Children eat lunch at a school in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a community where most children live in poverty, but thanks to the synergy between family farming and school meals, they have managed to eliminate malnutrition among the student body. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Orlando Milesi and Mario Osava
SANTIAGO/RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 11 2017 (IPS)

A model for fighting against hunger and malnutrition with a global reach which has been successful within and outside the region has spread worldwide, first from Brazil and then from Latin America, notes a distinction given to the current Director-General of FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation), José Graziano da Silva.

Graziano was included in the 2016 ranking of “Global Latin Americans” with influence at a global level, drawn up by the international edition of the journal AméricaEconomía, along with Pope Francis from Argentina, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, microfinance pioneer María Otero, who was born in Bolivia, famous Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio, Mexican-born journalist Jorge Ramos and Venezuelan poet Rafael Cárdenas, among others.

“He has been one of the most steadfast advocates of food security, working on the whole issue of rural life, which is why we put him on the list,” the journal’s director of digital media, Lino Solís de Ovando, told IPS.

AméricaEconomía, an international journal that is published in Santiago and which also has eight national or subregional editions as well as a large digital platform, seeks with this “unprecedented ranking to provide a list of the 25 most influential men and women,” he said. Not all of them are “in the front row,” but they are all “people who truly generate global change” with their activities, he said.

Graziano, director-general of FAO since 2012, a post he will hold until 2019 after he was reelected for a second term in 2015, led the team that designed Brazil’s “Zero Hunger” programme, which gave rise to a new global model.

“The recognition of people is an acknowledgment of the ideas and the causes to which they devote their lives. In this case, it is a recognition of rural development and the fight against hunger in Latin America and worldwide,” Graziano said on Thursday Feb. 9, referring to his inclusion on the list of Latin Americans with the greatest global influence.

Named special minister of food security and the fight against hunger (2003-2006) during the first years of the presidency of leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), “Graziano played a decisive role in coming up with strategies to combat hunger, combining structural and emergency actions,” the executive director of ActionAid International, Adriano Campolina, told IPS.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva speaking at the fifth Celac Summit, in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. Credit: FAO

“His efforts translated into loans to family farmers, improved school feeding and income transfer policies, among other initiatives,” Campolina said from the humanitarian organisation’s headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to Campolina, in his strategy Graziano “had the wisdom to identify in society effective and liberating ways to fight hunger,” translating them into public policies and “recognising that many solutions lay in the successful initiatives carried out by social movements and non-governmental organisations.”

Graziano was in charging of setting in motion “the most important programme in Lula’s administration, Zero Hunger, which had the full acceptance of all segments of Brazilian society, even the opposition to Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT),” said Frei Betto, who helped design and launch the programme, as special adviser to the president.

“Zero Hunger comprised more than 60 complementary and empowering programmes, including agrarian reform, unionisation, family agriculture, and rainwater harvesting others,” said the well-known Catholic writer, who is also an adviser to different social movements.

Its administration was in the hands of “civil society organised in Management Committees, which were created in more than 2,500 municipalities, half of Brazil, during Graziano’s term of office,” said Betto.

But in 2004 the government decided to focus its efforts on cash transfers, through Bolsa Familia, “which was compensatory in nature”. That led to Betto’s resignation, while Graziano became adviser to the president, until he was named FAO’s regional representative in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2006.

The replacement of Zero Hunger with Bolsa Familia, which provided direct subsidies, was due to pressure from municipal authorities who wanted to control the lists of beneficiaries for electoral purposes, said Betto.

“Fortunately, Graziano was recognised internationally, elected and re-elected as head of FAO, to take the initiative and experience of Zero Hunger to other countries,” he said.

“At FAO, Graziano had the political courage to recognise the key role played by small-scale family agriculture, women farmers, agroecology and sustainable agriculture in eradicating hunger,” said Campolina.

Recognising these tendencies, instead of prioritising large-scale agriculture and transnational corporations that abuse toxic agrochemicals, is “the paradigm shift that makes it possible to combat the structural causes of hunger,” he said.

“Graziano’s leadership strengthened the fight for access to land and sustainability and boosted family farmers, who produce 80 per cent of the world’s food,” said ActionAid’s executive director.

