Book Review: Sowing the Seeds of Peace for Food Security: Disentangling the nexus between conflict, food security and peace by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

The loss of land, crops, and livestock is becoming a new reality for many farmers and pastoralists in Kenya. Longer dry seasons and uncertain rains have put pressure on pastoralists to move their herds to nature reserves and farmlands in search of pasture and water. This is highly unusual for a country where, historically, farmers have lived in higher altitudes and pastoralists in lower areas, but water shortages are forcing herders to move higher, leading to violent clashes between the two groups. The arising violence has shaken the food systems and livelihoods of these communities. 

In a recent report, Sowing the Seeds of Peace for Food Security: Disentangling the nexus between conflict, food security and peace, researchers at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations revealed the devastating effects of armed conflicts on food security. Not just in Kenya, but all around the world. 

The researchers successfully weave in literature, cross-country comparisons, country case studies, and original narratives to highlight how violence undermines the ability for communities to access food, disproportionately affecting women and children. The study is aimed at policy makers, academics, students, and for all who are interested in food security and peace in violence-afflicted countries. 

In less than 90 pages, the study uses statistics and case studies to paint a haunting and revealing image of the damage violence creates that forces people to go hungry. One story they tell is of conflict in South Sudan. Four decades of constant fighting between two ethnic groups over natural resources and a famine that hit in 2017 has led to high levels of malnutrition. 

Inadequate relief support from the Sudanese government to mitigate violent conflict has led to a staggering decrease in food availability. Especially troubling is that one in three children experience malnourishment. Infrastructure, irrigation systems, and roads used for trade all get damaged as militants destroy areas to gain control over territories. This forces family members to reduce meals, sell their livestock, migrate to less affected areas, and take their children out of school. Increased droughts have also deepened the confrontations between groups, leaving more people with less food and worsening the fight for resources. The government’s inability to provide security to communities has left the most innocent citizens without proper access to food or an opportunity to study. 

This is even more concerning for parents, who, for many, providing for their children is their main concern. Wouldn’t that be yours? Well, the study found that mothers will put themselves in dangerous situations to provide for their children. 

Returning to Kenya, rural women have found themselves risking their lives to feed their children. There, the social norm is for women to cook and gather all the materials needed to cook, even the fuelwood to produce charcoal. Refugees in Kakuma, Kenya, are forced to exit the refugee camp to look for wood. Women will walk long distances to access wood, where they risk being attacked by Kakuma locals, who claim that refugees are making their own food insecurity worse, and wild animals. Rural women shouldn’t find themselves pressured to risk their lives to help their household stay afloat, yet they often are. 

The FAO has created a sustainable program to solve this problem and alleviate food insecurity.  Rather than using wood for the production of charcoal, the FAO promotes women to use invasive shrubs. It’s a sustainable win-win situation that allows women to save time and engage in income-generating activities, while also preventing deforestation. The program is not only good for women in Kenya, but also for the planet. 

To create more positive programs like this one, governments must be able to provide basic services. Unfortunately, many countries affected by conflict do not have the financial resources to provide basic services that could alleviate violence and food insecurity. The study lacks a plausible solution for governments to implement a policy that takes into account a country’s financial resources. By not expanding sufficiently on a country’s economic possibilities to invest in food security programs, the researchers leave the reader hungry for more. A greater focus on how the international community could play a larger role in helping developing countries would have solidified the researchers’ recommendations. 

Even though the study lacks this, the study does an incredible job at bringing to light the hardships that women and children face in their inability to access food in conflict zones. It’s a must read for politicians seeking to improve the livelihoods of their people, as it provides recommendations for sustaining peace, conflict sensitivity, and on how to conduct research and analysis to inform the design and implementation of food security interventions. In addition, it’s accessible enough for anyone to learn about this subject.

Sowing the Seeds of Peace for Food Security does a remarkable job at analyzing various case studies to enhance the reader’s understanding of how conflict impacts food insecurity and the need to reduce violence to sustain peace. While reading the case studies, the researchers remind us that to plant the first seed of peace for food security, governments need to create policies that protect women and children from violence.