Food Insecurity in Timor Leste, a Country Recovering from Conflict
Food security, a subject many do not properly acknowledge, is a huge epidemic in the world today. Publicity surrounding food insecurity has surfaced in the media, such as the infamous pictures and video clips of starving Ethiopian children, however, many are unwilling or unsure about how to actually help. Developing countries particularly are struggling with access to current technologies and traditional cropping and harvesting techniques no longer being sufficient enough to sustain rising population levels and even climate change. But what exactly is food security and what constitutes a country as being food secure or insecure?
A definition for food security was created at the World Food Summit in 1999 in order to clear up any misconceptions and confusion. Food security constitutes “’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.’” (Barret 2010, originally from World Food Summit 1999) Barret elaborates on the importance of this broad definition, saying that it encompasses not only current disruptions in food security, but also the vulnerability of a country to future disruptions.
The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) publishes new findings on the statistics and severity of food security in the United States every year. These statistics are calculated based on “reported behaviors, experiences, and conditions” in a household survey. (Wunderlich and Norwood 2006) This method seems like an effective way to collect data, but it definitely has some flaws, especially when its implication is considered for developing countries. What about people who are too poor to own homes? How do they account for people who may not have a way to receive such a survey? What about prisoners, homeless people, or the people in refugee camps? While this survey seems like a good way to record food insecurity for the purpose of statistics, food security as a whole must be addressed, including everyone affected by it. Rather than focusing on its severity, we need to do something to help solve it; a policy that can be applied anywhere.
Timor Leste, also known as East Timor, is one of many places in the world being affected by food insecurity, however, it is a unique case. Timor is located in Southeast Asia surrounded by Indonesian West Timor and their neighbor to the south, Australia. From the 16th century up until November of 1975, Timor Leste was occupied by Portugal. For nine days, Timor Leste remained an independent territory until they were again overthrown, this time by Indonesia. This takeover was anything but civil; a violent conflict which lasted for decades between the Indonesian military and Timor’s separatist groups. In 1999, with the help of the sponsorship of the United Nations, Indonesia was forced to relinquish their control and Timor Leste finally became an independent territory. (Wikipedia 2018) Ever since they gained their independence, Timor has experienced an influx of people returning to their homeland, which is increasing the population rapidly. This increase in population can be perceived as a good thing, as there will be more people to work and contribute to their economy and overall GDP, for example. However, this means that they must change their current agricultural practices in order to adapt to these rapidly increasing numbers and learn how to develop on their own.
Current strategies are being implemented, such as the Coral Triangle Initiative, which encompasses six states (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Timor Leste). However, just like this one, many of these initiatives do not specifically target food insecurity, but indirectly affect it through other modifications. In this case, the Coral Triangle Initiative’s main goal is to maintain marine biodiversity in these states in an attempt to decrease food security. However, it is being argued that the people who created this initiative are using the concept of food security as a justification for the necessity of marine biodiversity conservation, rather than specifically analyzing the links and targets for improving food security (Foale et al. 2012). The theory for this initiative is that if these six states are able to conserve their marine life, they will be able to put this produce towards improving overall food security (Foale et al. 2012). According to the initiative’s backers, the global fish demand could have a large impact on food security and therefore we must conserve the fish industry by conserving marine life as a whole.
This initiative presents multiple ways to help marine conservation. One of the two specific pieces of the Coral Triangle Initiative I will address is a wealth-based ecosystem approach. This approach includes a structured intervention that mainly focuses on the industry of fishing, promoting trade, and redistributing rent into public goods and services. This approach has the possibility to extend regionally and nationally, however, it may be at the expense of local business (Foale et al. 2012). Another proposed method is the welfare focused ecosystem approach. This approach allows those who participate in the fishing industry to move in and out of the industry in response to the variability in environmental and socio-economic conditions (Foale et al. 2012). A welfare focused ecosystem approach would enhance food security at local and provincial levels, accounting for fresh fish production and the generation of local income. However, this approach is at the expense of economic efficiency. (Foale et al. 2012) Based on Timor Leste’s past encounters with their neighbors, I feel that they would prefer the welfare focused ecosystem approach mostly because it emphasizes local success over extending their already limited resources to other regions and nations. The thought of discouraging local businesses after gaining independence from Indonesia seems counterintuitive and against what they might stand for. I think that enhancing local businesses is better than emphasizing economic efficiency at this point, as economic efficiency isn’t their biggest concern. Their main concern is improving food security. Economic efficiency might be able to come after they try improving local business, but for now they should focus on utilizing this independence to its fullest.
