West African Food System Resilience, with Clear Challenges and Leverage Points for Enhancing Capacities to Respond to Future Shocks
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Authors: Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters, Joost Nelen, Bertus Wennink, Verina Ingram, Fabien Tondel, Froukje Kruijssen and West African food system Jenny Aker resilience Background and Preface 1 understanding COVID-19 is an extreme event that we will remember for a lifetime. But it is by no means the only shock of our time that puts global food security under pressure. Climate change, the increase in pandemics due to animal disease transfer and 2 Regional drivers biodiversity loss will further increase pressure on existing food systems. Resilient, sustainable food systems, striking a balance between social, economic and environmental impacts, must be the answer. And that requires a different 3 Regional organisations approach than ‘producing more food’; it requires thinking in systems thinking and ‘producing food in a better way’. 4 Agro-pastoralism-based Early 2020 the World Bank and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached Wageningen University and Research with the question: How resilient are West African food systems and how to strengthen their resilience? The 5 Grains-and-legumes-based World Bank was in the process of developing a regional programme for that purpose and expressed its interests to Wageningen University & Research to obtain evidenced-based insights that could be used during its consultations and 6 Rice-and-horticulture formulation. Wageningen University & Research quickly set up a dedicated team, and invited experts from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) and Mr. Joost Nelen to join. 7 Coastal maritime fisheries Diving into the world of West African food systems and their resilience does not provide one with a univocal answer to Tropical mixed tree and 8 the questions raised by the World Bank. The systems prove to be very diverse and respond in very different ways to food crops systems shocks such as provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas some systems show higher levels of resilience, others show important vulnerabilities to specific shocks. Income and power disparities between stakeholders in the systems, 9 Toward enhanced resilience such as defined by gender differences, appear to be important, explaining why people’s livelihoods are sometimes threatened, while other people have buffers and capacities to respond. The study draws a rich and nuanced picture of West African food system resilience, with clear challenges and leverage points for enhancing capacities to respond to future shocks. I hope that the publication will also inform and inspire you, either to dive deeper into West African food systems and their resilience, or to undertake any action to support them. Prof. dr. ir. J.G.A.J. (Jack) van der Vorst Ir. O. (Olaf) Hietbrink Managing Director Social Sciences Group (SSG) Business Unit Manager Wageningen Economic Research Wageningen University & Research Wageningen University & Research Do you want to know more about WUR’s food systems resilience research agenda? Download the whitepaper or contact: Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters. experience a variety of vulnerabilities, and develop over time Background and Executive Summary 1 diverse and inherent forms of resilience. After detailed analysis of understanding The West African region supplies most of the food for its growing the five food systems, two major questions could be answered: population, which now exceeds 400 million. West African countries 2 Regional drivers meet most of the region’s needs for coarse grains, tuber and root What is the status of regional food system resilience in crops, vegetables, fruits, and meat (excluding some areas of West Africa? 3 Regional organisations fast-growing consumption such as chicken). Generic data and their interpretations obscure the region’s food systems, which have How can food system resilience in West Africa be enhanced 4 Agro-pastoralism-based evolved over hundreds of years. These systems, often poorly through regional institutions? understood by outsiders, exist in complex relationships between 5 Grains-and-legumes-based people and natural environments, with both short value chains and The most prominent conclusions from the study are: long ones supplying distant consumer markets. Consumer demands for food have risen gradually over the past 6 Rice-and-horticulture decades in West Africa and are projected to rise further due to Food security figures have improved slightly across West Africa. In increasing population, income, and economic growth. Food systems 7 Coastal maritime fisheries 2002 all countries in the region reported that at least 10–40 percent have kept pace with these increasing demands which have been of their households were severely to moderately food insecure. met by domestic and regional production. Important exceptions are Tropical mixed tree and 8 Rates of severe to moderate food insecurity vary between the rice, dairy, and poultry, though West African food systems have food crops systems respective countries and range from 6 to above 25%. The data adequate potential to meet consumer demand for these products. show that food insecurity prevails despite generic data on the ability 9 Toward enhanced resilience of food systems to feed West African consumers. This is due to Although the food supply looks positive in absolute numbers, these increasing disparities between socioeconomic and gender segments figures do not explain the high rate of malnutrition observed among in society. the various populations of West Africa. The numbers are alarming in terms of persistent undernutrition and rising levels of obesity. High Over the past century, West Africa’s food systems have shown rates of child stunting across all five food systems indicate the various degrees of resilience in responding to external and internal severity of food insecurity irrespective of the food system. shocks. These food systems have also shown resilience to the Undernutrition and foodborne disease prevalence are explained by drivers of and long-term changes to the social and ecological food system outcomes in terms of the affordability, accessibility, systems in which they are embedded. But there are limits to the and safety of food. In other words, undernutrition is also an region’s capacity for absorption, adaptation, and response, which is expression of socioeconomic poverty and is strongly associated with challenging food system balance and efforts to ensure an highly accentuated social disparities and the agroeconomic affordable, sufficient, and accessible supply of healthy food for West exclusion of people, notably women, observed across West Africa. Africa. Food safety issues and postharvest losses are observed in many food value chains, notably fresh vegetables and animal products It is against this background that the World Bank and its regional (dairy and fish). These health risks hamper the consumption of the partners formulate a regional programme to enhance the resilience more diverse foods needed for healthy diets. of agriculture and food systems in West Africa. This study was conducted in contribution to the design and formulation of the Food systems of West Africa differ significantly in their response to support facility. Acknowledging the rich diversity in food systems in these threats. Food systems that depend on global markets, such as the region, five important food systems were selected to rice and poultry, and export-oriented cash crops, such as cotton, understand how they contribute to food system outcomes, cacao, and palm oil (as drivers of mixed-crop systems), are more vulnerable to economic shocks than food systems that depend on Two systems show greater climate resilience due to access to widely Background and 1 informal, domestic, and regional markets, such as livestock available natural resources. In some countries, the mixed-grain- understanding products, coarse grains, and pulses. In contrast, food systems that and-legumes-based system can still expand to the southern Sudan are based on the extraction of food from natural resources, such as areas, which are the last abundant land reserves with relatively low 2 Regional drivers fisheries and pastoralism, are less resilient to climate variation population density. The rice-and-horticulture-based systems can when their historically evolved production systems are constrained build on largely available surface water and groundwater reserves 3 Regional organisations by new drivers of change, such as industrial fisheries, encroachment to sustain current irrigated lowland systems. However, there are on pastoral lands, and national policies restricting pastoralist important nuances: expansion to and clearance of Sudan areas is 4 Agro-pastoralism-based mobility. Secured access to key natural resources is a prerequisite already taking place in an unsustainable way, at the expense of for the survival of the systems. forest resources, meaning the region’s real water potential is 5 Grains-and-legumes-based unknown and possibly overestimated. Lastly, these two systems risk encroaching on the other systems and increasing their exposure to 6 Rice-and-horticulture climate events and economic shocks. 7 Coastal maritime fisheries Regional conflict hampers the safe and efficient flow of crop and livestock products, as well as wage labourers seeking opportunities Tropical mixed tree and 8 elsewhere. There is much debate about the root causes of conflict in food crops systems the Sahel region, but there is general agreement that land and water scarcity, combined with deteriorating natural