Vulnerability to Food and Nutrition Insecurity under Mountain Specificities: Unique Challenges and Niche Opportunities

Mountains cover 22 per cent of the world’s land surface and are home to some 915 million people, representing 13 per cent of global population (FAO, 2015). Around 50 million people currently live in remote rural mountain areas where their ability to access basic health, education, water, and supply services is limited; their trading capacity constrained and around 17 million of these people are also vulnerable to food insecurity (FAO & UNCCD, 2019). Mountains and hills are often regarded as ecologically more fragile than fertile plains (Jodha, 1990; Sati, 2015; Yin, Fang and Yun, 2009). Its shallow soil, slopes with steep and differing elevations which are also limited and unsuitable for mass agricultural production, poor infrastructure, poor market access coupled with occurrence of extreme climatic events make people living in mountain areas particularly vulnerable to food insecurity (FAO, 2015; Jenny & Egal, 2002). Around 311 million people, approximately half of the mountain population in the developing countries, live in areas exposed to progressive land degradation, 178 million of whom are considered vulnerable to food insecurity (approximately 27 per cent of the mountain population in 2017) (FAO & UNCCD, 2019). A study done by FAO with Mountain Partnership Secretariat reported 39 percent of mountain population in developing countries as vulnerable to food insecurity in 2012, a 30 percent increase in the number of vulnerable mountain people in the 12 years since 2000, while the mountain population itself has increased just 16 percent (FAO, 2015). During 2012 to 2017, over a five-year period, the number of people vulnerable to food insecurity in rural mountain areas is increased from 307 to 346 million people. Overall, the population exposed to food insecurity in mountain areas has increased by 12.5 per cent over five years, surpassing the rate of increase of non-vulnerable peoples (12.2%) (FAO & UNCCD, 2019). However, in spite of the relevance and gravity of the issue of vulnerability of hill and mountain people to food insecurity, detailed and concise data on nutrition for specific mountain areas, are rare (Kreutzmann, 2006; Dame and Nüsser, 2011; FAO, 2015; Rasul et al., 2018). Case studies on complex food systems in these areas are needed to facilitate depiction of current trends and challenges and provide detailed information to policymakers (Dame, 2018).…