Chapter 3 - International organizations and the evolution of food security public policy référentiel in Latin America and the Caribbean
p. 95-114
Texte intégral
Introduction
1Over the last two decades, Latin America and the Caribbean have become global benchmarks in the formulation and implementation of food and nutrition security (FNS) public policies, which has led to the region being recognized for meeting the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 – to reduce hunger by 50% by 2015 (FAO, 2015). The region was a pioneer in creating the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Plan for Food and Nutrition Security and the Eradication of Hunger 2025, with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA).
2In the middle of the last century, with the creation of international agencies and organizations in the period after World War II, the region began to receive development and assistance aid across different political spheres, such as food. In addition to institutional aspects, we have seen the emergence of a political and cultural environment in which public policies can be transferred. In view of this influence of international models in Latin America and the Caribbean, we analyzed the literature on the transfer and dissemination of public policies as a way of understanding the relevance of multilateral organizations in the process of formulating and implementing FNS public policies in the region.
3The impact of communication, globalization and information flows has allowed policymakers to gain a broader view of political systems that differ to those existing in their countries, in their quest for knowledge and ideas about institutions, programs and policies. Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) state that public policy transfer can be understood as a process by which knowledge of public policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in a given political environment (past or present) is used to develop policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political environment. The objects of transfer can be public policies, institutions, tools (regulatory, administrative or judicial), ideologies, justifications, attitudes and ideas, or even “negative” lessons that point out what should not be done (Stone, 2012; Dolowitz, 1997).
4Various social actors are involved in public policy transfer processes, such as government officials, academia and even the private sector. In this chapter, however, we will focus particulary on international organizations, which act autonomously, creating policy networks and focusing their activities on disseminating and transferring the “best practices” of policy models and standards. The standards and objectives to be achieved in different regions of the world are defined by a host of agreements, dialogues, task forces, conferences, summits and guidelines of a global scope. It is commonly the case that this agenda is defined, incorporated and disseminated by these multilateral organizations. International consultants and specialists (visitors) provide an opportunity to gauge experiences abroad, which allows international organizations and transnational political partnerships to take policy transfer processes and transform them from a simple bilateral relationship into a more complex multilateral environment (Stone, 2012).
5Stone (2004) states that the importance of these organizations in the choices and dissemination of what we call “best practices” is linked to their power to create spaces for the exchange of experience and knowledge, and to determine which countries and, thereby, which public policies will receive their funding, services and projects. International agencies have research departments and organize and take part in the largest and most relevant conferences and consultations in their fields. This gives them “scientific validation” for legitimizing their objectives and engaging governments and civil society in their agendas, and, as we will show, for forming a “large epistemic community” (Stone, 2004).
6This chapter sets out to analyze the ideas, interpretations, arguments and recommendations in terms of food policies used by international organizations in the dissemination and transfer of actions for FNS in Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on contributions on the approach of Public Policy Transfer (mentioned above), and the concepts of Narrative Policy Analysis and of Public Policy Référentiels (Grisa, 2011; Jones & McBeth, 2010; Fouilleux, 2003; Roe, 1994; Stone, 1989), this paper focuses on the narratives used by international organizations in defending certain food policy référentiel.
7The analysis of policy narratives is a relatively new field, with Emery Roe’s 1994 book providing the starting point for studies of this approach. According to the author, policy narratives are stories (with settings and plots) that guarantee and provide stable ground for assumptions when it comes to drafting public policies in situations in which there is a great deal of uncertainty, a high degree of interdependence, and little or no agreement. These stories permeate political dialogues and have a beginning, a middle and an end; characters, victims, heroes and villains; a context or a backdrop; a plot; and more than anything else, a “moral of the story” – the solutions proposed in the form of public policies (Roe, 1994). Similarly, Jones and McBeth (2010) argue that narrative is a story featuring a temporal sequence of events that results in a plot made up of dramatic moments, symbols and characters, and which culminates in the moral of the story. The approach understands that narratives are also part and parcel of the creation of public policies, help to structure and consolidate paths, and have the symbolic power to silence other arguments (Stone, 1989).
8The public policy référentiel approach was initially proposed by Bruno Jobert and Pierre Muller in the 1980s. It sought to analyze public policies as processes through which society comes up with representations for understanding and acting on the basis of what is real. Subsequently reworked by Fouilleux (2017, 2003, 2000), the concept of the public policy référentiel refers to a set of ideas – negotiated and agreed on by diverse actors – that guide the construction of public policies and are manifested in their development and their instruments. This concept is our starting point and we consider in our analysis the eight food policy référentiel identified in chapter 1 of this book, with their respective “secondary référentiels,” namely: the food-for-market référentiel; the urban food supply référentiel; the productivist référentiel, divided into agribusiness-based productivist and productivist based on family farming; the social food welfare référentiel; the technical food référentiel, divided into nutritionist and hygienist; the food sovereignty and food security référentiel, divided into food autonomy and heritage; the gastronomic référentiel; the environmentalized food référentiel; and the integrative référentiel (Grisa et al., 2021).