Another possibility that has proven to be successful thus far is the implication of higher yielding crop varieties. Ever since they came out of conflict in 1999, Timor Leste has rarely been constituted as self-sufficient in food production and regularly requires an emergency import of grain. There are two phases of food shortages in Timor Leste and potentially other places affected by food shortage as well. The first phase is known in the Tetun language as tempu aihan menus, which is when the amount of food consumed by each household decreases (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012). During this phase, households will consume the last of the rice and maize crops, but mostly rely on root crops, such as cassava, sweet potato, taro, and arrowroot. Adults during this period rely on one or two meals at most per day and children are provided two to three meals per day (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012).
In worst-case scenarios, food shortages will reach the second phase, which is when “all staple food is in short supply.” (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012) This phase is constituted as the hungry season known as tempu rai hamlaha and farmers have to rely heavily on wild food from forests and purchasing or loaning food from outside sources (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012). This second phase occurs when families are not able to consume at a “normal” rate because many crops are in the midst of growing. For example, in the highlands, maize is harvested between March and April, so the hungry months can extend from September or October until March or April. In the lowlands, rice farmers suffer similar affects before the harvest in June or July in the north and August or September in the south (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012).
Based on the statistic of adult and children meal allotments during the first phase of food shortage, an education program for women on how to extend their food to provide more for their children may be a beneficial implementation. If women and other family providers were taught how to make their food go farther, the second phase may very well be avoided. In the very least, even if it didn’t help Timor Leste from completely avoiding the second phase, it would lessen its effects greatly. The way this program would work is that a specialist in the food conservation industry, perhaps within the Environmental Science industry (specifically studying food sustainability) or a nutritionist, would hold either electronic conferences or in-person gatherings for women and other providers within Timor Leste. They would teach these providers how to properly cultivate and sustain the food they are currently provided and learn how to make these meals last longer while also being nutritionally enough. One con of this idea is that there may need to be someone willing to volunteer their time in order to save money or there might be a discrepancy in the technological bridge between the two places, which would create complications for the electronic method.
In order to avoid the hungry season, or the dreaded phase two of food shortage, Lopes and Nesbitt propose introducing new higher yielding crops to Timor Leste. These crops include cereals such as rice from the lowlands and flat areas, maize from the uplands, and wheat and barley from the highlands. They also diversify these crops with other crops such as sweet potato, cassava, legumes, and potatoes (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012). This diversification of crops will benefit the community by providing soil with new crops to grow and renew itself with and also provide people with new foods to use to their highest potential. Although it can be labor-intensive, sometimes farmers will rely on wild crops such as yams, bitter beans, and sago palms (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012). This introduction of wild crops was an interesting aspect of Timor Leste that drew my attention.
Utilizing this concept of wild crops, creating a stronger, possibly more formal trade system between neighbors and other communities could be vital to halting the downfall of food security. This system could even stretch as far as governmental and nongovernmental organizations participating in international export and import of crops in order to help this diversification and fulfill the missing pieces of an unbalanced food pyramid. However beneficial this proposal may seem, it does come with some drawbacks and complications, the first being the difficulty of recruiting government support. Since Timor Leste has undergone and recently overcome conflict with other countries and states, the government in Timor may be extremely hesitant to join an organization which may betray them. Besides the hesitation on Timor Leste’s part, other countries’ governments could be hesitant to help such a deteriorated country. Each side may have their own interests in higher priority and be reluctant to help each other unless there is a considerable benefit for both parties. However, if these relationships between neighboring farmers and governments were to prosper, Timor Leste could see a drastic change in their rate of food shortage. This idea slightly contradicts the idea of emphasizing local businesses, but I believe that while also utilizing local business, they could be improved even further if they had a little help from their neighbors and possibly other countries.
The MAF has implemented three laws to assist with Timor Leste’s agriculture. These laws include limits on importation and sale of fertilizers, pesticide use, and in 2011 they considered a law on the management of the seed industry (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012). It is very common to find weeds during the growing season and agriculturalists have trouble preventing them, so they have resorted to using the slash and burn method. This is a very traditional method where farmers burn young forests and weedy lands at the end of the dry season. This might seem like a good idea, as this technique can promote growth by leaving a layer of ash, but sometimes it doesn’t do the trick. Weed infestation often causes very limited crop yields to decrease even more. Herbicides may be a second method to some, but their high cost discourages farmers in Timor Leste from using them. Lopes and Nesbitt (2012) mention that the implementation of tractors has been supported by the GOTL and since 2007, Timor Leste has seen an increase in the use of tractors in agriculture. However, the fuel for these tractors is also expensive, so Timor Leste has been forced to reduce tractor usage in agriculture (Lopes and Nesbitt 2012).
