Approaching food security as a common good: 'Nourish to Flourish' in the Western Cape, South Africa

Professor
professor Julian D. May
Date
Tuesday 9 Oct 2018, 16:15 - 17:30
Type
Seminar
Spoken Language
English
Room
3.14
Location
International Institute of Social Studies
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prof. Julian May

Development Research Seminar by Professor Julian May, Director of the NRF-DST of Excellence in Food Security at the University of the Western Cape

Background

The analysis of food security has been accompanied by a profusion of theoretical concepts, borrowed from diverse disciplines, and then employed to describe its attributes and to identify policy responses.  Without agreement as to the nature of the problematic, conceptual confusion follows, along with solutions that are opportunistic rather than those that may have a lasting impact.

An analysis of the underlying political economy of food security reveals it to be a public good produced from a complex system in which problems are ill defined and the solutions uncertain. Moreover, while food security is a human right, and thus potentially a global public good, food itself is a commodity, mainly privately produced and acquired. 
Food security is thus argued to be common, complex and wicked. In such circumstances, policy makers may retreat to responses based upon their bounded rationalities and opt for interventions that are conspicuous, but sub-optimal in their use of resources, achieve little and carry significant negative externalities. However an approach informed by the social-ecological systems framework, and applied to similar collective action problems, improved the design, implementation and impact of policy in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

About the speaker

Julian May is the Director of the NRF-DST Centre of Excellence in Food Security at the University of the Western Cape. He has worked on options for poverty reduction including land reform, social grants, information technology and urban agriculture in Africa and in the Indian Ocean Islands.

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