9The narratives analysis involved a documentary analysis of 29 reports produced by international agencies present in Latin America and the Caribbean. This research method seeks to gain an understanding of and approach social reality indirectly, through reference to various types of published documents that provide evidence of their actions, as well as the construction of their ideas, opinions and ways of acting and living. According to Cellard (2008, p. 295), documentary analysis “allows the dimension of time to be added to the understanding of the social.” In other words, it facilitates the observation of the maturation or transformation of individuals, groups, concepts, knowledge, mindsets, etc.
10The objective of this analysis is to identify “the stories told in these narratives,” the way in which they construct arguments for the defense of a given public action. To this end, we sought to identify the characters involved, the context in which the narrative is constructed, and the “morals of the story,” which appear as policy proposals. Among the various international organizations operating in the region, we identified some of those most central to the issue of FNS, chief among them FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). On a smaller scale, reports from the World Bank (WB) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which often share reports and projects with the other agencies under analysis, were also assessed.
11In terms of the timeframe, the reports we analyzed are from the period between 2009 and 2019. This period was chosen on the basis of the food price crisis, which began in 2008, after the U.S. subprime crisis in 2006. This is an important event when it comes to understanding the connection between agriculture and food in Latin America and the Caribbean, as price rises negatively impact consumers, not least the poorest, but also benefit the commodities producers and exporters in the region, which accounts for a significant proportion of world food production and is also very relevant to the aggregate production of local economies.
122009 also saw the reform of the World Committee on Food Safety (CFS), which was created in the 1970s in response to another food price crisis. Its main function on its inception was to control grain stocks and thereby guarantee price stability in the markets. The 2009 reform triggered a series of transformations in food security concepts and international debates of the issue, shifting the focus from “availability” to “access” and “use” (Duncan, 2015).
13This chapter is divided into two sections, the first of which traces the data collected from the reports of each agency analyzed and seeks to identify the food policy référentiel actioned as a result of analyzing the policy narratives contained in these documents. The second section discusses the results, taking into account the transformations that have occurred over the time period in question in the agencies and in the region as a whole, as well as the impact of changes in the global FNS agenda. The chapter concludes with final considerations.
International organizations and their public policy référentiel
14FNS is crucial to the consideration of sustainable development and has appeared with increasing frequency across a wide range of international reports, guidelines and directives. The approach to this issue has essentially become more multidisciplinary in nature since the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome and the creation of the current definition of food security28. This approach involves various processes that encompass productive, economic, social and human health aspects. In more recent times, with the debate on climate change now front and center in political and scientific spaces, the concept of FNS has been gaining ground and occupying an increasingly important place in debates on development.
15As part of this new approach, and in order for food needs to be met, it is not only necessary to have enough food stored to feed everyone; new ways of making food available and distributing it must be created as well. As well as broadening the debate and casting light on global food issues, the multidisciplinary nature of the issue involves a very large number of political actors and international organizations, many of them specializing in agriculture and food, as we will see in the following analysis, which seeks to identify the public policies espoused or proposed in the narratives of organizations.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
16Founded in 1945, FAO leads global thinking on FNS. The organization has its regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile, and is present in virtually every country in the region, dividing its activities into sub-regions (Caribbean, Mesoamerica and South America), and operating desks in each member country. Thanks to this extensive presence in the region, its reports use many examples of local “best practice.” It also produces more publications on FNS than any other organization (global or regional), which is due to the status it has acquired as a “knowledge agency” (Vasconcellos, 2018). For this analysis, we have selected the report, The State of Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the Caribbean. Published annually, it assesses the state of FNS. Having given thought to public policy référentiels, we can affirm that one référentiel is not always sufficiently large to cover recommendations for every aspect of FNS, which explains why two référentiels sometimes appear in the same report. However, these recommendations and their respective référentiels are not necessarily contradictory. In many cases they complement each other, addressing problems and solutions both in terms of agriculture and food.
17Between 2009 and 2014, the most commonly found narratives in FAO publications were linked to the productivist based on family farming and social food welfare référentiels. These were articulated in every report during this period. The former was present in public policy proposals designed to solve problems of food availability, and the latter was present in sections relating to access. The technical nutritionist food référentiel was also seen, in particular from 2014, most probably as a result of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), promoted on the basis of a partnership between FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO), which also led to the drafting of the report in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
18With regard to food availability, the first report published – within the context of the 2009 crisis – stated that the solution lay not only in increasing production, as the region’s agricultural production actually rose during the crisis. The document stated that predominant crops required major technological and financial resources, were mainly intended to suppress the international market (given that the increase in commodity prices benefited the region’s exporting producers) and were controlled by large agrifood industries. In this respect, the public policies put forward sought to boost the domestic market, driving family farming production through credit, access to institutional markets and land, and encouraging the creation of family farmers’ cooperatives (FAO, 2009).
19In that first report, the issue of access to food remained in the background, but was present nevertheless. FAO built this narrative on the assertion that the concentration of resources devoted to rural areas (inputs, land, credit) increased social inequality, and that the crisis directly affected consumers in the cities, not least the poorest. The consumers most affected by the crisis were considered victims, in particular children, women and indigenous peoples, and the solution put forward was to strengthen social protection policies, including the conditional cash transfer and food assistance for “the victims” of the story (FAO, 2009).
