Most of the world’s food is grown and processed by small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk. Many people depend on these activities for incomes, including food producers, processors, retailers and consumers. Howevre, development policies often ignore, neglect  or actively undermine local food systems.

Research from the International Institute for Environment and Development, UK, argues that local food systems have enormous potential for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Localised food systems are not only important to small-scale producers. Each link in the food chain offers economic opportunities to many people. The livelihoods and incomes of a huge number of rural and urban people depend on the storage, processing, distribution, sale and preparation of food. Further industries, such as manufacturing agricultural inputs (for example fertilisers) also benefit.

Local and indigenous communties sustain these diverse food systems and environments through their knowledge, innovation and regulative institutions. They have always been important in managing and coordinating food systems and their environments at different scales. For example, they are able to monitor and respond to environmental and economic change.

Managing the ecological services on which local food systems depend is critical for meeting the MDGs. This requires learning, negotiation and collective action for natural resource management between people at all stages of the food marketing chain. Many examples of successful ventures exist:

• In Peru, indigenous Queshua communities have organised themselves into local groups with the support of a local non-governmental organisation (NGO). These support the management of natural resources in mountain landscapes. In 2000, they developed a ‘Potato Park,’ which protects the diversity of local potato varieties and traditional management systems.
• Farmer Field Schools throughout Asia support local management of agricultural biodiversity. Farmers generate site-specific solutions to protect crops that do not rely on external inputs such as pesticides. In Indonesia, over one million rice farmers have participated in these schools.
• In Andhra Pradesh, India, the government’s distribution of cheap rice to poor people changed farming activities, with people no longer growing traditional dryland crops. Working with an NGO, some villagers developed an alternative Community Grain Fund, which supplied the poorest people with locally grown food and contributed to preserving agricultural biodiversity in the area.

Achieving the MDGs of reducing hunger and achieving environmental sustainability will largely depend on local food systems. Policies need to empower local organisations and give them more responsibility to manage food systems and their environments.

The research recommends:

• Policy interventions should build on local knowledge and management organisations.
• Trade rules and foreign aid policies should change. They must support local economies and local control, rather than encourage international competitiveness.
• Policies should ensure that the real environmental costs of unsustainable production methods and long-distance trade are included in the cost of food and fibre.

Source(s):
‘Supporting locally determined food systems: the role of local organizations in framing, environment and people’s access to food,’ by Michel Pimbert, Chapter 6 of ‘How to Make Poverty History – the central role of local organizations in meeting the MDGs’ edited by Tom Bigg & David Satterthwaite, IIED, 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida); the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD); the Directorate General for International Co-operation of the Netherlands (DGIS); the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC); and the UNDP Poverty and Environment Initiative (supported by the UK Department for International Development and the European Commission).

id21 Research Highlight: 9 May 2006

Further Information:
Michel Pimbert
Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and Livelihoods Programme
International Institute for Environment and Development
3 Endsleigh Street
London, WC1H 0DD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7388 2117
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7388 2826
Contact the contributor: michel.pimbert@iied.org

International Institute for Environment and Development, UK

Other related links:
'Agriculture, food systems and the Millennium Development Goals'

'Pass the leafy vegetables, please'

'Encouraging pro-poor growth in the Nigerian food sector'

'Eradicating hunger: the key to achieving the MDGs'

'How to halve hunger - achieving the first Millennium Development Goal'