Philanthropy and food security

I'm trying to understand the role of philanthropy in food (in)security. Once upon a time food insecurity was called "hunger."

There has been a lot of philanthropic interest in food security in the USA and elsewhere. While the shift in terminology from hunger to "food insecurity" has many observers cracking jokes about political rhetoric, the fact is that people in countries both wealthy and poor are not getting enough nutritious food. In the US, we have (seemingly oxymoronically) intertwined problems of hunger, obesity, diabetes, and bankrupt small farms. Several movements are afoot to promote sustainable agriculture and farmers markets, get junk food out of schools, and limit the use of "lab" products like high-fructose corn syrup and transfats.

Foundations are supporting the efforts noted above, but the big news is about American foundations and Africa. Most recently the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations announced a new initiative, Alliance for Another Green Revolution (AGRA). Some have noted this as the first large-scale case of one huge foundation outsourcing work to another (Rockefeller's expertise, Gates' money). Others are sure the $150 million investment will fail because it ignores much of what was learned from the first Green Revolution as well as all of the current issues about global warming, sustainable agriculture and economies, and biodiversity.

The Rockefeller Foundation has undisputed credentials in terms of philanthropic investments in agriculture. It spent an estimated $600 million on the first green revolution. As one of the nation's oldest foundations and one of the few that makes its archives (relatively) public, RF also seems to think that history matters.

How will the new effort learn from the past? The first Green Revolution did not bypass Africa, huge investment were made and many strategies attempted. Why did they work or not work? Is the problem food production or is it really about distribution and access for poor people? The former is far more amenable to bio-technology solutions. The latter set of issues is far more complicated and involves cultural traditions, market forces, geography, political economics, and so on.

Will this second "revolutionary" set of investments address the complicated social structures that exacerbate the problems of hunger? Can it focus on diverse, native, sustainable food sources? Or does the alliance assume the answers lie in the lab and consequences be damned?

Reaching communities using new media

By now every major news source is "cross-platform." You can read the NYT or WSJ online, subscribe to their RSS feeds, download podcasts from their columnists, and so on. Listening to the radio just now I learned that NPR's Science Friday is available not only via podcast but also has a presence in Facebook. This just tells me that nonprofits and philanthropists looking for 1) information on certain communities and/or 2) trying to do outreach need to reach across a much wider variety of sources than before. Another example, moot court from Harvard Law School in SecondLife (Hey, now we can all be OneLs - or at least our avatars can be)

Henry Jenkins Blog

Henry Jenkins is a faculty member at MIT Media Studies. His blog on games and interactive culture is worth checking out. His posts on civic media in the digital age have important insights on how communities are changing and using media.


So What for Philanthropy?
In order to be successful, philanthropy and philanthropists need to understand how communities work, where they are, what they want, and how they communicate. Some of the very best thinking on these issues is being done by people who specialize in media, gaming, and social networking systems.

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Since I have an "old" Blogger*Plus account I can't yet develop categories for these posts. The categories I would use, if the technology allowed me to, would be as follows:

Civic Media
Community Philanthropy
Digital Philanthropy
Micro - enterprise, finance, etc.
Philanthropy and Information
Philanthropy and New Media, Technology
Philanthropy Networks
Progressive Philanthropy
Social - enterprise, entrepreneurs, etc.
Social Capital Markets

And this post would be categorized in DP and PNMT

Global Giving Matters

Meanwhile, back in the real world, here is the latest issue of Global Giving Matters. I was struck by the story on Britain's Wellcome Trust floating a bond (something both the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and J. Paul Getty Trust in the US have done).