Chelsea Catto is the food security program officer at Mercy Corps, an international humanitarian aid agency. Photo Credit: Chelsea Catto/Mercy Corps

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 854 million people worldwide suffer chronic hunger¹ and not because there is not enough food to go around. Rather it is a result of poor political and economic decisions and circumstances, which make the availability, access and utilization of food prohibitive for millions of individuals. ²

To combat worldwide hunger many organizations have developed comprehensive food security programs. Mercy Corps, an international development non government organization, working in over 35 countries around the world has been involved in humanitarian aid and relief since 1979. One of Mercy Corps' current food security program officers, Chelsea Catto, brings to life the distant and intricate process of international food aid.

Chelsea Catto is one member of a four person team that supports US government-funded food security programs. In this capacity, Chelsea works to better programming through capacity building; supports existing food programs; handles the logistics of food aid; and coordinates across various aid sectors like health, agriculture, civil society and economic development to make sure that food security is a part of an integrated development approach.

Q: How does Mercy Corps define food security?

Mercy Corps defines food security as a state "when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." ³

Our aim to address the issues with a comprehensive solution - not relying on a one intervention approach, allows us an opportunity to make a more impactful and sustainable difference.

Food security is about more than direct food distribution. It's about more than just getting food to people overseas. While food distributions are a critical component in certain contexts, they are just one aspect of a comprehensive approach to addressing food insecurity over the long term.

Food security is basically made up of four pillars. These are food availability, food access, food utilization and resilience. Comprehensive food security programming acts like an umbrella pulling these altogether.



How does Mercy Corps work in each of these three areas?

Food availability defines a situation where there is enough food available on a consistent basis from what is generated by a household, domestic production, imports or food assistance from outside sources. Mercy Corps assists in this area through programs that provide resources to farmers such as seeds, tools and education. Such assistance might also include sharing best practices, providing training in resource management or developing irrigation systems for certain communities.

Food access refers to the ability of households and individuals to acquire nutritious food. This means that they have the resources necessary to produce, purchase or by some other means access food on a regular basis. Mercy Corps promotes food access by developing infrastructure, linking farmers to markets and making sure, for instance, that there's not just a road to the market but the buyers in the market are interested in obtaining the farmers' production.

Long-term food security programs can be affected if an emergency or natural disaster suddenly hits, requiring scarce government resources to be re-allocated.

Food utilization, the third major component of food security, means that people are healthy enough to process the food internally, that there is adequate potable water and sanitation and that households are aware of basic nutrition and child-care. This might mean that certain health practices such as the frequent washing of hands is encouraged or that households are educated about the nutritional value of different foods.

Resilience, the fourth pillar, is a term referring to a community's vulnerability to future food insecurity. It refers to the degree of resistance to shocks that could make a household more food insecure. For example, if there's a drought, can the household withstand it so that it doesn't have to sell off important resources? HIV/ AIDS prevention strategies might be another way of building a household's resistance to food insecurity.

What are some of the challenges in addressing the different pillars of food security? What are some challenges to food aid?

Some of the challenges we face involve ensuring good collaboration across Mercy Corps' programmatic and technical sectors.

There are no quick results, and agricultural and health improvements often take awhile and require longer-term programming

We also deal with shocks and risks. Long-term food security programs can be affected if an emergency or natural disaster suddenly hits, requiring scarce government resources to be re-allocated. For example, at the peak of the Darfur food crisis, it was more timely and cost-effective for the US government to divert food commodities already on the water and headed for ongoing programs in order to get them to Darfur as quickly as possible. This meant that communities served by our developmental food security programs had to wait months longer for the next delivery of food.



The US government has made some effort to respond to emergencies more efficiently and overcome logistical constraints. One initiative is to pre-position commodities in storage warehouses in order to be able to react more quickly. We also want to maximize use of resources. For example, we might look at a community's system of irrigation in a dry climate, or help farmers with improvements to infrastructure.

Even so, with most interventions, there are no quick results, and agricultural and health improvements often take awhile and require longer-term programming. We're also working on behavior change activities, particularly those surrounding proper health, hygiene and nutrition. Yet behavior change is complex and takes a long-term commitment by the participants. Children can be taught to wash their hands, but if they don't understand the importance of proper hygiene or don't have access to clean water, it's difficult for them to make that change.

What are some examples of where Mercy Corps has programs in food availability, access and utilization?

In terms of food availability, Mercy Corps has a program to boost agricultural production in Afghanistan. Through funding provided by the European Commission, food production is increased through a number of activities. These include providing supplies and planting stock to orchards and nurseries, training women in better gardening practices and poultry management, and improving livestock health. These efforts have been fruitful in improving food security within more than 100 communities - an important accomplishment given that nearly 40 percent of the Afghan population is considered food insecure. Mercy Corps has also repaired roads, contributing to overall better infrastructure and ultimately reducing the cost of transportation. In one example, this resulted in savings of $16,000 annually for 800 Afghan households - a significant amount considering that the average income per person in Afghanistan is only $800 per year.