20In the year that followed, the “relevance” of the référentiels was reversed. The social food welfare system became more prominent, although the productivist based on family farming référentiel remained present. Poverty and inequality in the region provided the central theme of the 2010 report, with a new villain emerging, namely the El Niño29 phenomenon, which highlighted inequalities and poverty by seriously impacting on the most vulnerable. As in the previous year, and as we also identified in the years that followed, children, women and indigenous peoples remained the main victims, while the heroes continued to be family farmers and the government, the former providing food for the domestic market at more affordable prices, and the latter implementing public cash transfer and food assistance policies (FAO, 2010).
21Between 2011 and 2014, the organization began to address food insecurity as a “two-way” problem, in that it was not just a question of hunger or food shortages but of a lack of supply and access to healthy and adequate food. The technical nutritionist food référentiel was more prominent in these reports, with new villains of the piece appearing, such as ultra-processed food, and food and agrifood giants. It is also worth noting a slight change in the story: as well as the disaster posed by hunger, Latin America and the Caribbean also had to contend with overweight and obesity and all the other comorbidities caused by overeating. It was during this period that the region, while recording its best results in terms of reducing hunger, also consolidated its position as the region with the highest rates of overweight and obesity in adults and children (FAO, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014). It was a period in which children became the main victims in FAO reports, although women and indigenous peoples remained part of the story. The presence of these characters underlined the moral of the story: from 2013 reports offered up school feeding programs as one of several solutions.
22In 2016, with the end of the deadline to achieve the MDGs, a new development agenda began to be promoted and implemented by United Nations agencies, giving rise to a new framework and a new référentiel: integrative. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)30 offer a multidisciplinary approach to development and, to some extent, we can say that FNS is at the heart of the sustainability debate. The very notion of FNS has gained new ground in FAO reports. Where technical nutritionist food was once a supporting référentiel, from 2016 it acted as a link for several référentiels. Nutrition has emerged as a character in production, consumption, and environmental preservation, and has become essential to social, racial and gender equality.
23Where the narratives of FNS in Latin America and the Caribbean were once founded on a promising context and setting, from 2016 onwards, the story began to play out as more of a disaster, not least because of the climate issue. As a result, the policies proposed by the integration référentiel had the capacity to address several problems at the same time: socioeconomic, health, environmental, and production.
The sustainability of food systems means not only the conservation of natural resources, but also the delivery of food, economic, environmental and nutritional products and services that their operation involves; that is, everything that allows the role they play in food and nutritional security, income generation and ecosystem diversity to be extended over time, among other interactions that maintain human and natural systems (FAO, 2016, p. 24).
24The increase in undernutrition and hunger remained present in the storylines of FAO publications, reinforcing the idea that the problem is not food scarcity but unequal access to healthy food. The narratives highlighted the risk that this reality poses for children, and pointed school feeding and institutional purchasing policies among some of the solutions put forward. Family farmers continued to be important figures, playing the role of heroes, but did not have the mission of increasing the food supply.31 In these reports, they were responsible for producing in an environmentally friendly manner, increasing the availability of healthy food, and preserving local biodiversity.
25Then, in 2019, FAO published a report on healthy food, the focus of which was on combating all forms of malnutrition. The document shows that the integrative référentiel defines the problem of obesity and overweight as a consequence of a food system that is systemically unhealthy, from agricultural production through to final consumption. FAO and the other agencies that contributed to the publication highlighted the importance of public policies that regulate both agricultural production and the ultra-processed industry, identifying it as the main villain of the story. The proposed solution was industry regulation based on labeling, advertising control, and nutritional warnings. It was hoped that this would combat the problems of availability (expanding the range of food available), access (controlling prices and distribution channels), stability (preventing the existence of food industry monopolies and oligopolies), and, most importantly, use and absorption, which would have a direct impact on population health (FAO, 2019).
World Food Programme (WFP)
26The WFP was created in 1961 as a FAO program and was established as a permanent United Nations program in 1965. Today, the two agencies are practically on a par in terms of infrastructure, technical capacity, and geographical dispersion, though their modes of operation differ considerably. The WFP has its regional office in Panama City, but it goes about its activities in a different way to FAO’s regional office as it has a more decentralized structure. As we will see below, it also has a more specific focus on actions aimed at emergency food and school feeding programs. Having said that, since 2011, with the creation of the Center of Excellence against Hunger in Brasília, Brazil, the agency has grown in size and relevance, in putting forward public FNS policies for the region.
27No international food organization runs more projects and has more resources available to it than the WFP. In terms of frequency, content and format, it produces materials in a different way to FAO. These materials are usually specific to a project or a theme and often contain short stories and case studies, frequently in the form of a brochure or short briefing.
28The agency does not operate in every country of the region, which is why it does not publish a single report for Latin America and the Caribbean. The WFP also publishes different documents on its projects in specific countries or small groups of countries, such as the Andean region, the Caribbean and Central America. The emerging nature of its operations can be seen in the presence of the technical food and nutrition référentiel in the documents analyzed. However, from 2016 onwards there is a change in its content, which essentially involves the issue of school feeding. Though it has always been important to the WFP, in the period under analysis a transformation in the approach to this issue can be detected, with a shift in focus from use and absorption to availability, access, and stability. This development can be seen in its reports on home-grown school feeding, which foresees school feeding based on natural products, produced by local family agriculture.