Economist Francisco Menezes, a former president of Brazil’s National Council of Food and Nutritional Security (2003-2007), stressed that “one of Graziano’s legacies is being able to get Brazil, Latin America and the world to give priority to the goal of food security.”

Graziano himself expressed hope at the fifth summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), held in January, that “Latin America and the Caribbean could become the first developing region to fully eradicate hunger.”

For this to happen, Menezes said, governments must reinforce the implementation of the Food Security, Nutrition and Hunger Eradication Plan developed by Celac with FAO support, whose goal is to put an end to the problem in the region by 2025.

Solís de Ovando also underscored FAO’s focus, during Graziano’s administration, on the issue of obesity and overweight, which affect 360 million people in the region, according to a study released by the organisation in January.

In its “Global Latin Americans” 2016 ranking, AméricaEconomía also highlighted the efforts made by the head of FAO in South-South cooperation and the exchange of solutions and experiences between countries of the different regions of the Global South, with the goal of achieving food security and sustainable development.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the second international Our Ocean conference, held in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Sitting next to him are Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz and President Michelle Bachelet. Credit: Foreign Ministry of Chile

By Marianela Jarroud
VALPARAÍSO, Chile, Oct 8 2015 (IPS)

Seafood offers a large amount of animal protein in diets around the world, and the livelihoods of 12 percent of the global population depend directly or indirectly on fisheries and aquaculture.

However, the impacts of climate change, plastic waste pollution, illegal fishing, and acidification threaten the oceans and their biodiversity, said experts at the second international Our Ocean conference, held Oct. 5-6 in the Chilean port of Valparaíso, 120 km northwest of Santiago.

The more than 500 participants from 56 countries taking part in the gathering committed to some 80 marine conservation and protection initiatives for over 2.1 billion dollars, covering more than 1.9 billion km of ocean, said Chile’s foreign minister, Heraldo Muñoz.

Muñoz and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, hosted the conference, whose first edition took place in 2014 in Washington, D.C.

In one of the keynote speeches, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, said keeping the oceans healthy and productive was key to eradicating hunger and reaching the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the international community during a Sept. 25-27 U.N. summit in New York.

“We cannot continue to use water resources as if they were infinite,” said Graziano da Silva, who pointed out that nearly one-third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.

The U.N. official said oceans do not have an infinite capacity to withstand the threats they face: over-exploitation of marine resources, climate change, pollution and loss of habitat.

“The health of our own planet and our food security depends on how we treat the blue world,” he stated.

FAO emphasises that fish is a highly nutritious complement to diets lacking in essential vitamins and minerals.

According to FAO, about one billion people – largely in developing countries – rely on fish as their primary source of animal protein. And in 2010, “fish provided more than 2.9 billion people with almost 20 percent of their intake of animal protein, and 4.3 billion people with about 15 percent of such protein.”

And in some countries, especially small island states, fish accounts for over 25 percent of animal protein intake, the U.N. agency reports.

Besides offering a staple element in diets worldwide, fishing and aquaculture provide jobs and incomes to millions of people across the planet.

“Fishing is part of the oldest, most remote history of the American continent,” social anthropologist Juan Carlos Skewes told IPS. “In the interior of the continent as well as along the coasts and rivers it provided sustenance for dozens of native peoples, especially groups whose nomadic way of life depended on the sea.”

And that is still true: 12 percent of the global population – or 875,000,000 people – depend directly or indirectly on fishing and aquaculture.

“The sea is so important for us because it not only feeds us, but gives us life,” said Petero Edmunds, mayor of Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, located 3,700 km off the coast of Chile in the Pacific ocean.

Oceans cover over 70 percent of the planet’s surface and 97 percent of all water on earth is salty, but only one percent is protected. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

“For Polynesians, the sea is our source of life,” he said in an interview with IPS. “It is so important that in our mythology we have Tangaloa, the God of the Sea, and in Rapa Nui’s ancient traditions, when a baby is born, the first thing the father must do is dip it into the sea, to return it to its natural state.”

In Latin America and the Caribbean there are over two million small-scale fisherpersons who generate some three billion dollars a year in revenues, according to the Latin American Organisation for Fisheries Development (OLDEPESCA).

