Food systems affect livelihoods through a complex web, most importantly through health. The continued lack of cohesive policy and research only exacerbates the vicious circle that we witness across most of sub-Saharan Africa at present. This is the bottom line of Pinstrup-Andersen’s new book, "The African Food System and its Interactions with Human Health”.

Inadequate food systems have a devastating impact on health and nutrition, decreasing life expectancy, and increasing the proportion of underweight people, as well as increasing mortality rates, particularly of children under five. A crucial factor is that insufficient nutrition worsens resistance to diseases. It is estimated that 50 percent of all deaths in developing countries could have been avoided by good nutrition. Moreover, patterns of food production itself can have severe health implications through flood irrigation, for example, which increases the risk of waterborne diseases, or through the excessive use of pesticides. In turn, low health and bad nutrition lessen the productivity of workers, most of whom are employed in the agricultural sector, completing the vicious circle. Adding to the complexity, improving food quality involves a difficult trade-off: It tends to increase prices, which, in turn, decrease food access of the poor.

But there are other channels, too: A previous empirical study by Pinstrup-Andersen suggests that poor health and nutritional status play a key role in inducing armed conflicts in poor countries. This relationship is taken up by a new research paper published by the Initiative for Peacebuilding (IfP) that emphasizes the importance of incorporating a conflict sensitive approach into land policies and land reform in Africa. In particular, conflict analysis is crucial when reforming poor land use regulation in the context of land tenure insecurity as well as of unequal distribution of land.

Practitioners and decision makers have often failed to address these interlinkages. Pinstrup-Andersen holds responsible what he calls 'silo thinking’: Both the lack of interdisciplinary research and the lack of collaboration between policy and research communities prevent cohesive solutions. (Stephan Wolters)

The book can be purchased at http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=9886

The 2008 study “Do poverty and poor health and nutrition increase the risk of armed conflict onset?” is available here.

More information on the topic is available here: http://www.initiativeforpeacebuilding.eu/environment_Natural_Resources_Economy.php

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, December 2010