Link between migration, food security

EVERY day, one in nine people around the world do not have enough food to support a healthy, active lifestyle.
The problem has been compounded by climate change, which often has a devastating impact on food security. Severe drought has often led to shortages of food, water and energy.
Papua New Guinea yesterday joined the rest of the world in celebrating World Food Day, which falls every year on Oct 16, in honour of the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in 1945.
The day is celebrated widely by many other organisations concerned with food security, including the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
This year’s theme was “Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development”.
The theme recognises the link between migration of people and food security. Movements of people caused by natural disasters, civil conflicts and economic problems locally and across borders pose significant food security and socio-economic challenges.
Agriculture and Livestock Minister Benny Allan, in his message marking the day, said for PNG, the most common migration was domestic caused by poverty and natural disasters due to climate change that forced people to move from rural areas to urban areas or move into safer areas to be looked after by wantoks and relatives.
The poverty level in PNG is estimated to about 40 per cent (3 million people) which is prevalent in rural areas, Allan said.
These people suffer from chronic long-term poverty, which limits their capacity to have access to social and economic services, to empower them to improve their quality of life through better access to education, income, healthy living and sufficient good quality, nutritious food.
A lot of people migrate from rural areas into urban centres to escape poverty. But in doing so put extra burden on their wantoks and relatives to care for them.
Most end up in squatter settlements, where they have to face difficult socio-economic problems that increase their risk to food and economic security.
It is interesting to note that the national, provincial and district governments have been challenged to promote and increase investment in rural development focusing on agriculture to minimise poverty in rural areas.
Allan said 85 per cent of people in rural areas depended on agriculture for their livelihood and any development that focuses on agriculture in rural areas will definitely improve the lives of rural people.
The sad thing is that PNG, despite boasting that we are a country with resources galore and hectares of fertile land, still cannot properly and adequately feed our rural population, especially children.
This situation is seriously limiting not only children’s growth outcomes but also their future learning and income earning potential which further perpetuates the inter-generational cycle of malnutrition and poverty.
Here in PNG, food security is utmost in our minds whenever the drought grips districts and regions and continues, affecting communities that run out of food and water. Food security is about the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
Food security is an issue that needs to be highlighted before it reaches the crisis point in nutrition, which is of great concern under both normal and emergency related to migration.
There is abundance of food in this country, however, the problem is due to poor quality and nutrition, which is common in rural areas.
Minister Allan says the agriculture approach to address under-nutrition will be done in collaboration with and to complement the nutritional approach promoted by the Health Department which focuses on maternal nutrition and health, infant and child feeding practices and water sanitation and health programme which promote access to clean and safe water and healthy environment.
Nutritional planning involves formulation of a nutrition policy and overall long-term planning to improve production and supplies of food, ensure its equitable distribution and programmers to increase the purchasing power of people.
This may include land reforms, proper guidance in agriculture to help farmers to get better yields from their lands and help in proper marketing of farm produce.
It is the future of PNG we are talking about here.