29In addition, as is the case with IFAD and as we will see below, one of the main focuses of WFP reports is forms of international cooperation on the issue of FNS, with the emphasis on South-South32 and triangular33 cooperation. This can be seen not only in the content of the documents, but also in their preparation, as many of the agency’s publications are produced in partnership with other organizations, such as research centers and universities, and even with ECLAC and FAO itself. These partnerships between agencies result in reports with more than one référentiel, some more coherent than others.
30The 2009 report Food and Nutrition Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean, published jointly with ECLAC, included three référentiels: a technical food référentiel (containing both the nutritionist and hygienist secondary référentiels), the productivist based on family farming34 référentiel and the social food welfare référentiel. Also written in the context of the food price crisis, the report tells the story of a region that produces enough food for its population, but which suffers hunger and undernutrition due to poverty and inequality (aggravated by the food price crisis) (Martinez et al., 2009).
31The report begins by setting out the narrative of a disaster scenario and is then divided into two parts: the first comprising policy recommendations for social protection and food assistance and also proposing measures for food benefits, food supplementation, distribution, and the expansion of food safety control (the technical food référentiel); and the second proposing solutions for unemployment, boosting food markets, introducing credit policies for small producers, and reducing taxes on foodstuffs (the productivist-based on family farming référentiel). The central players in this publication are the poor (rural or urban), and children, the main targets of the policies proposed in the first part of the report (Martinez et al., 2009).
32In 2011, the organization assisted with the publication of an issue of the journal Border-Lines,35 which drew a link between FNS issues in Latin America and the Caribbean with the growing migration flows in the region. The main villain depicted in the articles was global warming, and the solutions put forward aimed to increase the resilience of the various populations assessed in the case studies, thus triggering the food security and sovereignty and social food welfare référentiels (Latino Research Center, 2011; WFP, 2011).
33The narratives in the WFP reports have also been influenced by the new 2030 agenda, as evidenced by the presence of new and more multi-faceted storylines relating to FNS, and, consequently, solutions and policies designed in a more integrated way. In the 2017 report Gender-Sensitive Social Protection for Zero Hunger, the organization explained that its actions in the region’s countries included the provision of technical support services for the development of public policies, with an emphasis on conditional cash transfer policies36 (WFP, 2017).
34Many of the WFP’s reports are small in scale and focus on its actions and missions in countries in response to a wide range of emergency situations. For example, the agency offered a strong response to the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, through humanitarian relief missions and food distribution. It remains present in the country today, responding to the drought it has suffered since 2014. Haiti and its people are one of the main subjects of the publications and reports on WFP missions and continue to be depicted in the agency’s narratives as the victims of natural and climate disasters and the poverty that results from these events.
35In a 2019 report, the agency pointed to the large percentage of people affected by environmental disasters in the region – close to 30% of the total population of Latin America and the Caribbean – which led it to tie its narrative to the issue of global warming. The document identified another major and well-known villain afflicting the most vulnerable: the double burden of malnutrition, thus highlighting the danger posed by the growth of obesity and overweight in Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on an integrative référentiel, the report identified school feeding programs and gender-sensitive social protection policies as the heroes of the story (WFP, 2019).
The double burden of malnutrition imposes a significant economic and social price on every country in the region, as shown in the recent study on the cost of the double burden of malnutrition conducted in seven countries (WFP & ECLAC 2017, 2019). Responding to the growing threat of obesity and overweight while also addressing the unfinished agenda for the eradication of undernutrition requires action across many sectors. Nutrition-sensitive social platforms can be used along with school feeding programs to achieve better outcomes for the most vulnerable groups, particularly young children, mothers, and adolescent girls (WFP, 2019, p. 6).
36Throughout its history, we can see a significant change in the nature of the school feeding programs proposed by the WFP. Whereas the agency initially sought to distribute food, very often acquired from a large international aid agency, to developing countries (Maluf, 2007), in more recent times it has begun to propose programs with a multidisciplinary approach, moving towards an integrative référentiel, the result of a new international agenda adopted by United Nations organizations.
37Another project and narrative that stands out among the most recent WFP actions is the Beyond Cotton project, conducted with the cooperation of the Center of Excellence against Hunger, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency and the Brazilian Cotton Institute. Although this project is not being implemented in Latin America or the Caribbean, it stands out owing to its similarity with the More Cotton project, the result of cooperation between FAO and Brazil, specifically the Brazilian Association of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Companies (ASBRAER), the Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers (ABRAPA), and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA).37 Unlike FAO, which sees agriculture as one of its main issues and focal points, the WFP does not view the transformation of agriculture as a central objective. The reasoning behind the Beyond Cotton project is, therefore, the possibility of integrating its production with the agroecological production of food that will be publicly purchased for school feeding. The project represents the integrative référentiel adopted more recently in the agency’s narratives, linking food to agriculture, but also embracing social agents and family farmers as possible heroes in the quest for sustainable alternatives leading to the eradication of hunger and all forms of food insecurity.
Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA)
38IICA was created in 1942 and had its head office in Turrialba, Costa Rica. In 1948, following the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS), it became the specialist agricultural agency of the inter-American system. The main focus of its activity, as its name indicates, is agricultural cooperation projects between the nations of the Americas. IICA is currently headquartered in São José, Costa Rica, and is present in 34 countries in the Americas. Its regions of activity are as follows: Northern Region, Caribbean Region, Central Region, Andean Region, and Southern Region. As a technical cooperation body, its projects and publications focus mainly on agricultural production, technological innovation, and productive inclusion. In addition to agriculture, the institute also supports and monitors trade agreements and the international food market.
