In recent months food scandals have hit the headlines across the globe with horsemeat being passed off as beef in Europe, rat dressed up as lamb in China and fish being sold as, well other kinds of fish. These may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Today’s high and volatile prices mean that concerns about food safety are on the rise too. More people are having to buy cheaper and poorer quality food to make ends meet. In Bangladesh for example people in rural and urban areas are growing their own vegetables because they’re worried that cheaper vegetables have been poisoned by pesticides.

Concerns about food safety are just one of the issues highlighted in new research published today by Oxfam and the Institute for Development Studies. The report, called ’Squeezed’, explores how five years of high and volatile food prices have affected 23 different urban and rural communities in ten countries across the globe. We’ll be updating the study by returning to these same communities over the next three years to see how they’re coping.

’Squeezed’ shows how high and volatile prices are not only changing what we eat but also how we work and relate to others. For instance, where men are struggling now to fulfill their traditional role as breadwinners for the family, we find there is often an increase in domestic violence and alcohol and drug abuse.

We also found that community life can begin to disintegrate in the face of higher food prices. People are being forced to put on hold expensive social events, such as weddings, in order to save money. Or else they’re having to leave home to find work in cities or abroad.

We see people leaving their farmlands too, to go into riskier but better paid occupations such as gold mining. And we find that more and more women are entering into the workforce and their grandparents or older daughters forced instead to step in to help with childcare.

This first report is a snapshot of a problem that reaches well beyond the dinner table. As our researchers follow the communities over the next three years we will build up a much better picture of what this new era of high and volatile prices means for people and for society. But there are answers to be had already, especially if policy makers start looking at the bigger picture.

Governments need to start tackling high and volatile food prices by better managing our food stocks and better regulating the global grain markets. Here in the US that will mean finally rethinking the corn-ethanol mandate which is failing to deliver on its promises and contributing to high and volatile prices. Over the long term it will also mean getting serious about climate change which is expected to lead to drastic spikes in food prices over the coming decades.

Ultimately, all governments and donors will need to start investing far more smartly in small holder agriculture and into social safety nets to help the poorest and most vulnerable.

Barry Shelley is Oxfam America’s global agriculture and climate change advisor. 

A recent story by Dan Charles on mysteries related to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) highlights some critical issues in current SRI debates. First, intensified labor demands can be an obstacle to initial SRI adoption in some locales. Second, since development work must be contextual, we must be cautious in broadly applying research findings from one context. Third, the analysis of agriculture innovation must extend beyond agronomic techniques and productivity measures to impacts on households and communities and the incentives or disincentives they generate.  Unfortunately, on this last point, Charles’ story did not discuss the fact that monetary incentives are not the sole reason why farmers adopt SRI. Non-monetary benefits also play a role.

Vietnamese farmer Hoang Thi Lien, 53 at her SRI (system of rice intensification) farm in Ha Tay province, Vietnam. Chau Doan/Oxfam America

After an impressive record of SRI adoption in Vietnam, Oxfam’s initiatives to support SRI in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley encountered varying challenges. One obstacle to adoption in Haiti has been the increased labor demands, similar to what the study by Takahashi and Barrett found in Indonesia.  In contrast, labor intensification did not pose a significant constraint in Vietnam, in part because it is minimized after farmers have become more efficient in SRI techniques. So, yes, increased labor demands can be a significant factor in SRI adoption and impact.  But how labor “acts” in these dynamics varies between locales. It will depend on many factors, including average parcel size, rural labor supply, alternative labor opportunities, and the point of comparison—i.e. the labor demands of the traditional growing practices under local conditions.  Every experience of SRI is not the same.

However, Takahashi and Barrett’s research (pdf) is very important, welcomed, and highly relevant.  They are correct that there has been little solid evidence on how SRI adoption affects household income and household welfare more broadly. In an effort to address this gap, Oxfam recently initiated a rigorous SRI impact evaluation study in Haiti in collaboration with researchers Michael Carter and Travis Lybbert of the University of California at Davis. They were selected, in part, because they had not been immersed previously in the SRI debate and could offer a measure of independence.

