Part I – A thought provoking field trip
Yesterday, I came back from a 3-day field visit to some of The Gambia’s most remote areas, the purpose of which was to study the role of food markets and the trade in cereals on the country’s overall food security prospects. The mission was organized jointly by WFP and the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-NET) and included interviews and key informant surveys with importers, wholesalers and many local retailers of rice and coarse grains in different markets throughout the country.
One of the objectives of the exercise was to ‘close’ the methodological gap in the understanding of the determinants to food (in)security by looking beyond the producers and consumers of cereals as actors solely determining food supply or food demand. Instead, the accent would be put on those actors ‘in-between’ who also bear influence on the availability, access and final price of staple foods – the traders (of cereals).
Overall, the exercise was very productive and informative and it definitely enhanced my understanding of this important aspect of the food security equation. However, the ‘food for thought’ I took with me home was actually based on some little related side-observations and provoked with me a rather different set of thoughts on how the food security status of the Gambian people might be improved in the future.
In the argumentation that will follow in a series of articles on The Gambia’s food security equation I will not be trying to reinvent the wheel again by covering areas maybe already covered in the past. However, I do think that based on a concrete example from field observations a close look at some obvious facts, economic principles and common sense would be pertinent to serve as a fresh reminder on how else we can also think about solving the food security problems in The Gambia, virtually by trying to think out of the (cereal) box.
As this is aimed to be an interactive series of articles, hopefully to be finished before Christmas, the first hint that I will leave to the millions of excited readers world wide is that it will be a story of the Gambian mango. Any idea why?
To be continued…