Three of the world’s large marine ecosystems are found along South America’s coasts.

The main one is the Humboldt Current, in the Pacific ocean. It flows north along the west coast of South America, from the southern tip of Chile, past Ecuador, to northern Peru, creating one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems with approximately 20 percent of the world’s fish catch, according to FAO.

Other important ecosystems in the region, in the Atlantic ocean, are the Patagonian Shelf along the coasts of Argentina and Uruguay, and the South Brazil Shelf.

But these ecosystems are in serious danger: Around eight million tons of plastic bottles, bags, toys and other plastic waste is dumped into the oceans every year, killing innumerable marine animals and sea birds.

In addition, nearly one-third of global fish stocks are overfished.

Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved at the late September global summit in New York, number 14 is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.”

But the interdependence of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the vital role played by oceans which, for example, absorb more than 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, mean the SDGs are impossible to achieve without healthy and resilient oceans.

“Today we know there is a much closer relationship between oceans and climate change,” EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella told IPS.

He added that the protection of oceans should be a central focus of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

Foreign Minister Muñoz, meanwhile, said the government leaders taking part in the conference in Chile, who will also attend COP21, “have promised that protection of the oceans will be included in the documents and commitments that emerge from the summit.”

Muñoz stressed the importance of the announcements made by a number of countries at the Valparaíso conference.

He emphasised Chile’s pledge to protect more than one million sq km of sea, which will be one of the largest protected marine areas in the world.

As part of that initiative, the country announced the creation of 720,000 sq km of protected areas in Rapa Nui, as demanded by the island’s slightly over 5,000 inhabitants, who are seeking to protect the biodiversity of the surrounding waters, which are home to 142 endemic species, 27 of which are endangered or threatened.

The measure will also make it possible for them to continue their ancestral practice of subsistence fishing in the island’s 50 nautical mile zone.

“Artisanal fishing is still practiced according to our ancestral traditions in Rapa Nui,” Edmunds said. “Rocks are used as weights for the hooks, so we can catch tuna or other big fish.”

He said the creation of the marine protected area, announced by President Michelle Bachelet at the opening of the conference, would help combat illegal fishing in the waters surrounding the island.

“For decades we have seen ‘ghost’ ships that appear in the early hours of morning as lights on the horizon, which take our fish,” the mayor said.

“With the help of NGOs (non-governmental organisations), it has been shown that an average of 20 illegal vessels a day fish in our waters, which are taking our resources, and we don’t want them to be exhausted,” he added.

Bachelet also announced the creation of the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park covering 297,518 sq km, which will be the biggest such protected area in the Americas.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Andrew MacMillan
ROME, Jan 13 2015 (IPS)

About a week ago my wife was taken to hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia. She was promptly treated with antibiotics and, wonderfully, is now on the mend.

What has struck me about this experience is not so much the high professionalism of the health workers or their up-to-date hospital equipment but the fact that she has become immersed in what can best be described as “a culture of caring”.

Andrew MacMillan

She and the other patients in her ward are looked after round the clock by an extraordinary team of state-employed nurses in a quiet, efficient and courteous way that inspires confidence.

I suppose that there is nothing particularly unusual about this. Caring for others is a very natural human trait. Everywhere, mothers care for their children; sons and daughters care for their aging parents; and neighbours rush to help each other when they hit problems.

Perhaps, however, “modern” societies – if one dares to generalise about them – are driven more by the quest for individual material wealth than by any widely expressed wish to do things for the general good of humanity.

Unless you live in Bhutan, your country’s performance is measured not in terms of the happiness of its people but by the growth of its Gross Domestic Product; bankers and businessmen reward themselves with salary bonuses rather than with extra time with their families; and those who enjoy the highest pinnacles of wealth vie with each other over the size of their fleet of private jets or the tonnage of their personal yachts.