In the village of Quatorzieme, Oxfam is helping a small group of women experiment with innovative practices of growing rice known as System of Rice Intensification or SRI. Brett Eloff/Oxfam America

Unfortunately, Charles’ article leads toward a more simplistic conclusion than is warranted.  The story focuses on reported dis-adoption rates and on Takahashi and Barrett’s demonstration that SRI adoption does not lead to any significant increase in household income in their study area. However, in their research these authors go on to ask:  “If there is no observable economic gain, why have farmers shifted from the conventional rice cultivation practices to SRI in the first place and only 18 percent of those who had experimented with SRI had disadopted [sic] by the time of our survey?”  (page 32)  They suggest that additional incentives for SRI adoption include preferring on-farm over off-farm work, not needing to travel for employment, being closer to home for child care, cultural values of keeping women closer to home, and/or more leisure time. In other words, there must be net household welfare gains—gains significant enough to persuade farmers to adopt SRI for the long-term—even if there is no income increase. But their data does not allow further analysis of those non-monetary benefits. The picture is more complex and promising than the story implies.

Strong evidence supports claims that SRI offers multiple monetary and non-monetary benefits both to adopting farmers and to society at large: increased yields and land productivity that offer smallholder farmers the possible welfare gains suggested above, that stabilize rural communities and that provide increased food production; decreased green-house gas emissions; water savings; and decreased chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. So, while we do need to understand SRI adoption incentives and household impacts, we also hear an additional set of questions: How can we better mobilize knowledge and resources to create the conditions required for increased adoption of SRI and other agro-ecological methods? Why is there not more private and public investment in SRI? What policies and strategies do we need to advocate for SRI? How do we recognize the social benefits of SRI and generate incentives accordingly? How do we help farmers get past the initial increase in labor demands, instead of letting that be a game stopper?

SRI is too promising to leave its future to the whims of an ideological and narrow debate. Years ago my mentor Thomas McCollough, a social ethicist, taught me the importance of asking the right questions.  Let’s ask those right questions—all of them.

By Keith Slack, Global Program Manager, Extractive Industries. This post originally appeared on the blog of the US Institute of Peace’s International Network for Economics and Conflict.

“Si a la vida, no a la mina” (Yes to life, no to the mine) is a rallying cry heard across many parts of rural Latin America these days. Mining, as well as oil and gas extraction, has exploded across the region in the last decade, driven by high prices for gold and industrial metals like copper that are needed primarily to feed the Chinese economy. This boom has also been experienced in Africa and Asia, where governments have sought to exploit their resource endowments to drive development. Fragile states like Sudan, Burma and Afghanistan have also begun to develop their mining sectors. The expanding mining sector has contributed to strong economic growth in some countries but has also generated social conflicts in rural areas that must be urgently addressed.

Area near Tintaya Copper Mine (Espinar), Cusco, Peru. Photo: Chris Hufstader / Oxfam America

The heart of the issue is that mining activity has come into direct competition with another predominant means of economic development in rural areas: small-scale agriculture. Tensions over control of land and, most importantly, water have led to community protests and violent conflict. Reconciling these two important development drivers has become a critical governance issue, particularly in the most fragile states where the conflicts between the two can often be seen most starkly.

In theory, both mining and agriculture can provide pathways out of poverty. The World Bank and development-focused academic researchers have emphasized the critical role of agriculture in promoting rural development. (Three-quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas.) Agriculture provides direct benefits to those who engage in it. Farmers receive payments for crops they produce, which they can then use to invest in future production and to pay for their families’ basic needs. Mining can also play a role in promoting development, although more indirectly, by generating revenues for governments. Governments can use taxes and royalties paid by mining companies for infrastructure investments and other productive purposes. Mining companies also pay for community development programs, build schools and roads, and make other investments.

