Food Security

Last week we had our Mid Service Conference in Pagala.  This was my favorite PC ‘training’ by far; less random surface technical sessions and more realistic things like learning how to incorporate monitoring and evaluation into our work and details about starting a funded project. One of the coolest things I took away from these few but packed days was a session on Food Security, which I thought might be good to share.

The idea of being food secure is not new, but recently it has become a big part of West African PC work.  Being food secure not only means not having enough food but having access to healthy and safe food, year round.  This means not having the income to buy vegetables (if you don’t grow them already) and therefore there is a lack in your diet is being food insecure.  This means even if you have balanced meals but they are prepared in a way that is making your family sick, you are food insecure.  This means if you don’t have potable water to drink you are food insecure. There is definitely a ‘hungry season’ here in Togo and while I didn’t see much of it firsthand as my host family is pretty well off, I did notice the lack of variety in my neighbors and village friends’ sauces.  Additionally, we haven’t had fufu (pounded yams) in months because the yams have run out.  This means my family has eaten pate (mashed corn meal) for the majority of their meals for the past few months with the only change coming in which sauce they prepare.

The PCV Food Security Committee did a great activity at the conference to demonstrate who is food secure in our villages.  We formed a line and a large rock placed about five feet in front of us represented being food secure.  We were given personal scenarios and then the leader read things like: “if you have a university degree take one step forward (towards being food secure),” and “if you have more than four children take one step back (away from being food secure).”   There were about a dozen different scenarios ranging from a man with a degree, wife, and three kids to single mother with a good job but eight children. Others included a teenage girl who just found out she’s pregnant, an employed father with a farm and a wife but with three chronically ill children. Less obvious situations were 14-year-old boy in an average family or the youngest girl in a similar family.  These are important to realize however, as men and boys are served first with the largest portions, with the women and girls (who most likely have prepared the meal) are served smaller portions of what is left.  In other words,  young men, especially those with university degrees were the closest to food security at the end of the activity, while the young girls, single mothers or households with lots of kids found themselves behind.

 

One thing I found so interesting was that I could identify or think of someone or a situation in Lama-Tessi that applied to each of the activity situations. While it was cool to realize how much I understand this place (compared to a year ago), it was extremely disheartening to really stop and realize how the majority of my village is probably food insecure. 

What’s more, I learned about the severe and long term affects of being food insecure.  When a young child lacks adequate nutrition, its body goes into survival mode, improperly storing any food it receives.  In turn, if this child survives and consumes a high carbohydrate diet (most likely in developing countries), the body will continue to improperly store those calories and the person will likely become obese.  Granted, that’s not a scientific explanation, but you get the idea of the severity of this paradox.

I also realized how it impacts the four sectors of PC work here in Togo.  Health and agriculture are the obvious ones but the gender equality and small business development can also play big roles. 

So, what can/are we doing about it? Well, PC Togo is part of the West African Food Security Program in which PCV’s can apply for small funding opportunities to apply techniques in their villages.  Techniques like training farmers how to raise more and better crops by adding different trees that promote nitrogen in the soil.  Or teaching mothers and kids how to dry fruit so that after mango season (when there are so many mangos, kids literally eat at least 10 a day) they will continue to have those vitamins and food variety.  Promoting personal, family gardens so that when the prices of staple tomatoes and onions increases in dry season, you can sustain yourself.  Discussing with groups how to make their drinking water safe and why it’s so important. 

Important things to remember when working in impoverished countries concerning food. First, we can't just bring in food and think this is fixing the problem.  This is making a crutch for the community; sustaining them for a while but not forever. We must take small steps to lay the groundwork, the infrastructure to help them move towards food security.  To that end, we must remember its not just about sacks of flour or grain; food variety and the nutritional value of food is just as important. Lastly we must think culturally. For example, a friend of mine said people in her village won't feed their kids eggs because it will turn their kids into thieves. That is, the kids will like the taste of eggs, and therefore start stealing other peoples eggs (because people don't keep their chickens penned up).  Finally, the culture here says men deserve and need more food; thus women, girls and children get less. 

Lots.of.things. 

 AKA- overwhelming for this PCV.  For now, I’m starting small with my host family.  Encouraging protein consumption and drinking clean water.  I figure, if I can teach/guide/encourage my host mom to think about her meals then slowly, maybe other mothers in our neighborhood will follow. Little by little.