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Ranking of scenarios, actors and goals of food security: motivation for information seeking by food security decision makers

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Abstract

The establishment of the millennium development goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 (several of which are relevant to food security) meant that countries may use these markers to evaluate their progress and development. In order to achieve the targets identified in the SDGs which focus on food security, two scenarios have been identified. The aim of this paper is to rank the scenarios which would better assist in achieving food security, the actors and the goals of food security, expecting that the results would serve to inform the motivation and information seeking habits of decision makers in three Caribbean countries. The analytic hierarchy process and point score analysis were used to analyse the ranks assigned by the respondents. It was found that overall for policymakers/stakeholders/experts, trade-based food security was ranked higher than self-sufficiency food security and that Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados ranked it more important than in Belize. Regarding actors in obtaining food security, government was ranked most important in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados but Belize felt that farmers were more significant. The economic goals of food security were ranked higher than physical and political goals, with socio-cultural goals ranked least important. Of the sub-goals, post disaster food security (physical); ensuring a stable food supply (political); having optimum levels of productivity (economic); and decreasing chronic non-communicable diseases and obesity (socio-cultural goals) were rated most important. These results reflect the motivation and information seeking behaviour of decision makers. They illustrate the ‘bias’ in searching and selecting information and where balance would be needed to treat with all aspects of food security.

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Notes

  1. CARICOM member countries include 15 territories: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Commonwealth of Dominica, Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Republic of Haiti, Republic of Suriname, Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines.

Abbreviations

AHP:

Analytical hierarchy process

CNCDs:

Chronic non-communicable diseases

MDGs:

Millennium development goals

PSA:

Point score analysis

SDGs:

Sustainable development goals

UWI:

The University of the West Indies

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to the respondents in this survey for their support and willingness to contribute.

Funding

This work was supported by the Campus Research and Publication Fund, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago [CRP.5.JUL.12.01] to assist with expenditure to collect data.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Founders Library, St. George’s University, c/o PO Box 7, St. George’s, Grenada

    Shamin Renwick

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  1. Shamin Renwick
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Correspondence to Shamin Renwick.

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Conflict of interest

The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Availability of data and material

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable requests.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Questionnaire

1.1 Rank the levels of the hierarchy

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Appendix 2: ranking of scenarios, actors and food security goals

See Tables 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Table 6 Ranking of scenarios, actors and food security goals using combined AHP and PSA ranking—overall sample
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Table 7 Ranking of scenarios, actors and food security goals by country using combined AHP and PSA ranking—overall sample
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Table 8 Ranking of scenarios, actors and food security goals by category of persons using combined AHP and PSA ranking—overall sample
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Table 9 Ranking of detailed food security goals using AHP
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Table 10 Ranking of detailed food security goals by category of persons using AHP
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Table 11 Ranking of detailed food security goals by country using AHP
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Renwick, S. Ranking of scenarios, actors and goals of food security: motivation for information seeking by food security decision makers. Environ Syst Decis 40, 444–462 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-020-09756-1

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