Unfortunately, the compatibility of these two development paths, which tend to take place in the same rural areas, is at best questionable. Mining generates significant “externalities,” e.g. water pollution, that can have a direct impact on agricultural production. These negative impacts can be permanent and render previously fertile agricultural land unusable. Mining also requires large amounts of land that could otherwise be used for agricultural production. This sets up a direct competition with small-scale agriculture for control and use of land. In some countries such as Ghana, farmers displaced by mining projects turn to small-scale mining as a replacement livelihood. This can perpetuate a cycle of poverty and conflict in which these farmers-turned-miners are forcibly evicted and beaten by police for coming onto land claimed by large-scale mining projects.

Mining companies argue that mining and agriculture are not necessarily incompatible. But there are few examples of where this has been the case, particularly in developing countries, where oversight of the mining industry is often very weak. Finding ways to reconcile these two economic activities is urgently needed to reduce conflicts and ensure that mining’s benefits contribute to long-term sustainable development in rural economies.

Communities relocated to make way for gold mines in Ghana struggle with loss of agricultural land, unemployment, and environmental damage. Photo: Neil Brander / Oxfam America

Governments and companies should take specific steps now to address this situation. First, the environmental impact assessment process for mining projects needs to be significantly strengthened and made more independent. At present, governments rely on information provided by companies, which is most often not reviewed by an independent third-party. Companies thus have an incentive to downplay potential impacts of their operations on land and water in agricultural areas. In countries such as Peru, local agricultural communities’ lack of confidence in these environmental reviews contributes to anxieties about the impacts of mining, which in turn contributes to conflict. Additionally, mining is increasingly done in “clusters,” meaning several mines operate in the same geographic area in order to take advantage of shared infrastructure and processing facilities. The cumulative impacts on land and water of several mines operating in the same area have not been thoroughly examined. The use of what are known as “strategic” environmental impact assessments, which take into account these cumulative impacts, would be an important step to increasing communities’ confidence.

Improved planning on how land will be used is another crucial step that governments should take. Mining concessions are often awarded without consideration for impacts on agricultural production. Later this year Oxfam America will publish research that shows graphically how mining and oil concessions have expanded dramatically in recent years in agriculturally productive areas of Peru and Ghana. Zoning land for particular uses, e.g. mining or agriculture, would help reduce conflict by establishing clear rules for how land will be used. Greater dialogue between the mining and agricultural sectors would be helpful. In Peru recently, the mining and agriculture ministries have signed a cooperation agreement. This is potentially a positive, although overdue, step.

Reconciling mining with agriculture in developing countries, particularly in the most fragile states, won’t be easy. It may ultimately require the admission that the two simply are incompatible over the long-term in particular areas. What is clear is that these discussions are urgently needed now so that conflict and violence produced by the juxtaposition of these two sectors diminishes and that countries can benefit from both their above-and below-the-ground resources.

The President’s State of the Union address last night contained a lesser announcement of the launching of a US-EU free trade agreement:

“And tonight, I am announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union – because trade that is free and fair across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.”

This idea has been floating for some months, pushed more from the European side than the US. The US and EU are already massive trading partners with mostly low tariffs and few serious trade disputes.  Nonetheless, making a trade marriage of it has hurdles.  The crux of the US-EU deal will be regulatory and ‘behind the border’ issues.  For example, both the US and EU have extensive farm subsidies and have been critical of one another.  Europeans have some regulatory measures that US exporters see as problematic. (Think GMOs.)

The question is—do developing countries have a stake in this?

The answer is—they could.

What if both sides committed to embracing the pro-development trade policies of the other to harmonize and improve the trade opportunities for poor countries?  The US has a handful of “trade preference” programs that offer special access to developing countries, like the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), the African Grown and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and regional programs for the Caribbean and Andean countries.  The Europeans have the “Everything But Arms” initiative that offers free export access to least developed countries.