39IICA differs from the other agencies in several respects. It is the only one of them that operates exclusively in the Americas; the other three are global in scope. Furthermore, the main focus of its actions is agricultural production and not food, which is directly reflected in its concept of FNS and the policy solutions it proposes. Another aspect that sets IICA apart from the other organizations under analysis here is that, while it adheres to the discourses and narratives of sustainability, it does not cite the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or even the 2030 Agenda until the 2018 report. This is despite the fact that during the course of the period under analysis it has often acted in partnership with agencies in the UN system.
40Like the FAO, IICA produces a vast number of reports and informative material. Our attention is focused on the agency’s annual reports, which allow us to identify its stance on food and agriculture issues and on public policies that inspire its projects. Aside from rolling out projects, IICA is often called upon by member countries to assist with the creation of public policies on agricultural trade, rural development, animal and plant health and safety, sustainable agriculture, and family farming. IICA has thus created narratives that defend its choice and implementation of projects, which often inspire policies. From these narratives we were able to identify the policy référentiels implemented.
41Given its status as an agricultural cooperation body, it stands to reason that productivist is the most frequently mentioned référentiel across the period, with both the agribusiness-based and based on family farming secondary référentiels appearing in its narratives. The introduction of innovations, sustainability and adaptation to climate change were themes (and heroes) in every story, both as characters that increase competitiveness and expand international markets, and as characters committed to increasing the FNS of the region’s population and to bringing about greater well-being for family farmers (especially women and young people) in rural areas. In this regard, since 2009 IICA has attached great importance to addressing the development of rural communities through land valorization. It also encourages the introduction of technological innovations and promotes agriculture that guarantees food safety38 and more competitive trade for the region’s agribusiness (IICA, 2010).
42Although one of the institute’s strategic objectives is the expansion of international trade and the competitiveness of the region’s agribusiness, we were unable to identify the food for market référentiel in the narratives. Although “the market” appears as a character in the narratives and plays the part of the hero, its objective in these documents is not to feed the population but to aid the region’s economic development. In the 2016 annual report, IICA highlighted the certification of family farmers’ cooperatives produce as one of the main policy tools used to achieve this objective, to ensure that they could introduce their products in more demanding importing countries, mainly in North America and the European Union (IICA, 2017). The report also pointed to the importance of investments in more sustainable value chains capable of breaking into new international markets.
43In the 2017 annual report, we again note the coexistence of two référentiels, which are again coherent with each other: productivist (from agribusiness and from family farming) and technical nutritionist and hygienist. Many of the projects presented and policies put forward pointed to investment in technological innovation as a solution (and in this report the focus on family farming and peasants is fairly extensive), especially investment in seeds and techniques that provide for greater security in agricultural and livestock production (IICA, 2018).
44Family farming is a character that has grown in stature in the organization’s narratives. Although it has always been present, in 2017 it was mentioned alongside the UN Decade of Family Farming, which was just about to begin. The increase in credit and technology emerged as IICA’s main recommendation, though there was also growing concern about land management. Meanwhile, family farmers (a wide-ranging group that includes indigenous and traditional peoples, rural women, and rural youth) have gone from being the victims of narratives to heroes, capable of making better use of natural resources, promoting sustainable techniques and mitigating global warming, as well as integrating different aspects of the agency’s territorial development proposals.
45The 2018 report began with a message from IICA’s new director general, the Argentinian Manuel Otero, who took office for the 2018–2022 period. This message saw a small change in the agency’s narratives and public policy référentiels. Otero stressed the importance of investing in projects that promote sustainable agriculture through the intelligent use of resources and the bioeconomy and stated that these projects should be aimed at rural women and young people. Though present in previous years, in the 2018 and 2019 reports these characters became central to consideration of land development and family farming policies (IICA, 2019, 2020).
46Finally, the 2019 report also proposes policies promoting the bioeconomy and land development, and although FNS was not the main objective of these proposals, we note a higher level of integration in the strategies compared to the beginning of the period under analysis. The référentiel was still productivist, and though family farming became a more relevant figure after 2017, the two secondary référentiels were noted in the institute’s reports (IICA, 2020).
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
47IFAD was created at the 1974 World Food Security Conference39 as one of several actions put forward to alleviate the damage caused by the food crisis of the 1970s. The predominant narrative at the conference was that of a disaster scenario, in which global food production was insufficient to meet the basic needs of the world’s population, which triggered actions designed to increase productivity, mainly through the use of what became known as the “Green Revolution technological/agricultural package.”40 In this respect, IFAD’s role was to provide international funding for projects that sought to boost food production in developing countries (IFAD, 2018; Vasconcellos, 2018).
48The organization’s participation in Latin America and the Caribbean is relatively low-key compared to other regions. Before the 1980s, it was present in only a few countries in the region, concentrating its activities in the Andean countries and Central America. It stepped up its operations from the 2000s onwards, supporting the activities of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUL) and promoting dialogue and knowledge transfer on family farming at the Specialized Meeting on Family Farming (REAF) (IFAD, 2018). Its regional Latin America and the Caribbean desks are currently located in Brasilia,41 Panama City and Lima. Of all the regions covered by the organization worldwide, Latin America has the lowest number of funded projects (and, as a result, values).
