Increasing the Resilience of the Food Systems
In Islamic States in Face of Future Food Crises
38
also launched a number of initiatives, including the National Food Innovation Hub—which
provides incubator services with a focus on innovation—and the Prepared Consumer Food
Production (PCF)Center—which enables companies to test specialist processing and packaging
equipment.112 In the U.S., the government spent $4 billion on R&D in 2015.113 The Government
land grant system—which gave ownership of land to individual states in 1862—provided land
to colleges that provided agriculture education programs to encourage research projects in
agriculture. In the FY 2018 FarmBill, Congress reauthorized $700million per year for research,
with priority areas spanning plants, animals, food safety, bioenergy, agriculture systems and
technology, and agriculture economics and rural communities.114
Diversifying livelihoods is essential for resilience and food security. Best practice countries have
several programs and initiatives that diversify livelihoods. They do this by improving rural
infrastructure and transport, and by supporting rural people and businesses. Ireland invests in
improving rural infrastructure and transport services through a number of programs , including
the Local LinkRural Transport Program—which aims to improve rural transport and integrate
into the national public transport system115—and the Local Improvement Scheme—which aims
to improve private and non-publicly-maintained roads in isolated rural areas.116 Other
programs diversify livelihoods, such as the Rural Innovation Program that supports rural
people, and the “LEADER” Initiative that enables small food and beverage businesses torenovate
and purchase food processing equipment.117
In the U.S., under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (SNAP) Education and Training Program, low income individuals in rural and urban
areas gain skills, training, or work experience to increase their ability to obtain regular
employment that leads toeconomic self-sufficiency and diversity in livelihoods. The USDA Food
and Nutrition Service (FNS) provides funding annually to States to oper ate the SNAP E&T
program. States have considerable flexibility to determine which SNAP participants to serve,
which specific services to offer, and their network of providers and partners. The 2014 Farm
Bill authorized up to $200 million for the development, implementation, and evaluation of up to
10 pilot projects designed to reduce dependency and increase work effort under the SNAP
Program. These pilots will give USDA and states the opportunity to build on existing SNAP E&T
programs and test new strategies to determine themost effective ways to help SNAP recipients
gain and retain employment that leads to self-sufficiency.118
112 FoodWise 2025 Steps to success 2018.. Retrieved from
foodandtheeconomy/foodwise2025/stepstosuccess2018/section8.html
113 USDA ERS - Agricultural Research Funding in the Public and Private Sectors. (2019, February 15). Agricultural Research
Funding in the Public and Private Sectors. Retrieved
funding-in-the-public-and-private-sectors/
114 National Academy Press. (1995). Colleges of Agriculture at the Land Grant Universities:A Profile. Retrieved from
115 Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian A. Gregory, and Anita Singh. (2018). Household Food Security in the
United States in 2017, ERR-256. Economic Research Service. Retrieved from
116 (2019, February 7). €10m funding for new scheme to improve rural roads Retrieved from
117 McCormack, Claire.. (2018, May 1). €15million LEADER food fund aims to ‘sustain rural livelihoods’. Retrieved from
118 USDA Website.