Each side has some pros, and also some cons.  Very broadly, the European program is broader (more products included) and more generous (zero tariffs) than anything the US offers.  But the US programs,  especially AGOA, offer more favorable “rules of origin,” which help poor countries export more complex products like garments, rather than being stuck exporting low-value commodities and products.

Neither the US, nor the EU provide full “duty-free, quota-free” access for all least developed countries (LDCs), which has been a key goal for development advocates in the long-stalled Doha Round trade negotiations.  In fact, LDCs have not seen any of the promised outcomes from the so-called “development round” of the World Trade Organization.  Their request to extend the soon-to-expire exemption to implement intellectual property rules for LDCs has failed to gain support from the US in particular.

If the US and EU want to demonstrate global leadership and do something very positive for the world, they could start by using the trade agreement negotiations to start a “race to the top” in creating economic opportunities for poor countries.

Imagine this:  in a few months, the heads of most of the biggest and most important countries will get together for a couple of days.  A few leaders from developing countries will tag along.  The media will cover the event in detail because…well, because why not?  And for a few hours, a lot of the world’s power and attention will be focused in a single place.

What if I told you that the agenda for the meeting isn’t set, and that the outcomes of the meeting have not yet been decided?  Do you think you might have some ideas?

This is the G8 summit, a traveling carnival that reappears every year.  Leaders of some of the most powerful countries gather to discuss weighty topics.  Sometimes they make big promises.  Sometimes they don’t.

For anti-poverty campaigners, this combination of factors is absolutely irresistible.  Or it might be better to say that ignoring such an opportunity would be absolutely irresponsible.  If you believe in making a difference, advancing a cause, having an impact, changing policies and the world, you really must try to take advantage of the G8 summit—and it’s supporting processes and negotiations—for your mission.

Despite some significant and measurable achievements, the G8 and campaigners at the summit have come under some criticism in recent years.  The argument is that while it’s an enormous public relations event, it has a declining value as a negotiating venue and achievements are only symbolic.  Some argue that a better target is the G20.  Others argue that these summits are all losing (or have long lost) their significance.

But if the G8 and the G20 didn’t exist, would anti-poverty campaigners have to invent them?  There’s just no bigger and better way to get these global issues onto a world stage and put pressure on critical leaders to make commitments and then follow them up.  Done.

On Wednesday a coalition of UK groups, including Oxfam, launched the “Enough food for everyone IF” campaign.  The goal is to push Prime Minister David Cameron “relentlessly and every which way” to take action on hunger with the G8.  The campaign has a platform that includes promoting more foreign assistance, clamping down on tax dodging by big companies, stopping land-grabs, and increasing transparency.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi38ZtG4NhM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

I like this effort.  It’s positive without being pandering.  There are some real asks that aren’t easy, but aren’t completely unreasonable.  It has focus, but there’s enough room for a broad coalition.  (For additional commentary about the campaign, see these posts from Duncan Green of Oxfam UK, David Harewood of Cafod, David McNair of Save the Children UK, Lawrence Haddad of IDS, and Leni Wild of ODI and Sarah Mulley of IPPR.)

What many seem to miss is that if the campaign and this year’s G8 will be a success, the US will have to step up and take a lead.  The issue of food security and agriculture has actually been championed more by the US than other G8 members in the past.  President Obama managed a modest coup by pulling a significant agriculture and food security initiative out of the otherwise embarrassingly disorganized G8 in 2009, hosted by Silvio Berlusconi.

But what can President Obama deliver this time round?  For now, the newly re-inaugurated President is putting together his team.  Senator Kerry at State Department and Jack Lew at Treasury will both have a hand in the G8 discussions, assuming they are confirmed by the Senate.  President Obama’s key staffer on the G8, National Security Council aide Michael Froman, is strongly rumored to be moving into a new job as the US Trade Representative.  So there’s a lot of uncertainty and movement.