If funding were to be created for the fuel for tractors, crop yields could have the potential to increase and therefore help them slowly out of food insecurity. These could be done through something as small as a GoFundMe page or something as large as a governmental law that says a certain amount of money (calculated by how much fuel they need per growing season) should be set aside solely for the purpose of tractor fuel. This may be easier said than done, as it is very difficult and time consuming to get a law such as this one passed and enacted, so starting small with a GoFundMe page might be more realistic. Once it is demonstrated that the money from a simple donation page has gone far and improved even slightly the incidence of food insecurity, maybe the government would be able to help them out and eventually provide more support for agriculture practices.
To address the law about the implementation of pesticides, Lopes and Nesbitt speak about how Timor Leste is hesitant to use chemical fertilizers, since they have led to lower crop yields in the past. This hesitation has limited the market of chemical fertilizers, so they are inaccessible to local farmers. In place of chemical fertilizers, agronomic research has displayed the effectiveness of “organic” techniques, such as pairing legumes and cereal plants. A study performed by Vidal and Williams (2011) involved planting velvet bean between maize crops which led to increased maize yields. Velvet beans provide the surrounding soil with more nitrogen fixation and leaf litter while also shading out weeds, therefore protecting and enhancing the yield of maize crops. Not only does this bean help with maize yields, but it is also edible when boiled.
Utilizing these findings, it might be smart to implement velvet beans as a way of weed control, as opposed to chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. Because of their double benefit of both preventing weeds and providing another crop for harvesting eventually, it would be very worth trying this technology. It doesn’t seem to be very expensive and it works almost like push-pull agricultural technology. If anything, I think that the implementation of this technique should be heavily considered in order to increase crop yield and hopefully decrease the effects of food insecurity.
While agricultural practices have proven to be important for obvious reasons, another interesting perspective is the effects of climate change and population growth. Population growth is relatively self-explanatory; as the population grows and food sources do not, food insceuirty rises. However, Molyneux et al. (2012) evaluates the not-so-obvious aspects of Timor Leste that may in fact be affecting food security as much as agricultural practices. A huge part of climate change that affects food production and therefore food security is rainfall averages. With climate change comes unpredictable precipitation. This challenges agricultural practices by threatening unpredictability of a source that is vital to crop success: rainfall. This increase in rainfall can cause soil erosion on the steep slopes of Timor Leste and does little to provide these soils with more water availability. (Molyneux et al. 2012) Utilizing this knowledge and the effects of water on the steep slopes of Timor Leste, it may be a good idea to have technology that collects this rainfall and can transport it to another part of Timor where it is needed more in order to protect steep slopes from soil erosion and increase crop yields. This could mean technology as simple as a tank. This collection of rainwater could be used for trading or even stored (like a seed bank) for times when water is scarce.
Previous policy implementations and suggestions based on these implementations can work in harmony to help Timor Leste get back on their feet after almost twenty years of independence. Food security can first be analyzed through a nutritional lens. Food security not only assesses quantity, but quality. One way to help improve the quality of the food is to educate family providers on how to make their limited food go further and how to cook nutritional meals for their family. This new knowledge can help the quality problem, but not the quantity problem. There are a few methods I proposed based on previous strategies that may help the issue of quantity in relation to food security. One method is continuing with the welfare-based approach when speaking about marine conservation. This method emphasizes local businesses over national and regional business, which I think Timor Leste should try before relying on other regions to help them. Since they have just recently gained independence from other nations, I believe that they should rely only on themselves to try and fix this problem. However, if this approach goes downhill, they might benefit from trying the wealth-based approach. Marine conservation as a general aspect may have little evidence for a link between it and food security, however, it makes logical sense that if we preserve marine life and ecosystem, fish and other edible creatures will prosper and provide sustenance for the community. This renewed food resource provides a new way of sustenance that may be implemented in the education program mentioned above.
Aside from the above methods, there are many methods which focused on crop yields as an aspect that can threaten food security. A stronger trade system in combination with the implementation of higher-yielding crop varieties suggested by Lopes and Nesbitt (2012) could allow for Timor Leste to create long-lasting relationships and possibly generate some revenue to eventually put towards their agriculture. One thing that this new money could fund is the tractor fuel necessary to further implement tractors in agricultural practices. Another source of new money may come from halting the use of fertilizers and using velvet beans in their place. If velvet beans are less expensive, this may be a more cost-effective and beneficial way of weed control. The new velvet bean crop will also be implemented within the education program, including ways to grow it and also to eat it once it has done its job. And last but not least, the implementation of rainwater collection to avoid soil erosion and adapt to climate change. This rainwater tank could provide Timor Leste with another source of new money by creating a trade system or it can act like a seed bank for a time where they experience drought or less rainfall than average. Climate change is unpredictable and having this security of rainwater collection could save them from a drastic cut in crop yields due to a lack of rainwater.