Times Of Swaziland: FOOD SECURITY IN HOTTER, DRIER WORLD

FOOD SECURITY IN HOTTER, DRIER WORLD
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By City Press on 08/11/2019 00:39:00


WE are in the middle of a South African heatwave. The northern hemisphere has
just completed a very uncomfortable summer, with July being the hottest in
recorded history. The start of the southern hemisphere spring appears to be
completing this year’s weather cycle in competition with the north –
promising a hot, dry summer with short intervals of intense rainfall. In other
words, presenting more threats to our food security.
World Food Day, celebrated on October 16, continued to leave us uncomfortable.
While considerable progress has been made in various parts of the world, we
still have 821 million people who suffer from chronic undernourishment. That’s
more than 10 per cent of the world’s population. The outlook is dimmed by the
prospect of an even more difficult environment on the back of climate change and
increased frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods.
Hungry
The number in South Africa, according to Stats SA, is 6.8 million people who are
chronically hungry, meaning they go to bed on an empty stomach daily. In this
mix are 500 000 households with children who are subject to hunger pangs. Add to
this the growing global epidemic of obesity and malnutrition to complete the
ticking time bomb of the global nutrition challenge of the 21st century.
Adequate nutrition is critical in the first 90 days of a child’s life and, in
general, if under-nutrition persists for the first four years, the damage is
largely irreversible. We know that under-nutrition is a central pillar of the
poverty trap. Poverty restricts access to food, which leads to restricted
physical and cognitive development.
Limits
This in turn limits economic activity and productivity, which perpetuates the
poverty. And the cycle continues inter-generationally. The outlook is dimmed by
the prospect of an even more difficult environment on the back of climate change
and increased frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods.
How do we organise for future food security to enable the next generation to
successfully escape the poverty trap in South Africa and the world? But these
interventions might prove ineffective against the vagaries of heatwaves and
extreme weather events catalysed by the climate crisis. There is the matter of
obesity and malnutrition epidemic.
Key to food security is resilience in the diversity of staples. If these new
staple crops have the added benefits of higher nutrition levels and greater
tolerance to drier conditions, then we truly have a winning solution. The third
intervention is underutilised and orphan crops. They are sometimes also referred
to as traditional crops because our wise ancestors had an important handle on
food security, albeit on a smaller scale, and are in most cases indigenous.
The number in South Africa, according to Stats SA, is 6.8 million people who are
chronically hungry, meaning they go to bed on an empty stomach daily. Research
has shown that in general these crops use much less water than their exotic
mainstream monoculture cousins, making them more resilient to drought
conditions.
They are also more nutritious and, with higher levels of iron and trace
elements, becoming an important bastion against malnutrition. Examples include
well-known sweet potato, Bambara groundnut, cowpeas, spider plant and indigenous
spinach – amaranthus or morogo. The super resilient include sorghum, which is
both drought tolerant and is tolerant to waterlogging.
The green revolution of the 1950s and 1960s massified agriculture in a
monoculture paradigm to stave off mass hunger and was highly successful. The
21st century agricultural revolution lies in new diversification in a resource
efficient and resilient agricultural model enabled by the innovations of the
fourth industrial revolution.