Let’s hope President Obama gets his team in place and his game-plan organized, so we can make something big out of this year’s G8.

A little over three months ago, I sat attentively listening to the give and take between Nigerian Female Food Hero, Susan Godwin, and Chicago Council on World Affairs Senior Fellow, Roger Thurow. Thurow was moderating a panel at the World Food Prize Symposium called A Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World Sustainably? Also part of the discussion were Sir Gordon Conway, scholar and author; plant breeding and genetics pioneer, Gebisa Ejeta, and Jane Karuku, President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Roger Thurow and Susan Godwin at the World Food Prize Dialogue. Photo: Jacob Silberman.

Now, an online dialogue, The Future of Agriculture, is considering much the same question about addressing hunger in the face of many challenges ahead. This discussion also includes my acquaintances, Susan Godwin and Roger Thurow. Mrs. Godwin writes eloquently on the challenge of passing the legacy of farming on to the next generation in  My Daughter Wants to Be a Farmer. Thurow again plays the role of summarizing and connecting the dots at the end of week one of the conversation.

In the first week, writers like Bill McKibben, writer and founder of 350.org, and Jose Graziano del Silva, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), argued that moving away from an agriculture dependent on fossil fuels could not only benefit the planet but set the stage for a more resilient and productive agriculture.

Joining McKibben and del Silva were thought leaders with very diverse points of view and from different parts of the world. All considered what future farming might look like if we better considered the role of women, risk, farmer-based knowledge, and less reliance on fossil fuel.

The discussion continues through this week with a new set of essays posted each day. So far the discussion has been lively. But to help build our understanding we need broad participation and dialogue. So please take some minutes each day to visit http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/future-of-agriculture. The essays are short; the implications for our future tasks are great.

After reading both Roger Thurow’s and Susan Godwin’s online contributions, I thought back to that hall in Iowa with over 800 people attending. Mrs. Godwin told how her community and other had asked her what she might offer to all the highly educated and important people that she might address in the US. She said that most important she would tell them how her work had improved the lives of her family and the other women in her community. And after a pause, during which the audience grew even more quiet, she declared, “I will tell them that I am a farmer!”

That day, that large crowd filled with educators, scientists, political leaders, and activists rose to their feet. They acknowledged that the hope for a well-fed future depends on the efforts of all stakeholders, and ideas from all sectors.

The Future of Agriculture discussion is no different. Join the conversation today.

A few months ago, I was talking to my colleague Kimberly, about how difficult it is to talk about the future of agriculture in public without things spinning out of control. Most people don’t much care. But those who do, REALLY CARE. It doesn’t take long in any conversation, for example, before someone in the conversation begins accusing someone else of being part of a corporate conspiracy, or someone accuses a whole community of being “peasant romanticists”. The energy and anger of the interchanges sometimes seems out of proportion and quite unconstructive.

Oxfam has been engaged in agriculture policy and programming since our early beginnings—so we brush against these partisans all the time. Indeed, there are many partisans among us. Often, our favored course is to keep our heads low and avoid the rough and tumble.

But, that’s not really possible in the current era. With the launch of our GROW Campaign, we have put the issues of food, hunger, and sustainable, inclusive agriculture at the center of Oxfam’s public engagement and the heart of our policy agenda. So, how do we broach these subjects without instigating mortal combat and without making Oxfam a target of every possible interest and ideology?

Well, the best idea we came up with was to host a conversation and hope that good ideas and some elements of a consensus emerge. So that’s what we’re doing.

Starting Monday, we’re hosting a ten-day Future of Agriculture online discussion and debate. We’ve invited experts and leaders in the field to contribute provocative essays, and we’ll invite everyone else to weigh in. That means you.

