Comments on id21 viewpoints

Achieving food security?

Thanks to Ian Scoones for at least reading (part of) our paper. But he is wrong on several points. Firstly, the approach we are recommending is highly participatory and explicitly breaks away from the standard package approach. The original Malawi Starter Pack was the first ever national effort in that country to provide area specific recommendations and a framework through which farmers and their advisors could work together to refine and improve these for their own circumstances. No one disputes that much more needed to be done – but the start was there.

We document the effectiveness – in terms of household food security, lower food prices in the ‘hungry season’ and supporting national efforts towards a liberalised and open economy – that the approach had even in its early and untested form.

Secondly, far from being separate for politics and policy, it was directly linked to these factors. Aleke Banda, the Minister of Finance, was so engaged in the process that at one point he locked all parties into his ministry conference room until they had come to a consensus solution.

What is routinely overlooked by outsiders such as Ian Scoones is the fact that this effort was very much a Malawi-driven initiative, building on solid science (supported by Rockefeller Foundation, the CGIAR, and others) and policy (especially the Harvard Food Security support in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development). It was a valuable example of Africans developing a solution to their own problems. It was not perfect – but, with encouragement and support, it could have been improved and modified. The tragedy is that the local and international expertise which worked so well to come up with a response to Malawi’s chronic food problem was sidelined and the same tired, failing policies to which Scoones refers reintroduced. Does this make sense to anyone?

Malcolm Blackie
The Farmhouse
9 Meadow Farm Drive
Cringleford
Norwich NR4 6TR
UK
Phone/fax: +44-(0)1603-506440

Sir,

I found your comments very interesting. Yes, it would be nice to keep the debate alive. Meanwhile we should be able to talk about not only the concepts but also some actual results on the ground. We just had a conference on scaling up/scaling out improved agricultural technologies in Ethiopia. The news should be on our website soon, if not already. We intend to publish the proceedings by September; this will be available on our web as well.

All the best,
Tsedeke Abate