49IFAD does not publish a periodical on its activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, although it does produce a great deal of material on the region. It should also be noted that the organization’s annual report contains data and updates on its projects and actions in the region. In analyzing the organization’s narratives, therefore, we used the material created for Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to the organization’s annual reports.42
50Some characters are present in IFAD publications throughout the period under analysis: rural women and young people, indigenous peoples, rural peasants, and rural poverty. One of IFAD’s objectives in the region (2010) was to empower rural populations. Since 2009, the organisation has been promoting projects aimed at supporting actions proposed by rural women and indigenous peoples with a view both to expanding the FNS of these groups and to making them more resilient by encouraging locally designed innovations. The existence of these characters in the narratives, along with proposals for the development of the knowledge and technologies present in the territories, allows us to conclude that the main référentiel actioned by the agency throughout the decade under analysis was food sovereignty and security, either by means of the food autonomy or the heritage référentiels.
Indigenous peoples in rural areas face economic, social, political and cultural marginalization, which results in extreme poverty and vulnerability for a great many of them. Although indigenous peoples account for an estimated 5 per cent of the world’s population, they make up 15 per cent of people living in poverty. In order to reach this important target group, IFAD uses tailored approaches that respect their values and build upon their strengths (IFAD, 2010, p. 15).
51The creation of the IFAD Markets Program has also resulted in the inclusion of new issues and public policies. The promotion of knowledge transfer for the inclusion of vulnerable groups in food markets, for example, is encouraged in the 2011 annual report. Given that environmental guidelines were already present in the organization’s reports, even before the confirmation of the 2030 Agenda, we note that the narrative was in line with the integrative référentiel, highlighting a scenario in which climate change, poverty, inequality and the health of the world’s population are central topics when considering agricultural development. However, the characters in the narrative were already known (rural women and youth and indigenous peoples), and the proposed policies and projects did not differ either from those found in previous accounts, focusing investment on local initiatives with the objective of empowering minority groups and placing value on the area’s existing knowledge. The référentiel activated, therefore, continues to be that of food sovereignty and security (IFAD, 2012).
52In addition to the food sovereignty and security référentiel, the 2013 annual report also includes the productivist based on family farming référentiel, even though the same characters continue to play a part. According to IFAD (2014, p. 21):
Enabling poor rural women and men to increase their productivity is vital to reducing rural poverty in Latin America. However, this goal is dependent upon strengthening rural people’s access to a broad range of public goods and services such as education and training, infrastructure, and financing sources and services. Small producers require financial products designed particularly to meet their needs. Most countries in the region are in a position to achieve this through national development banks and microfinance institutions.
53The United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming, which explains another IFAD report, this one regional and which also focused on the productivist based on family farming référentiel. The report compared the policies and programs of different countries in the region aimed at this group, with the ultimate aim of providing more general guidelines in terms of public policies. It is worth noting that in addition to public policies designed to increase productivity, such as increasing access to credit and creating specific markets and rural extension, the report proposed specific policies for the pluriactivity of farming families, in other words for farmers whose income is not entirely generated by agricultural activity and who, therefore, need more and better access to services, such as transportation, education and information technology (Schneider, 2014).
54A 2015 report on investments in a “new” rural population cast light some of the projects developed by the organization in the region. The theme of the productive inclusion of family farming, and increased access to resources and markets for minority groups (rural women and youth), began to gain ground in the narratives of the integrative référentiel. Projects focusing on the creation of rural cooperatives, adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, and the increased availability of healthy food were central topics in this report (IFAD, 2015).
55More recent reports have continued to fuse sovereignty with the food security and integrative référentiels. This is because the organization has continued to pursue similar policies and proposals – increasing resilience and striving to empower and strengthen minority groups through policies that value their knowledge and traditions – that are targeted at known characters (rural women and youth and indigenous peoples), but which are put forward as integrated solutions to the problems of sustainable development. The result of the fusion of two référentiels can be seen in Chakrabarti (2019, p. 35):
A passionate defender of the Amazon rainforest, he had seen for years how açaí palms were felled for the yagua (sheath) and heart of palm, commonly known as palmito in Bolivia. But he also knew that the palms with tiny fruit were important. When he decided to return from the city with his wife, he also realized that the key to a better future for his family and the forest lay in the collection and processing of açaí. So, he joined forces with other young families to create the Trinchera Association of Harvesters, Producers and Processors of Amazonian Fruits. With the support of ACCESOS and third parties, from their community in particular, they opened a small factory to process açaí pulp and send it to markets in the city of Cobija and further afield in Bolivia. They also set up an açaí bar in Cobija and attended food fairs across Bolivia, spreading the message about the benefits of the fruit and how it could secure the future of their forests and their children.
56In short, the narratives created by IFAD have not undergone substantial change in the period in question. The characters and solutions are virtually always the same. However, the organization reorganizes contexts and characters, turning people who were seen as victims (rural women and youth and indigenous people) into the heroes needed to mitigate global warming, food and nutrition insecurity, poverty and inequality across the world.
