Can PPP In Agriculture Address The Issues Of Food Security?

Global food security has been a matter of concern for decades for global leaders. It has been a major cause of concern for many underdeveloped as well as developing economies. On the other hand, some developed nations have obesity pandemics going on in their nations. It is a topic of discussion for some other time but here in this article, we will be studying the issues of food security and the effects of PPP in the agriculture sector on the food security issue.

Over the past few decades, there have been continuous improvements in the sector of food security and starvation. But as a result of climate changes, market disruptions, and declining productivity of soil today the population that stays hungry is more than earlier along with the percentage of the population as well. In a response to this many researchers, their funders, governments, organizations and other concerned interest groups are pondering various possibilities to improve the state of global hunger and food security issues. One of the major points of consideration in this is inviting PPP in agriculture to answer the food security issues.

However, there are many civic organizations and other groups that are strongly opposing the concept of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs or P3s) from working. In this article, we will deeply focus on and discuss whether Public Private Partnerships can bring change to the food security issue or not.

Introduction to the Food Security Issue

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Crop Life International (CLI) published a joint statement in late 2020 stating that they will collaborate to advance technical applications to improve global food security. The goal of this public-private partnership (P3) is to strengthen agri-food systems through market mechanisms, eliminating food poverty and increasing rural development by various means. Supporters of public-private partnerships applauded the development, noting that public-private partnerships are doing an increasing percentage of worldwide agri-food research and technology commercialization. Leading PPP consulting firms in Dubai such as Green urbane are also of the opinion that PPPs in the agriculture sector can bring out better change for the global food security issue. Let us jump to the next segment to understand things in a better way.

Challenges Faced For Food Security

For the past six decades, several nations and organizations are prioritizing food security issues and doing thorough research on developing new technologies that could help ease up these issues. Since the year the 1960s there have been numerous green and white revolutions denoting and studying various improvements in agriculture styles and the increased yield on the land. Several studies and simultaneous efforts have been made to ensure that the increase in crop yield is simply not because of an increase in land under cultivation.

However, despite all these efforts in recent times, the number of people and families who are insecure about food has increased in recent times. The biggest challenge for this is gradual decreases in productivity of land under cultivation. Another major cause for this is reduced investment in agricultural operations. As of 2010 globally, less than 5% population is directly engaged in activities related to agriculture. If agriculture as a business model can be made a profitable business just like other businesses and commerce activities it can help us address the issues of food security. Public-private partnerships can play a significant role in this sector and many people can get benefited from this globally.

Public-Private Partnerships Beneficial Examples

The Rockefeller Foundation collaborated with the Mexican government to establish the International Agriculture Program, in 1943 to boost yields of beans, corn, wheat, and potatoes.

Further, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations joined forces with the Philippine government to establish the International Rice Research Institute in 1960. These two organizations collaborated to develop higher-yielding, semi-dwarf wheat and rice varieties that gave speed to the Green Revolution, because of which food-insecure countries like Mexico and India achieved basic self-sufficiency. Such efforts since then have been multiplied across various countries.

Many large multinational corporations have already got themselves engaged in research on food and agriculture to help increase production. Many public-private partnership consulting firms in Dubai also suggest that with better investment and better infrastructure facilities more research can be done and it can bring out a positive outcome for food insecurity issues.

The Future Potential of Public-Private Partnership in Agriculture

Various types of research conducted by several organizations indicate that PPPs have brought a better and significant positive impact on the production of food and as a result global food insecurity challenges. Whenever PPPs are involved in agricultural research R&D does an excellent and exceptional job in helping find measures for coupling food production. The only thing that remains is to reap the most out of a successful PPP one must take the services of a reputed PPP Advisory Services in UAE and then go ahead with the venture.