The idiosyncrasies of the super-rich and celebrities would not matter much if they had not become the new role models for people who aspire to “do well” in life and if their wealth did not entitle them to a voice in the corridors of world power. It seems odd that Presidents and Prime Ministers flock each year in January to [the World Economic Forum in] Davos to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, but perhaps this is simply a tacit admission of the influence that the latter have.“I believe that most people, at heart, want to see globalisation bring greater fairness and justice
even if this comes at the partial expense of our own material well-being”

Much of the recent material gains all around the planet is the result of the processes of globalisation that have successfully combined inventiveness, capital, low-cost but increasingly skilled labour and cheap transportation in new ways that have flooded the world’s markets with an amazing array of tantalising goods.

This apparent success of globalisation, however, may distract political attention from the idea that it could perhaps work better in everyone’s interest.

It seems absurd that 6 billion mobile phones have been produced and sold but 800 million people still go hungry every day; that, as people travel further, faster and more frequently, diseases such as Ebola spread more rapidly and more widely but the institutions responsible for protecting us from increased threats remain desperately under-funded; and that governments hesitate to upset their voters by acting to trim greenhouse gas emissions while, as predicted, the increasing frequency of extreme weather events is repeatedly wreaking havoc upon the unfortunate.

We tend to take these problems for granted rather than face up to the need to identify how to best manage globalisation in the interests of humanity.

I believe that most people, at heart, want to see globalisation bring greater fairness and justice even if this comes at the partial expense of our own material well-being.

I do not think that there are many people who, if asked, would want to see others starve for lack of food, who welcome greater weather instability or who think that it is right that their children should suffer from the environmental damage that results from our unsustainable lifestyles.

In a sense, President Lula of Brazil put this idea to the test during his successful 2002 campaign. Breaking out of the normal political mould, he did not promise his voters higher incomes but simply pledged that all Brazilians would enjoy three meals a day by the end of his term in office.

He unveiled his Zero Hunger Programme on his first day as President, with the State assuming the responsibility for assuring that all the poorest families in the country could fulfil their right to food. There was huge outpouring of popular support for his efforts to create the more just and equitable society that has now emerged.

What many of us would like to see is the emergence of a new international consciousness of social justice similar to that proposed by Lula and embraced by Brazilians twelve years ago.

It must be founded on a growing public recognition of the unique role that multilateral institutions have to play in ensuring that globalisation is harnessed to benefit all people, especially the poorest of the poor. It must also assure greater inter-generational fairness in the use of our planet’s scarce resources.

Nowhere is the need for greater fairness more apparent than in the realm of food management – where we face a crazy situation in which, though ample food is produced, the health of more than half the world’s population is now damaged by bad nutrition.

It is fitting that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, should have launched his personal “Zero Hunger Challenge” in Brazil in 2012 when he called for the elimination of hunger “within my lifetime”.

The fact that the current Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – the United Nations agency that that oversees global food management – is José Graziano da Silva, who was the Brazilian architect of Lula’s Zero Hunger Programme, inspires confidence that it will do all in its power to bring about a world without hunger.

We can already see a renewed FAO in action – committed to ending hunger and malnutrition, more focused in its goals, working as one and embracing partnerships for a better present and future. Four more years will allow Graziano da Silva to consolidate the transformations he has begun and realise their full effect to the benefit of the world´s poor and hungry.

Hopefully 2015 will be a year in which the world’s leaders will become the champions of the justice and fairness – the caring society that my wife has experienced – to which so many of us aspire.

At the very least, they should pick up the thought that, as in Brazil, it should be a perfectly normal function of any self-respecting government to ensure that all its people can eat healthily.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Women play an important role in guaranteeing sufficient food supply for their families. They are among the stakeholders whose voice needs to be heard in the debate on nutrition. Credit: FIAN International

By Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu
ROME, Nov 27 2014 (IPS)

There is a new dimension to the issue of malnutrition – governments, civil society and the private sector have started to come together around a common nutrition agenda.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the launch of the “Zero Hunger Challenge” by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June 2012 opened the way for new stakeholders to work together in tackling malnutrition.

