Abstract

Food security is a global challenge embedding complexities including social, economic and environmental fronts. Food security has to be achieved on the quantitative and qualitative level reflected to food availability, food access, food use and their stability. As a result, food security is overlapped to agricultural systems including food production, processing and distribution, retails, delivery to households and consumption of customer. Also food insecurity can be examined by three gaps which are status, quo gap, nutrition gap and distribution gap. Land loss, scarcity of fresh water, climate change poses large threat on the food availability in terms of developing countries, like Cameroon especially in the Buea Municipality, poverty and unequal human right inseparably cause food insecurity, while population growth has a globally negative influence on food security, which affect the population of Buea Municipality considering demographics and birth rates. On the area of economic considerations, food security is subjective to income levels within the municipality, uneven distribution of economic growth as well as soaring food price. In order to counteract this global crisis, two international strategies should be supplemented by initiating an international food organization, as well as a research and education center to improve food accessibility, food production and to address food waste. To narrow the scale down to Buea municipality, crop intensification can cut down capital investment associated with providing more local job opportunities considering poverty and population expansion. Another strategy can be adopting the agro-forestry as one form of sustainable agricultural systems. This, to some extent, provides some resilience to climate change and also increases the diversity of income, particularly targeting small scale farmers who are the major components of agriculture production in Buea Municipality.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Of The Study

The agricultural sector in Cameroon is among the main occupations in the country with over 70% of its population involved, and it contributes enormously to the country’s economy (Kinesis 2012). The lack of access to adequate amount of safe and nutritious food is a public health concern worldwide and particularly in Cameroon (Simon 2012). Due to its agro-ecological diversity, Cameroon has great potentials for agricultural production to contribute to more than 23 million people and beyond. Thus contributing towards feeding the world’s 9 billion people.

Since early 1990’s Cameroon began spending billions of francs CFA to import large quantities of food items such as rice, maize, onions, milk, tomatoes and poultry products (Moloua and Utomaki 1998), even though the country now rely on national production as a clear comparative advantage. This is worrisome as it undermines local production potentials, and pushes many producers out of the production chain. An estimated 45% of Cameroon’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) depends on agriculture (Johnson et al.2007). According to Moloua and Utomaki (1998), low level of inputs and equally very little or no government support for instance, by providing high quality seeds, fertilizers and herbicides, the per capital food production of the country declined from 22.9% to 12.8% as a result of population growth.

Based on the 3rd and 4th Assessment Report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Boko et al 2007), that predicted extreme events due to climate change scenarios (1997 and 2005), there are chances that droughts may still occur in Cameroon with devastating effects. These effects may include food shortages, and long term food insecurity (Inter- Research 2008). This definitely points to the likelihood of serious food security problems in Cameroon.

Food security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Food security is best considered as a casual, linked pathway from production to consumption, through distribution to processing, recognized in a number of domains, rather than as four “pillars”. Food security and food insecurity are dynamic, reciprocal and time dependent and the resultant status depends on the interaction between the stresses of food insecurity and the coping strategies to deal with them. Universal indicators for measuring food security are challenging. Different indicators may be applied to different levels of food security. Food security is a flexible concept as reflected by many attempts to define it in research and policy usage. The concept of food security originated some 50 years ago, at the time of global food crisis in the early 1970’s. even two decades ago, there were about 200 definition of food security in published writings (Maxwell and Smith,1992), showing the contextual dependent features of the definition.

Food security means that a country’s inhabitants are provided with sufficient and healthy food, everywhere and at any time, including in crisis situations. The global population is expected to continue to grow, especially in urban regions, which also implies a rising demand for food. Already the need to secure food for more people is confronting agriculture with the monumental task of working more sustainably and productively. Rapid urbanization, which occurs mainly to emerging economies and developing countries, means that people and governments will be facing further enormous challenges. For example, a Nigerian city with 4 million inhabitants requires around 3,000 tons of food a day. In order to provide this quantity, two lorries would have to each deliver three tons of food to the city every three minutes (Bayo,2006).