Set your browsers and ready your keyboards. And jump right in!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6twOVM40QY[/youtube]

As I see it, the banker was saying that one system was more resilient, even though in terms of the economies of scale, the consolidated model might have had some advantages. But in the interest of social and economic stability, having more people and farms provided a better hedge against collapse.

With an expanding global population, communities and nations must face the question of which model suits their needs as erratic weather, volatile markets, finite arable land and fresh water tightens the vice on the global food system.  Now that extreme heat and drought are sweeping across my own farm and across more than 1,000 counties in 26 states, I’ve considered some of the things that my neighbors do to buffer the impacts of both environmental and economic shocks.

First, two miles to the south, Roman and Ruth Miller used to only grow wheat, row crops, and cattle. About 15 years ago, they took about a quarter of an acre out of conventional crop production, and started a modest market garden. Since that time, the vegetable production has expanded; they built several hoop houses to extend the growing season; and with the assistance of their children, the Millers became more and more adept at marketing. Roman still has wheat and cattle, but he has created a side enterprise that has allowed him to become more profitable and economically secure without having to buy more land or invest in more expensive machinery. (The role of entrepreneurship and farm diversification is covered well in work by Cornelia and Jan Flora , and Karl Stauber)

Roman Miller (left) with customer at farmers’ market. Credit: Jim French

Next, I think about my friend, Gene Albers, who farms about 30 miles from my operation. Gene incorporates cover crops into his diversified crop and livestock operation.  He believes that conserving soil is not enough. A farmer should improve the soil through building up organic matter and biological activity. By planting mixes that might contain seeds of turnips, Japanese radishes, black oats, barley, pearl millet, and Austrian peas, Gene can create ground covers that shade the soil, penetrate compacted soil, and capture nitrogen. By grazing livestock on crop residues and cover crops, Gene has been able to capture more value while effectively recycling nutrients.

Grain sorghum growing in cover crop residue on author’s farm. Credit: Jim French

Finally, I think about my brother-in-law, Jamie Funke. Jamie married the daughter of a farmer who taught vocational agriculture at the local high school. Jamie also has a career in education working at the area community college. He farms 320 acres of wheat, soybeans, and grain sorghum in his spare time. Like the majority of his neighbors and the  majority of American farmers, having an off-farm job allows Jamie to remain a productive farmer with access to affordable insurance, and a steady source of cash flow.

Three farms. Three strategies for stability, resilience, and success. The Millers have concentrated on agricultural enterprise diversification and entrepreneurship;  Albers focuses on building the health and productivity of the soil; Funke has found that off-farm employment can better ensure his continued engaging in farming.

Right now, we are all in our second year of severe drought – a situation similar to the one plaguing rural people in the Sahel, and regions in the  Horn of Africa. The ramifications of the drought are different – people in Africa face food emergencies and possible famine.  However,  my neighborhood examples provide some element of what investing in resilience might look like regardless of location.

Facing the challenges of increased flooding, longer lasting droughts, and volatile markets may mean that the monoculture, mega-farm will not be the best target for emerging agriculture in the developing world.  What may be the more stable, and resilient models could depend more upon investing  in smaller operations that enable entrepreneurship, off-farm income generation, and agro-ecological strategies, which build soil and conserve water.

Editor’s note: Curtis Weller responded to the questions raised in Gawain’s blog post here. Curtis’s response also appears in the comment section below. 

I took an hour to listen to a presentation on cereals and nutrition by Curtis Weller, a professor at the University of Nebraska, working as a science fellow at USAID. The lecture is part of an excellent series hosted by Agrilinks, a website and information resource for agriculture and food security hosted by USAID. I recommend noodling around on their website—there’s a ton of interesting stuff there.

