Food and Nutrition Security for the next 25 – 50 years

Climate change is significantly impacting agriculture by increasing water demand, limiting crop productivity and by reducing water availability in areas where irrigation is most needed. Recently, the rising food prices and long term trends of growing consumption and higher demand for food, biofuels, raw materials, etc. drive speculations on long-term price rises for land and agricultural products. In the most affected areas, generally characterized by low purchasing power of their population, food insecurity and malnutrition are increasing.

The FSC Summer School's objective was to provide diagnoses and a prospect on how these phenomena will continuously affect the food and nutrition security in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the next 25 – 50 years. For this purpose, lecturers from three different continents and areas of expertise joined the Summer School to share their knowledge with our international students.

Organizers:

The Summer School was jointly organized by:

–  the University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Benin),

–  the Food Security Center of the University of Hohenheim (Germany),

–  EXCEED (“Higher Education Excellence in Development Cooperation”)

It was funded through the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) with funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Venue and dates:

The course was held at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Benin), from 6 to 25 November 2017.

Participants:

The course hosted 20 PhD students from Africa, Asia and Latin America. All participants were granted a scholarship from the Food Security Center of the University of Hohenheim covering: air ticket, accommodation, meals and transportation in Benin.

Modules

The course was divided into the three following modules:

• Climate Change and Water Security - Prof. Ricardo Radulovich from Costa Rica (November, 6 – 11, 2017): Climate change, water security, and food production and security; trends in agricultural water demands; economic competition for agricultural water management; prospects for adaptation to irrigation systems and changing river basin levels; policy development implications.
• Global Trade and Land Grabbing - Dr. Friederike Bellin-Sesay from Germany (November, 13 – 18, 2017): Food penury, increase of food prices, fuel shock, and nutrition status; land rights and land governance for agricultural economics performance; the role of water and destinations of production from large-scale land acquisitions; the yield gap in target countries; prospects and tools for eradication.
• Food and Nutrition Security - Dr. Catherine Nkirote Kunyanga from Kenya (November, 20 – 25, 2017): Assessment of nutrition status and disease-related malnutrition; chronic, transitory and cyclical, acute and temporary food insecurity; nutrition gaps, Global Hunger Index, Hidden Hunger Index, dietary diversity index, Omega-3; prospects and tools for eradication.

Feedback

• The Summer School has been an eye opener to various aspects of Food Security, and my expectations before coming were greatly met. – Bisola Oweghoro (Nigeria, participant)

• From this program we learned about climate change and security, global trade and land grabbing and food & nutrition security to combat the food and nutrition insecurity, hunger and poverty. All the lectures were very informative and international standard. – Md Zannatul Ferous (Bangladesh, participant)

• I learned very well during the summer school. This is an add value for my research. – Djan’na Koubodana (Togo, participant)

• I am highly convinced with the contents and information shared during this effective and interactive international platform in the form of summer school. All three weeks were very well planned theoretically as well as practically. The aim of awareness, education and networking was very fruitful for me especially. In continuation of this summer school agenda, I am invited for a talk on another important issue of Pakistan in January 2018 in Geissen, Germany. – Rafia Mubaraka (Pakistan, participant)