DETERMINING NECESSARY FACTORS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FOOD SECURITY

ACTION PLAN: A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE

JUAN PABLO RESTREPO Industrial Engineering student in National University of Colombia
Member of National Association of Industrial, Administrative and Production Engineering
Students (ANEIAP)

Action plans take time. Everything from their conception, research, conceptual extrapolation,
discussion, adaptation and localization take up a considerable amount of resources, work and
invested time from all involved. When thinking about a global problem such as hunger which
solution is imperative and every second passed might be worth a life a proposed action plan
must try to encompass the most extensive and intensive analysis of the medium it is going to be
applied to; however it must be noted that the places at risk for a food crisis have different
characteristics from each other. By taking observations from Colombia, a developing country
which is by some metrics advancing socially and economically but still faces challenges to assure
the adequate nutrition of its increasing population1, some factors could be extrapolated and taken
in mind when developing a global plan for food security with people being priority.
When analyzing food insecurity different aspects can be pointed at as factors of crisis: scarcity,
over-exploitation of resources, undesired production and commerce practices, food access and
population growth are some of them; an appropriate treatment focused on finding and correcting
their causes as well as diminishing their effects is much needed. However, differences between
local contexts make hard to devise a global encompassing action plan2; doing so on a level that is
too macro might ignore social, environmental and economic aspects of populations at risk , which
sometimes are diverse in those same aspects themselves. Colombian society and agriculture
illustrate the deep difficulties that present a challenge for food security in dissimilar communities.
Colombia has a severe case of social inequality. According to a report issued by the World Bank in
2012 Colombia is the 7th most unequal country in the world3 yet it has been presenting steady
economic growth higher than the Latin American index for years. Given the ongoing armed
internal conflict some regions have been sidelined by the population and the governments
welfare and social watch programs which has resulted in low development and humanitarian
difficulties creating vulnerable populations which are target of the food crisis, crippling their food
producing capacities and their access to acquisition mediums4. At the same time this segregation
1

United Nations Development Programme, (2007). ASSESSMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTS

EVALUATION OF UNDP CONTRIBUTION COLOMBIA. United States of America: UNDP.
2
Kirsten Gelsdorf , (2010). GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND THEIR IMPACT ON INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN
ACTION . United States: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) .
3
Lars Christian Moller, (2012). BREAKING WITH HISTORY: WHY COLOMBIA NEEDS A MORE PROGRESSIVE
TAX SYSTEM. World Bank News.
4
Ministry of Social Protection, (2010). EVALUACIN DE LA SITUACIN DE SEGURIDAD ALIMENTARIA DE
POBLACIONES VULNERABLES EN COLOMBIA. Colombia: Government of Colombia. (SP)

has differentiated some population segments from the others with defined social and cultural
characteristics. Colombias population is also growing linearly5 following the global tendencies, and
the use of its soil for agriculture is shrinking with only 5.25 million of hectares used for agricultural
activities of 43.7 million available for them6, quality of life is improving in the developing zones
showing improvements in education and other social advancement indexes.
One might notice then similarities between the situation of Colombia and that of the world. In
fact, Colombian cultural, racial, economic, environmental and demographic variety might help to
map many factors that are relevant to the discussion of the necessary actions to be taken in the
fight for food security acting as a microcosm for observation and design of crucial operations to
face the impending challenges humanity will meet ahead.
Interacting with such challenging environment facilitates the observation of interactions between
elements of society and their relation to the food crisis lived by part of the Colombian people and
sheds some light on the causes of the predicament. When observing the life situation of those
affected one might ask himself how can I quantify the problems that lead to this with the
intention of devising solutions for their solving? but doing only that could result in the isolation of
relevant causes, forgetting the relation between them or simplifying it to an extent in which its
change wont have the desired effect on the solution of said problems; for example, in an analysis
of the low growth and quantity of agricultural production -as a possible cause of food shortage
in the future- one can see how it might be caused by insufficient or inappropriate soil use, slow
embrace of controlled sustainable techniques, poor planning and planting materials7, factors that
could be improved with the adequate actions, however focusing into the quantifiable indicators
might lead to ignore more of underlying problems lived by the people they affect; those might
include access to education, adequate infrastructure (or knowledge to build it), political and
cultural differences between those who might provide the resources and those who might need it,
fair compensation for agricultural activities, concerns about public and personal safety and other
many aspects that are different in each community. These are hard to quantify, control and
manipulate, some might not even be appropriate to be included in statistics and projections, but
are still part of the lives of the people that must be helped, and that group grows by the day.
Given the difficulty in observing all these social and environmental behaviors one by one due to
geographic and political barriers that might hinder efforts to do so, a country like Colombia which
faces many of the same problems of the global community but is be considered to be easily

Central Intelligence Agency, (2014). THE WORLD FACTBOOK. 1st ed. Washington DC, United States of
America: Government of the United States.
6
Ministry of Agriculture , (2010). UNA POLTICA DE INTEGRAL DE TIERRAS PARA COLOMBIA. 1st ed.
Bogot, Colombia: Government of Colombia. (SP)
7
Ibeawuchi et al, (2009). CONSTRAINTS OF RESOURCE POOR FARMERS AND CAUSES OF LOW CROP
PRODUCTIVITY IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT. Oweri, Nigeria: Department of Crop Science and
Technology Federal University of Technology.

observable and geographically accessible to research8 might represent an opportunity to deeply

help the understanding of the causes of food insecurity and also help the development of a global
plan that includes clear goals and guidelines in agricultural production, education and quality of
life, taking also into account the non quantifiable sub factors and their nature as cause or
consequence of a given situation. The thoroughness of this approach has the objective of directly
improving the life of people at risk for food insecurity as that risk is not considered to affect living
conditions in a one way relation but in a reciprocal one9 that might define the behavior of the
observable food security indexes in the future.
As a meeting of young minds focused on the future of the global food situation and the diverse
ways to analyze it and act on it from different disciplines with the intent of being agents of
humanitarian change through agriculture and development planning, The Global Youth AgSummit 2015 is then an invaluable nexus from which knowledge and personal experiences of the
participants could be used to help shed light on the different problems quantifiable and noneasily quantifiable- from different communities, and the presentation of Colombia as a case of
study on a reduced yet complex scale, could be analyzed from diverse perspectives of the value
chain and the social construct, and the results of that analysis could be taken in mind to find
solutions on a local, regional and global level.
It is for us, the young, to know our world and help the people behind the numbers, the people
behind the words, the beating hearts of those who walk our grounds now and those who dont
walk here yet. We must strive for them to find the footprints that lead them to a path so wide and
prosperous where everyone fits, a path that leads only forward.

Beintema, N., L. Romano, and P. Pardey. (1999). AGRICULTURAl R&D IN COLOMBIA. POLICY,
INVESTMENTS AND INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Washington DC. United States.
9
High Level Expert Forum - HOW TO FEED THE WORLD IN 2050, (2009). Global agriculture towards 2050.
1st ed. Rome, Italy: FAO.