I was especially taken with this slide from Professor Weller’s powerpoint:

see: http://www.agrilinks.kdid.org/sites/agrilinks/files/resource/files/June%2027%20%20ASC_in-person.pdf?file=http://www.agrilinks.kdid.org/sites/agrilinks/files/resource/files/June%2027%20%20ASC_in-person.pdf&nid=1048

 The slide shows that the “big three” global cereals—corn, wheat and rice—rate lower on nutrition compared to alternatives like millet, fonio, or even barley. [Note that other crops, like quinoa and buckwheat aren’t included because they aren’t technically cereals.]

If nutrition were our only goal, we’d likely select grains from the right side of the table. But, for whatever reason, global production of the big three is orders of magnitude bigger than the others. And global production of the big three has grown consistently over decades, while production of the other cereals has stagnated.

One reason global production and trade of the big three is so much bigger is that the overwhelming majority of investment has been towards these crops; research on new varieties, pest control, productivity improvements, market development, commercial, industrial, and food applications, etc. etc. etc. The neglect of other cereals and staples has inspired some to call them “orphan crops” although that term has fallen out of favor.

Many of these “minor crops” play major roles in local and regional markets and for consumers in specific regions. So, this kind of information raises questions for policy-makers and development programmers about whether to focus efforts away from the big three and toward other crops.  But it’s complex stuff – because the nutritional value of the cereal has to be balanced against other factors. And many questions, like whether it’s even possible to increase production of alternatives; does the technology even exist? Are there disadvantages to shifting production; do the minor cereals create increased require higher labor burdens or more difficult processing and storage? Is there a market for increased production? Etc.

Still answering these are questions is increasingly important as the world faces continued high food prices, continued high levels of malnourishment, and increased interest in agriculture from development donors and the investors alike.

If I have one criticism of Professor Weller’s presentation, it’s that he launched us into these questions, but didn’t offer much insight into how he would answer them. A few questions:

1. It would be useful to know whether it’s actually true that people who eat these alternative grains have better nutrition and better health. That’s implied, but before taking any action, we should know that increasing production and consumption of these grains will actually deliver benefits.

2. It’s easy to see that teff and fonio could be neglected by researchers and traders even if they are superior to other grains, given they are grown in poor countries with limited consumer base. But, not so for barley, rye, and oats. So why have these grains been comparative “losers” despite having nutritional advantages? Is there something intrinsic to them that makes them less competitive or attractive?

3. It doesn’t seem reasonable to do this kind of analysis for nutrition or for agriculture potential—without including other kinds of starchy staples, like quinoa, potatoes and cassava.

4. Large portions of some of these cereals—especially maize and sorghum—are used for animal agriculture globally rather than human consumption. If we’re thinking about investing in these, does that change how we should think about them?

Credit: Noah Gottschalk

As South Sudan celebrates the first anniversary of its separation from Sudan, the world’s newest nation faces multiple challenges including simmering tensions along the border, the influx of an estimated 165,500 refugees from ongoing conflict in Sudan, inter-communal conflicts, and an economy crippled by the closure of the border and shutdown of oil production. Perhaps most alarming, however, is the escalating food crisis threatening nearly half of the country’s 9.7 million inhabitants according to recent UN estimates. As the government, UN, and NGOs struggle to respond, the country is anticipating the arrival of hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese who are among the last remaining in Sudan and now face an uncertain future back ‘home’. These returnees are triply vulnerable. The already difficult return and reintegration process ahead of them is exacerbated by the economic crisis in South Sudan, while the multiple and overlapping challenges facing the fledgling state means that returnees’ needs are being overshadowed by broader crises. Instead of a joyful homecoming, they face a future of uncertainty as the country marks the anniversary of its political independence with only the certainty that it will remain dependent on foreign assistance for the foreseeable future.