Funding for food security programs is diminishing. Priorities are changing based on what is defined by Congress and budget appropriations.

Mercy Corps also has a food access program to increase the purchasing power of families so that food, when it is available, can be accessed. This includes a program in Mongolia sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture [USDA] Food-for-Progress. Mercy Corps provides assistance through business training and loan guarantees to strengthen rural businesses and promote self-sufficiency. ⁴

Food utilization is improved through Mercy Corps' program on maternal and child health in Indonesia funded by USAID Food for Peace. This is an urban program working in Jakarta that provides rations to pregnant women and women who are breast-feeding and also works with women to help them make nutritious food choices and to share what they have learned with other women in their communities.

Please discuss Mercy Corps' healthy school initiative and where it is currently operating.

The Sumatra Healthy Schools Program (SHSP) is an initiative to fight anemia for about 170,000 children in elementary school in four provinces in Indonesia (Lampung, Bengkulu, Riau, and West Sumatra). ⁵

Complementary activities are what really make the program. These include providing infrastructure improvement and equipment grants, promoting school gardens to improve nutrition, training teachers, forming parent teacher associations, and encouraging better health and hygiene practices such as hand washing, using latrines and eating more nutritious snacks.

Currently, we are implementing food programs funded by the US Agency for International Development [USAID] and USDA in Tajikistan, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Each program incorporates a variety of food security interventions that are appropriate for each country or regional context.

Recently the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) hosted an annual conference about international food aid programs. Can you talk about the conference and any significant developments that might affect Mercy Corps' work?

Every year, the USDA and USAID host a conference in Kansas City, MO to talk about food aid. It's the largest food aid conference that is held in the United States. There were nearly 700 registered participants from the private, public and non-profit sectors. The World Food Program, the United Nations agency in charge of food assistance, was also represented.

There are many instances of food insecurity around the world, yet funding availability is always a constraint, as the US government relies on appropriations from Congress to fund food aid assistance

A key topic at the conference this year was the renegotiation of the 2007 US Farm Bill and ways in which food aid could be made more efficient, both in the delivery and the implementation of programs, as well as through improvements in the monitoring of activities and results. Another issue that was discussed was how the number of emergency situations where food aid is needed has significantly increased over the last 30 years. This means that there is more pressure to get food to these places more quickly.

According to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, part of the reason the United States could respond to the Lebanon crisis that followed after Israel's invasion last summer, was that food was already in the region so it could be diverted to respond more quickly. ⁶

Another issue is that funding for food security programs is diminishing. Priorities are changing based on what is defined by Congress and budget appropriations. Right now, aid agencies, including Mercy Corps, are providing input and recommendations to USDA and USAID as they lobby the U.S. Congress for the reauthorization of food aid programs in the 2007 US Farm Bill, which is currently under negotiation.

What do you see as the fundamental obstacle to more efficient food aid and what do you see ahead for Mercy Corps in terms of its programs and approach to food security?

I think it's more accurate to say that there are different challenges to be aware of and to overcome. The length of time it takes to get commodities overseas is a challenge. So are the logistics and coordination of the distribution - there are various moving parts to consider - time of year for distributions (whether or not there's a rainy season, if people are migratory, etc.), distribution to remote locations, monitoring the distributions, etc. Another factor to consider is limits to government resources. There are many instances of food insecurity around the world, yet funding availability is always a constraint, as the US government relies on appropriations from Congress to fund food aid assistance.

In terms of being forward looking - I think our aim to address the issues with a comprehensive solution - not relying on a one intervention approach, allows us an opportunity to make a more impactful and more sustainable difference.

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Footnotes

¹2006. FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World.

² Murphy, Sophia and McAfee, Kathy, 2005. US Food Aid. Time to Get It Right. July. A Publication of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

³ Mercy Corps, 2007. "Food Security Strategy." April, p.1. In USAID key concepts, adopted at World Food Summit of 1996, reconfirmed at World Food Summit of 2002.

⁴ Food Security Strategy, op. cit., p. 2.

⁵ Mercy Corps. "Sumatra Healthy School Program." Internal publication.

⁶ McConnell, Kathryn, 2007. "Bush Administration Seeks Change in Emergency Food Aid Delivery." April 20. Available from usinfo.gov.




Contributed by Cory McGruden, a contributor to Global Envision and Mercy Corps.

To read another Global Envision article about global food security, see The Quest for Food Security.



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