The rise of the integrative référentiel in international organizations
57Before looking at the changes that have taken place in the time period in question, we need to highlight certain events that have influenced and continue to influence the creation of FNS policy narratives in the international arena. The 2009 crisis, chosen here as the initial timeframe for analysis, triggered a series of changes in the actions, concepts and operations of international organizations. The restructuring of the CFS increased the participation of and cooperation between other international agencies responsible for contemplating global food and agriculture. The increase in hunger caused by the crisis was not directly related to the control of grain stocks, a function performed by the committee since its creation, but to difficulty of access. The upshot was that the issue of poverty could no longer be ignored if hunger were to be eradicated (Duncan, 2015).
58This new approach to food insecurity, as a consequence of poverty, has gained ground in debates, as shown by reports on the issues of cash transfer and rural employment. Latin America is the most urbanized region in the world, as a result of which it has suffered an increase in inequality, a factor that was already prevalent even before the urban and industrial development projects embarked on in the middle of the last century (ECLAC, 2016). With more than 80% of its population concentrated in urban areas, mainly on the outskirts of major cities, the region’s rural areas are becoming increasingly empty.43 International organizations focused on agriculture and food are taking part in this discussion, proposing and giving thought to policies that keep rural populations in the countryside, as a way of preventing poverty from concentrating in urban peripheries, with the emphasis on those with the greatest motivation to leave: women, young people, and indigenous peoples.
59For these people (victims), agencies propose policies that increase access to food, especially conditional cash transfer policies. The reduction of poverty in rural areas aims to avoid rural exodus and the overcrowding of urban peripheries. While such phenomena are a consequence of the evils of poverty and hunger, they also result in their increase. We can safely say that this vision, which links the reality of the countryside to the consequences lived out in the city, is the first step towards an integrated vision of public food policies as they relate to urban and rural areas. Up until recently, rural-related FNS policies were limited to efforts to increase productivity through the dissemination of technologies designed to increase the availability of food, while policies targeted at urban areas involved emergency aid and the distribution of additional food supplies for children and populations at risk.
60The period in question also saw greater debate on climate change and global warming, with the word “sustainability” adopting an increasingly prominent position in policy proposals. In 2016, this debate led to the formulation of the 2030 Agenda, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being created and several other actions instigated or absorbed by these new guidelines. Launched by the UN and FAO in 2012, the Zero Hunger Challenge frames the sustainability agenda advocated and embraced by international agencies and has led to the FNS issue taking up a central role in the most recent narratives.
61Generally speaking, the narratives of international organizations have been fairly well aligned throughout the decade under analysis. However, only FAO and IICA have specific public policies référentiels and publications for Latin America and the Caribbean. For their part, the WFP and IFAD have global référentiels that are used and implemented in the projects and public policies espoused in the region. It is no surprise to learn that the actions proposed by FAO and IICA are more consistent in nature. Even so, it is worth noting FAO’s greater capacity to integrate food and agriculture issues, a fact explained by the nature and objective of each organization.
62The most noticeable of the narrative transformations across the time period occurs in the WFP. To begin with, the organization operates in such a way as to prevent or mitigate crises and emergencies. One of the most specific ways in which it does so is by implementing school feeding policies. It goes on to propose the adoption of the Home-Grown School Feeding model, which encompasses food and environment, through local purchasing, and gradually phasing in food purchasing from family farming. Ultimately, the organization develops and implements rural extension projects, such Beyond Cotton, which increases opportunities for organic and sustainable cotton production and the production of agroecological food that can be sold to the public authorities for school feeding.
63The 2030 Agenda has had a significant impact on the changing role of FNS in the narratives of every organization. Initially positioned as a goal to be achieved, FNS has since 2016 become a hero of sustainable development. FNS policies, especially school feeding policies, have become examples of practices that can respond to the SDGs, combining public health and the environment, while encouraging the creation of markets and the use of clean technologies preferably created and designed by actors in rural areas.44
64In more recent times, the appearance of an integrative référentiel in the FNS narratives of international agencies has revealed a capacity to propose policies and programs that provide solutions for the various problems posed by other référentiels. Production and consumption are taken into consideration in the creation of these proposals, as well as the socioeconomic and environmental impact. Threats to public health and to planet health are seen as problems emanating from the same source, with the result that policies need to be targeted at solving these issues simultaneously. It should also be pointed out that, in terms of this integrative référentiel, the preservation of the environment and biodiversity is directly related to respect for and the protection of indigenous or traditional peoples.
65It is not surprising, therefore, that, in the last two years in particular, the issue of food quality has been expanded on in debates on FNS. The term “healthy eating” is now beginning to replace FNS, as the food crisis takes on other aspects besides hunger, such as overweight, obesity and other diseases related to malnutrition. Although the narrative of population growth is present in many of the international agency reports analyzed, the need to increase food production has been replaced by the urgent need for production that is less harmful to the environment and that provides consumers with healthy and safe food that is rich in nutrients and respectful of the identities and values of the territory where it is produced and consumed.
66Finally, although the issue of migration is not directly connected to the integrative référentiel, it is one that cuts across other problems present in the narratives. We cannot fail, therefore, to highlight its growing importance in the reports compiled by international agencies. Migration, be it international or internal, played a prominent role in debates on FNS and poverty in the period between 2016 and 2018 in the main. On many occasions, the objectives of the public policies proposed for the most vulnerable groups, such as rural women and young people, and indigenous peoples, include the reduction of rural poverty as a means of curbing rural exodus and mass migration. It should also be noted that the issue of migration is frequently associated with climate change and the impossibility of remaining in the countryside, thus driving policies aimed at increasing the resilience of rural populations.