I recently traveled to South Sudan, where I had a chance to speak with some of the newly arriving returnees. They told me about their journey and about their friends and relatives still on the way. In Wau, I spoke to returnees unloading their possessions from a train that had just arrived from Sudan. They described the economic and political pressures to leave Sudan, including the loss of Sudanese citizenship, and the difficult, 18-day train journey ‘home’. A tall Dinka woman wearing a brightly-colored Sudanese tobe and a black ski cap eloquently described her journey from a South Sudanese area of Khartoum all the way to Wau. She had never been to South Sudan and spoke Dinka with noticeable difficulty. Like many others I spoke with, she had little idea of what she would do in South Sudan. Her husband had returned many months earlier, but she had no means of finding him after her mobile phone, which contained his contact details, was stolen. A short while later, a shy 17 year old boy told me how he had come to South Sudan alone, and had no idea where to go and no way of finding friends or relatives. He was coming to the station whenever a new train of returnees arrived in the hopes of running into someone he knew who might be able to help him.

Such stories of people trying to establish a new life in an unfamiliar and challenging new environment were common throughout the years between the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 and the referendum on the future of South Sudan in 2011. In that six year period, the return of Southern Sudanese was a political imperative for the Government of Southern Sudan and hundreds of thousands returned from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Republic of Sudan, Egypt, and further afield with significant attention and financial support from the government and the international community. Events since then, however, have created an environment where the needs of returnees have been overshadowed. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of South Sudanese continue to return. Once their journey is over, they join nearly a million recent returnees struggling to find their feet in a land that is technically at peace but still very much in crisis.

Despite South Sudan’s huge potential and abundant natural resources, half a century of marginalization and conflict has left the country severely impoverished, with extremely low literacy rates, high levels of displacement, and woefully inadequate infrastructure and public services. Although the seven years since the signing of the CPA enabled greater efforts to address these fundamental issues, investment has fallen short of needs. In the year since South Sudan gained its independence, however, the country risks backsliding  in the face of an economic outlook and austerity measures that slashed budgets for almost all social services. At the same time, politicized tribal conflict, ongoing militia activity, and conflict along the border with Sudan threaten the physical safety of civilians across South Sudan. For returnees, this means returning to a volatile and potentially dangerous independent homeland with only minimal support.

Reintegration and absorption capacity within South Sudan is already extremely limited. The disproportionate focus on the physical return of displaced southerners over their reintegration which characterized the CPA period continues today, and as a result many thousands of returnees are still awaiting assistance and access to land.

Those reintegration efforts that do exist tend to be heavily focused on return to rural areas, with far too little attention on either the link between rural livelihoods and constraints on access to land, or on return to urban areas. Returnees who do not want to settle in rural areas—either because they are uncomfortable with a rural lifestyle, lack connections to those ‘areas of origin’, or because those areas lack basic services—regularly face difficulty in acquiring land in towns. This is for multiple reasons, including government policies which seek to avoid overcrowding of towns, particularly state capitals. The scarcity of job opportunities in urban areas and insufficient programming to target returnees seeking to live in towns, particularly in places like Kuajok and Aweil, have the potential to leave large numbers of recent returnees without any means of sustainably supporting themselves and their families. The Government of South Sudan has a policy that commits it to providing basic services and assistance to returnees. But its ability to deliver is now in question under the austerity budget. Therefore, the government must urgently revisit and outline its reintegration plan, with both humanitarian and development actors involved, to assess the ability to support new arrivals and provide resolution to outstanding issues, such as land distribution, for those returnees already in South Sudan.

More broadly, the oil shutdown in South Sudan brings into critical focus the need for South Sudan to diversify its economy, and particularly to  develop its full agricultural potential for the benefit of all South Sudanese, including returnees. Ultimately, South Sudan must escape cyclical food insecurity and dependence on emergency food aid. It needs to support vibrant markets and a diverse economy, while building a social safety net. For this to become a reality, the international community must continue to pursue all channels to support negotiated solutions to the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan and the resolution of the outstanding CPA issues. Without real peace, there can be no full humanitarian access, durable solutions for Sudanese refugees, or the sustainable development solutions necessary to build a resilient and self-sufficient South Sudan.

Read more about what Oxfam is doing in Sudan and South Sudan.