Research
We commission and fund a wide range of action research to document the impacts of globalisation on food security and to compile evidence of successful sustainable agriculture methods and local food systems.
Our aim is to stimulate an informed debate among decision-makers and the public based on topical and authoritative evidence on food security issues from around the globe.
The UK Food Group and the Common Agricultural Policy
In
the UK the current crisis in farming and the protests of other EU farmers
have fuelled interest in how and where food is grown and processed. However
there is still little popular understanding of the effects of trade liberalisation
and the impact of the CAP, especially of its subsidy system on food security
in developing countries. Many UKFG members favour reform which involves
the gradual transformation of the CAP from a policy focused on supporting
agricultural markets to a policy focused on support to rural areas, and
given for explicit social, rural development and environmental goals.
The UK Food Group and Sustain commissioned the Institute for Environmental Policy (IEEP) to undertake research on the Common Agricultural Policy, with the aim of promoting informed discussion on reform. The results were publishing in two background briefing papers, the first examining how the CAP operates and its impacts; the second outlining possible reform scenarios for the CAP and their impact on key stakeholders. The research was notable for offering a cross-cutting sectoral analysis of an unusually broad range of stakeholders; as a result it was possible to highlight where areas of reform would be beneficial to all constituencies.
Southern action research
In collaboration with Southern partners, farmers, researchers and development agencies, the UKFG are working to raise awareness of efforts at local, national and international level to promote sustainable methods of agriculture which are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sound.
The UK Food Group has supported an ongoing programme of action research in 10 Asian countries carried out by the Philippines based Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform (ANGOC). Two hundred villages are being surveyed to identify simple, participatory food security indicators at household and community levels, with the aim of developing skills for using these indicators as the basis for community-level planning and action by local NGOs and communities. The data collection and analysis will also be fed into a wider review of food security, which will be used as the basis for linking local action and ANGOC's policy work with local and national governments and international agencies
Other action research projects supported by the UKFG include:
- a study of food security and agricultural policy in Thailand focusing on 10 rice-growing communities in four regions of the country;
- a capacity building project working with small farmers in Malawi and Mozambique to examine the effects of market liberalisation and identify strategies to improve food security;
- research on small-scale coffee producers in Haiti, which will be used to enable producers to improve coffee marketing opportunities;
- research into artisanal fisheries in India, to be used as the basis of an advocacy programme in support of fishworkers’ resource access rights;
- an assessment of the impacts of patents and plant breeders’ rights on traditional agricultural systems in Peru.