Agriculture
Promoting food security in Lesotho: issues and options
Can Lesotho's households achieve food security by buying food rather than growing it?
Authors:
S.D. Turner
Publisher:
[publisher information not available], 2009
Food insecurity remains a major challenge for Lesotho. This report offers a brief review of strategic issues and options in support for food security there. The paper shows that the nature of the challenge in Lesotho is evolving as livelihoods change.
The paper notes that growing numbers of farmers can achieve some or all of their food security by buying food rather than growing it. On the other hand, it underlines that strategies to promote food security through food production must recognise the specialised needs and capacities of poorer, vulnerable households. In this sense, it figures that such people are best served by small-scale, highly nutritious crops.
The main conclusions of the paper are:
- Lesotho’s social protection system must evolve to help assure the nation’s food security
- development and effectively co-ordinated delivery of a comprehensive social protection strategy is a priority for promoting food security and alleviating poverty
- Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) should intensify its policy monitoring and programme and budget management for national food security
- particularly, it should track the funding and implementation of the National Action Plan for Food Security (NAPFS), and it should assess the need for revisions to the latter
- MAFS should continue proactive hosting of the Food Security Information Steering Group (FSISG)
- all efforts to promote food security should now take the existence and mandate of local authorities into account
- NGOs can bring technical expertise and social commitment to the promotion of food security
- required support for food security can be channeled through multilateral agencies rather than through bilateral programmes
- the National Extension Working Group should be revived
