Food System Governance, Food Security and Land Use in Southern Africa

在南部非洲的粮食安全和土地使用问题上，私营公司和其他机构的作用日益重要。这些人包括食品系统中的主要“上升者”，包括从事食品加工、营销、区域内贸易和食品援助部门的人。所有这些最终都受到消费者的影响，因此可以在很大程度上控制需求。这些“行为者”发挥的作用及其运作方式，是通过它们彼此之间的互动以及与两个国家结构(例如南共体和国家政策)的互动来实现的。本质上，这些参与者之间的治理安排决定了这些互动的结果，但情况很复杂，这些安排被理解得很差。该项目的总体目标是利用南非、英国、美国和荷兰的研究技能，建立一个与南部非洲公共和私营组织的一系列利益相关者密切联系的国际研究人员社区。然后，该社区将能够共同设计和共同开展以下方面的研究：(1)粮食系统治理安排对粮食安全的有效性和适应性；(2)作为土地利用变化驱动因素的粮食系统治理及其对相关生态系统服务的影响。早些时候的工作强调了这一需要，但在国家一级几乎没有协调一致的努力来解决这一问题，更不用说在国际上了。跨越南共体--国家--省--地方各级的多层次办法也是创新的，这也是先前工作所大力倡导的。将治理角度与多层次工作相结合是这一建议的特点。结果将有助于为公共和私人决策提供信息，使其了解“需求主导”决策对粮食安全和土地利用变化的影响，从而补充其他由粮食供应问题驱动的土地利用变化工作。

The role of private companies and other institutions is of growing importance in food security and land use issues in southern Africa. These include major 'up-steam' actors in the food system, including those engaged in food processing, marketing, intraregional trading, and the food aid sectors. All are ultimately influenced by consumers, and can therefore are largely controlling demand. The role these 'actors' fulfil, and the way in which they operate, is mediated by their interactions with each other and with both state structures (e.g. SADC and national policies). In essence, the governance arrangements among these actors determine how these interactions play out, but the situation is complex and these arrangements are poorly understood.The overall objective of the project is to draw on research skills from South Africa, UK, US and the Netherlands to build an international community of researchers closely linked to a range of stakeholders across southern Africa's public and private organisations. This community will then be able to co-design and jointly undertake research on (i) the effectiveness and adaptiveness of food system governance arrangements for food security; and (ii) food systems governance as driver of land use change and implications for associated ecosystem services.The research focus on governance arrangements in southern Africa's food systems is highly innovative. Earlier work has highlighted this need, but there has been little coordinated effort to address this at national level, let alone internationally. The multi-level approach spanning SADC-national-provincial-local levels, again strongly advocated by earlier work, is also innovative. Combining the governance angle with the multi-level work is the distinguishing feature of this proposal. Results will help inform both public and private policy making on the consequences of 'demand-led' decision making for food security and land use change, thereby complementing other work on land use change as driven by issues of food supply.