Final considerations
67The aim of this chapter is to analyze and understand how the policy narratives and the public policies référentiels adopted by international agencies were used in FNS policy recommendations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The results suggest that FAO, WFP, IICA and IFAD use public policy référentiels that are strongly interlinked throughout the period under analysis and that even when different référentiels coexist in the narrative, this does not lay bare proposals that reveal any expressive conflict between organizations.
68In the period in question and of the agencies studied, we can state that FAO has the most complex narratives, the most detailed proposals, and is most consistent in terms of integrating food and agriculture issues. For their part, the narratives of the WFP underwent the greatest changes during the time period, while the proposals of IICA and IFAD saw less in the way of change.
69Across the decade, narratives became increasingly catastrophic in nature, with more people going hungry in the region, at the same time as there was an increase in the occurrence of obesity, overweight and diseases caused by poor nutrition. It proved to be an ideal context for proposing policies based on the integrative référentiel, in line with the premises of a wider international agenda, made up of by the SDGs.
70Scrutiny of the FAO reports shows that elements that were once crucial to the creation of narratives became less important in the agency’s most recent publications, particularly the character of family farming and the concern with raising productivity. In contrast, the WFP included the character of family farming in its narratives, even proposing projects and policies aimed at this group.
71Finally, FNS ceases to be a final objective and becomes a hero in the narratives put forward by international agencies, responsible for ensuring that the new objective is achieved: the slowdown of global warming and the promotion of healthy eating.
Bibliographie
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Notes de bas de page
28 The definition of food security formulated at the summit addresses four main areas: availability – the maintaining of sufficient quantities of food in a constant and consistent manner; access – the ability of individuals within a population to have sufficient resources to obtain adequate food for a nutritious diet; use or absorption – the ability of individuals to use the food they access to ensure their health; stability – the strength of the structure of food systems over time.
29 The climate event as a key character in the story is an important aspect, as the organization later points to an even more prominent character later in the period: global warming.
30 Also known as the 2030 Agenda, in reference to the year in which its 17 goals and 169 targets must be achieved.
31 The documents report that the region has one of the highest food availability scores in the world, exceeding daily calorie requirements, a fact that sheds light on the region's biggest problem: inequality. The World Bank (2014) states that large-scale production in Latin America and the Caribbean are essential to global supply and that inequalities are the real causes of food insecurity in the region. As a result, the region would have benefited from high food prices, which would have allowed the implementation of public social protection policies, though these were not enough in themselves to eradicate inequality and hunger (or the absence of FNS) in the long term.
32 According to the UN, South-South cooperation is a mode of economic, scientific, technical and technological cooperation between developing countries, and aims to address the challenges and realities they have in common.
33 According to the UN, this cooperation involves three actors – two from the Southern Hemisphere and one from the North, which may be an international organization, responsible for providing resources to allow the countries of the South to exchange technical assistance in a specific area.
34 It should be noted that the report does not use the term “family farming” but “small-scale production.”
35 The publication is the result of the discussions that took place at the Food Security and International Migration: Perspectives from the Americas conference in 2010.
36 According to the report, conditional cash transfer policies have the function of compensating the “care economy,” marked by the unequal sexual division of labor, which leads to time poverty for women.
37 Information obtained from the following sources: https://centrodeexcelencia.org.br/alem-do-algodao/ and http://www.fao.org/in-action/programa-brasil-fao/proyectos/setor-algodoeiro/pt/
38 It should be pointed out here that “food safety” does not equate to “food security,” as it deals with the nutritional composition and hygiene-related aspects of food products.
39 The first World Food Security Conference, promoted by the FAO and proposed by the United States, in 1974, as a response to the reduction of world food stocks (due to the collapse of the oil industry in several countries) and the consequent increase in prices (which were also impacted by the first oil crisis). (Vasconcellos, 2018).
40 This technological package corresponds to the instruments developed in an attempt to increase agricultural productivity, which aimed to respond to the demands of the growing industrial and urban society. For the growth of capitalist agriculture, the increase in the use of agricultural machinery, the use of fertilizers and the improvement of seeds were widely disseminated (Silva, 1987).
41 It is also the South-South and triangular cooperation and knowledge center.
42 Like the WFP, IFAD devotes its actions and publications mainly to cooperative projects. Many of the organization's reports, which focus specifically on Latin America and the Caribbean, are written in conjunction with other institutions, including the other organizations studied in this chapter.
43 This has not impacted on production, however. While the “countryside has emptied,” there has been an increase in the expanse of cultivated areas, which extend beyond and often disrespect environmental protection and biodiversity boundaries.
44 Many of these narratives on sustainability, however, had already been adopted by international agencies after the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, in which countries made a global commitment to adjust their socioeconomic development models in an effort to slow global warming. What the SDGs provided was the capacity for an integrated agenda of sustainable development policies (with an emphasis on FNS policies).
Auteur
-
Fernanda C. França de Vasconcellos
PhD student in rural development at the Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). fernandacfv@yahoo.com.br

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