Results of the Research Papers Contest on “Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security: Building Bridges between Durable Agricultural Practices and School Feeding Programmes” are out. The authors of the top three papers will participate in study missions with the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger. The top five papers will be published in the Brazilian Journal of International Law.
The contest was a joint initiative of the WFP Centre of Excellence and the University Centre of Brasília. The competition aimed to identify research centres and educational groups worldwide with expertise in food and nutritional security in order to support the generation and dissemination of knowledge, and promote the integration of science and politics in the food and nutritional security research field.
Winners
First place went to Rozane Marcia Triches, PhD in Nutrition and professor at Universidade Federal de Fronteira do Sul, in Paraná state, southern Brazil. Her paper, “Efficiency and efficacy of public food procurement from family farmers for school feeding in south of Brazil”, demonstrates that efficiency of public food procurement from smallholder farmers is greater when there is strategic action of social actors. Based on interviews and the revision of rendition of accounts and public calls, the paper shows that effective purchases provide income to family farmers and quality food to schoolchildren.
Raymond Jatta, PhD in Economics and Programme Coordinator at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, in The Gambia, won second place with the paper “Community Cereal Banking in The Gambia: determinants and impacts on food and nutrition security”. Community cereal banking is one possible strategy to help farming communities buffer production and prices shocks, as well as seasonal variations in their access to food. The study analyses the determinants of the communities’ choice of cereal banking as development project and assess the treatment effect on food and nutrition security outcomes. Results show that cereal banking substantially reduces inter-seasonal food price variability at the community level, improves households’ food and nutrition security, but has less impact on their wealth accumulation.
Third place went to Renato Lagapa Base, MSc in Economics and Researcher at the Estonian Crop Research Institute, in the Philippines. Lagapa Base submitted the paper “A Conceptual Paper on the Policy-Framework That Mirrors the Dynamic Link between Human Security, Social Protection and Safety Nets, and Food and Nutritional Security: The Case of the ‘Gulayan sa Paaralan Program’”. The research shows the policy-framework that came out from the promulgated policies of the Department of Education in the Philippines relative to its Gulayan sa Paaralan Program. It demonstrates the link between the concepts human security, social protection and safety nets, and food and nutritional security embedded in the policy-framework.
Fourth place went to Mariana Girardi, MSc in Nurtition at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, for the paper “Policy coherence in the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development: the Brazilian school feeding programme case study”. Fifth place went to Clement Mensah, from University of West Cape, South Africa, for the paper “Incentivizing smallholder farmer livelihoods and constructing food security through home-grown school feeding: the case of SNV’s Grain Banks Initiative in Sissala East District, Ghana”.
