought in Eastern and Southern Africa, causing tens of thousands of Somalians to abandon their homes to find food and water. This potent combination of drought and conflict, as well as subsequent disease from informal living arrangements and lack of healthcare, have according to the UN, led to one of the continent’s most dire humanitarian crises in decades.

The Caribbean is no exception, the graduate students state, when it comes to migration. A few weeks ago, Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc upon Dominica. Apart from that, Hurricane Irma waylaid the Leeward Islands causing many to migrate for food, water, medicine, and shelter. This goes to show that the issue of migration is timely and relevant for us to consider and take appropriate actions.

“As we think about food insecurity, migration must now enter the conversation. Food security or more accurately, lack thereof, is one of the major reasons why people migrate. In some countries, people have to pack up and leave for no other reason other than that of inadequate food and lack of potable water,” the release stated.

Food security is defined in many ways, with one of the more widely accepted definitions, issued at the World Food Summit in 1996, being that it exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Seems pretty straightforward.

Thus, in order to prevent or lessen migration induced by food insecurity, one of the major causes of people moving must be eliminated. Food must be made available to people where they live. It also must be in steady supply.

Moreover, people need to be able to access food, which means they should be able to financially afford it, as well as be able to physically get to it. Food security can enable people to stay where they are, and not be displaced from their homes because they and their families are battling hunger and malnourishment.

Apart from food security, rural underdevelopment, which could result from lack of government investment and resource over-extraction, is another major cause of migration. In rural countryside where more than 75% of the world’s poor reside, food security depends on agriculture and natural resource-based livelihoods.

By investing in food security and rural development people may choose to stay where they want. Despite the myth that the world does not have enough food to feed everyone, in actuality, it does. There is evidence that there is enough food to feed every person on the planet; food is simply being wasted, and most significantly, is not being distributed fairly. The same can be said for wealth, as well as meaningful work. When any of these are in short supply, people are more likely to be forced to pack up and to seek them out elsewhere.