Imelda V. Abano is reporting for the Business Mirror online that three United Nations agencies have “launched . . . a food security strategy to help developing nations address food insecurity by investing in agriculture and safety nets, to address hunger exacerbated by the food and financial crises and climate change.”Three United Nations agencies working on this strategy are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program (WFP). These agencies will all work in collaboration on the strategy that they approved at the World Summit on Food Security. FAO Director Jacques Diouf noted that hunger affects roughly 1 billion people and one way to deal with hunger is to produce more food where the poor and hungry live. To do this there must be a commitment to boost agricultural investment in developing countries.
Diouf highlights the food production disparity between developed nations and developing nations in the Abano article, ‘“In some developed countries, 2 percent to 4 percent of the population are able to produce enough food to feed the entire nation and even to export, while in the majority of developing countries, 60 to 80 percent of the population are not able to meet country food needs,’ Diouf said.” Diouf called for increases in official development assistance to agriculture and for developing countries to increase their domestic budgets for agriculture and to encourage “private investment.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed those attending the Rome summit and laid out a comprehensive “spectrum of measures” that must be addressed to truly tackle the hunger issue. The growing global population is one issue, and climate change is another. To address the problems Ban argued for more agriculture development, increasing agricultural productivity, better market access, and fair trade, among others. Ban also said the efforts on these fronts must help smaller farm and farmers—particularly women:
“These smallholder farmers are the heart and soul of food security and poverty reduction . . . We must resist protectionism and end subsidies that distort markets. This, ladies and gentlemen, lies at the core of food security. Our job is not just to feed the hungry, but to empower the hungry to feed themselves. . . Millions of families have been pushed into poverty and hunger. Suffering on this scale spills over borders. It sets back development and undercuts social order, as we well know. Over the past year and a half, food insecurity led to political unrest in some 30 countries [.]”
Ban stated that today’ situation should be ‘“a wake-up call for tomorrow.”’
To read the Business Mirror article click here.
Posted: 11/17/09
