Conclusions CONCLUSIONS AND POSSIBLE POLICY PATHWAYS

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9. CONCLUSIONS AND POSSIBLE POLICY PATHWAYS

9.1. Conclusions

Based on extensive literature review, this report attempted to analyze the state of food security in the Amazon basin focusing on Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and to understand the main threats to one or more of the indicators of food security; i..e, access, distribution, utilization, through changes in land use for agricultural and industrial activities and climate change. Despite the general lack of uniform, up-to-date, disaggregated data Department or State and household level, this research highlights several interesting findings that will be briefly discussed below. Firstly, the findings reconfirm that food security is not only a factor of food production in the region, since most of the countries are important net exporters of food. Moreover, agricultural production is also focused on crops and non-crop food important for food security, such as maize, plantain these crops are predominant in all of the five countries and fish mainly in Peru. Instead, it is access, distribution and utilization of food that play a key role in attaining food security in the region. These aspects highly depend on land tenure and land use systems, on laws and policies that favor food security of the population, inter alia on the market system, internal and global demand, population dynamics, consumption patterns or climate conditions. For instance, a closer look at Colombia revealed that consumption patterns highly influence the food intake and diets of the population. Many households in the Colombian Amazon turned out to spend more than 80 of their income on food that is not produced locally and that market integration for this population is demand- rather than supply-oriented Ruiz et al,, 2007. This report mainly focused on changes in land use and climate change and variability, as conditions that may facilitate or not the attainment of food security in the basin. Secondly, the report shows that changes in land use e.g agricultural expansion and intensification may not necessarily threaten food security and environmental sustainability but may be regarded as opportunities to increase nutrition and human health, provided that certain conditions are met. It is important that these processes do not require further clearings of forests but instead involve replacements of pastures or abandoned land or mixed agro-silvo-pastoral systems. Likewise, it is important that human food is prioritized over animal feed or crops for 58 biofuels like in the case of soybean, oil palm and sugarcane cultivation and that the latter do not impact on traditional lifestyle and diets. Furthermore, the promotion of smallholder agriculture is also an important aspect for sustainable agricultural expansion and intensification, since smallholders in rural areas are usually the most vulnerable to abrupt changes social, economic, political and environmental. Depending on the final end of the agricultural system and the means to encourage agricultural activities, land use change for agriculture will have different social, economic and environmental impacts. Overall, the factors that affect positively or negatively the achievement of food security in the region reveal important trade-offs between development goals, e.g. between poverty and hunger alleviation, or economic development and environmental sustainability. For instance, cattle ranching – while important for meeting national and international demands for beef and bringing important revenues to the local and national economy– has important negative effects on the environment deforestation, soil erosion or water contamination, among others and can also jeopardize food security if cropland is converted to pastures and if international, industrial food demand is prioritized over national and household- level demand. This reconfirms the need of cross-sectoral, regional cooperation in order to minimize the likelihood of having to choose between these goals. Climate change and variability can multiply threats to food security. Extensive research points out that a future drier eastern Amazon and a wetter western Amazon will affect crop production. Extreme events will also be likely to occur more often and affect local and national economies, which indicate that adaptation and risk-management strategies need to be prioritized. Last, but not least, a closer look at the demographics of the Amazon basin and the food security hotspots indicates that special attention should be given to the numerous indigenous communities, since they highly depend on food products that originate in the region and that also present the highest levels of vulnerability to changes in the social, economic, political, environmental and climatic system. However, given the big proportion of urban population compare to rural inhabitants, attention should also be directed towards the urban poor and their opportunities, living and consumption patterns. Future research should further explore the extent to which changes in climate may create increase the climate suitability of certain crops in certain regions, linking it 59 to consequences on environmental and social conditions. Likewise, research should also explore how the political and policy environment at local, national, regional and global level can affect the attainment of food security in the region, an aspect that this study did not tackle into depth, but it will be worthwhile analyzing.

9.2. Possible policy pathways