The most recent FAO projections, estimate that the level of understanding in the world have risen to 1.02 billion people during 2009, 147 million people more compared to 2006 data. This issue hits the 16% of the world’s population. As it is sadly known, the majority of the malnourished people are found in the developing countries where approximately 98% of the total lives. Future perspectives are worrying, considering that in 2050 there will be 2.3 billion people more than today to feed, the current situation; if no action will be taken it could only worsen (FAO,2008).

Food access issues should be approached by integrating two different analysis perspectives; on one hand, food security must be considered as a requirement for guaranteeing the availability of food to the growing masses of the population, especially in developing countries, and , on the other, the absolute quality and safety of the food produced and distributed must be guaranteed. In order to comprehend the complexity of the issue of food security, a multi-dimensional approach must be utilized which takes into account various perspectives of the phenomenon, including economics, politics, environment, and society.

The issue of food security continues to attract wide attention among food policy researchers and those of international development. Contemporary literature on food security has focused on the rural areas, but the current context of rapid urbanization and rising urban poverty in sub-Saharan Africa has led to food insecurity, warrants the attention of researchers and policy makers.

Ibrahim et al. (2009), affirms that urban areas are faced with the problem of increasing population and consequently inadequate supply of food items. In the year 2011-2013, an estimated 842 million people were suffering from chronic hunger; the United Nations (UN) recognized the right of Food in the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and has since noted that it is vital for the enjoyment of all other rights. The Food and Agricultural Organization in 2012 estimated that global population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and as such, there is a continuous need to increase food production and buffer stocks (FAO, 2008).

The conceptualization of food security goals by Koc et al. (1999) however goes beyond the adequacy of food quality and quantity and extends to the four “A” s (Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Adequacy). Availability connotes the physical presence(supply) of food in large amounts; Accessibility addresses the demand for the food and suggest sufficient purchasing power or ability to acquire quality food at all time. Hence food should be assessable to all equally. Acceptability addresses the cultural and symbolic value of food which is available with respect to individuals’ cultural traditions. Adequacy is usually defined in long-term sustainability of food security (FAO,2008).

Each of the key aspects of food security can be analyzed in a context of urban environment as the population grows due to different factors of urban migration. The most visible effect of urban expansion in Buea is discernible in the peri-urban areas, especially in areas like Bolifamba, Muea, Bomaka which have witnessed rapid population growth. Food security incorporates a measure of resilience to future disruption or unavailability of critical food supply due to various risk factors, some of which are uncontrolled and rapid urbanization, poor farm to market roads, loss of lands for residential purposes, traditional farming techniques and rapid changing food habits which characterize Buea (Jonathan et al.2011).

1.1 Problem Statement

Over the past century, enormous progress has been achieved worldwide in improving Human welfare. Societies have changed radically, thanks to quantum leaps of technology in many sectors but the agricultural sector is always neglected. Nevertheless, persistent and widespread hunger and malnutrition remain a huge challenge in many parts of the developing countries including Cameroon and Buea municipality in particular. In fact the current rate of progress in food production will not be able to eradicate hunger completely by 2030 and not even by 2035. At the same time, the evolution of food system s has both responded to a driven changing dietary preferences and patterns of over consumption which is reflected in the staggering increase in the prevalence of overweight and Obesity.

Expanding food production and economic growth have often come at a heavy cost to the society and the environment as a whole. Almost half of the forest that once covered the earth are now gone. Ground water sources are being depleted rapidly. Every year, billions of fossil fuels are sent to the atmosphere causing global warming and climate change.

All of these negative trends are accelerating in pace and intensity and agriculture is an important part of the problem. These trends threaten the sustainability of food crops and undermine the world’s captivity to meet its food needs. Although the full implications of climate change on agriculture, forestry and fisheries are difficult to predict, it is expected that impacts will be at different levels and of a different nature in each region. For example, slight shift in annual rainfall or seasonal precipitation patterns can severely affect productivity. This current study lays emphasis on food crops within the Buea municipality.

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Research Question

What are the challenges of food security in the Buea Municipality?

1.3.2 Specific Research Questions

1. What are the Causes of food insecurity in the Buea Municipality?
2. Who are the stake holders involve in food security in the Buea Municipality?
3. What are the challenges of food security in the Buea Municipality?
4. What have been done to mitigate these challenges in the Buea Municipality?