These new stakeholders include civil society organisations and their presence was felt at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) held from Nov. 19 to 21 in Rome."Malnutrition can only be addressed “in the context of vibrant and flourishing local food systems that are deeply ecologically rooted, environmentally sound and culturally and socially appropriate … food sovereignty is a fundamental precondition to ensure food security and guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition” – Declaration of the Civil Society Organisations’ Forum to ICN2

More than half of the world’s population is adversely affected by malnutrition according to FAO. Worldwide, 200 million children suffer from under-nutrition while two billion women and children suffer from anaemia and other types of nutrition deficiencies.

Addressing ICN2, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said that “the time is now for bold action to shoulder the challenge of Zero Hunger and ensure adequate nutrition for all.” More than 20 years after the first Conference on Nutrition (ICN), held in 1992, ICN2 marked “the beginning of our renewed effort,” he added.

But the difference this time was that the private sector and civil society organisations were included in ICN2 and the process leading to it, from web consultations and pre-conference events to roundtables, plenary and side events.

“This civil society meeting is historical,” said Flavio Valente, Secretary-General of FIAN International, an organisation advocating for the right to adequate food. “It is the first time that civil society constituencies have worked with FAO, WHO and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to discuss nutrition.”

This gave the opportunity to social movements, “including a vast array of stakeholders such as peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, pastoralists, landless people and urban poor to have their voices heard and be able to discuss with NGOs, academics and nutritionists,” Valente explained.

According to a Concept Note on the participation of non-State actors in ICN2, evidence shows that encouraging participants enables greater transparency, inclusion and plurality in policy discussion, which leads to a greater sense of ownership and consensus.

As such, “the preparation for the ICN2 was a first step in building alliances between civil society organisations (CSOs)  and social movements involved in working with food, nutrition, health and agriculture,” Valente told IPS.

This means that “governments have already started to listen to our joint demands and proposals, in particular those related to the governance of food and nutrition,” he explained.

A powerful Declaration submitted by the CSO Forum on the final day of ICN2 called for a commitment to “developing a coherent, accountable and participatory governance mechanism, safeguarded against undue corporate influence … based on principles of human rights, social justice, transparency and democracy, and directly engaging civil society, in particular the populations and communities which are most affected by different forms of malnutrition.”

According to Valente, malnutrition is the result of political decisions and public policies that do not guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition.

In this context, the CSOs stated that “food is the expression of values, cultures, social relations and people’s self-determination, and … the act of feeding oneself and others embodies our sovereignty, ownership and empowerment.”

Malnutrition, they said, can only be addressed “in the context of vibrant and flourishing local food systems that are deeply ecologically rooted, environmentally sound and culturally and socially appropriate. We are convinced that food sovereignty is a fundamental precondition to ensure food security and guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition.”

At a high-level meeting in April last year on the United Nations’ vision for a post-2015 strategy against world hunger, the FAO Director-General said that since the world produces enough food to feed everyone, emphasis needs to be placed on access to food and to adequate nutrition at the local level. “We need food systems to be more efficient and equitable,” he said.

However, Valente told IPS that CSOs believe that one of the main obstacles to making progress in terms of addressing nutrition-related problems “has been the refusal of States to recognise several of the root causes of malnutrition in all its forms.”

“This makes it very difficult to elaborate global and national public policies that effectively tackle the structural issues and therefore could be able to not only treat but also prevent new cases of malnutrition.”

What needs to be addressed, he said, are not only the “symptoms of malnutrition”, but also resource grabbing, the unsustainable dominant food system, the agro-industrial model and bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that significantly limit the policy space of national governments on food and nutrition-related issues.

But, according to Valente, “things are changing” – civil society organisations have organised around food and nutrition issues, the food sovereignty movement has grown in resistance since the 1980s and societies are now demanding action from their governments in an organised way.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

"Who is more concerned than the rural family with regards to preservation of natural resources for future generations?" – Pope Francis. Credit: By CIAT [CC-BY-SA-2.0] via Wikimedia Commons

By Gloria Schiavi
ROME, Oct 17 2014 (IPS)

“Who is more concerned than the rural family with regards to preservation of natural resources for future generations?”

Pope Francis posed the question in a message read by Archbishop Luigi Travaglino, Permanent Observer of the Holy See for the celebration of World Food Day on Oct. 16 at the headquarters of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The Pope’s message went to the heart of this year’s World Food Day theme – Family Farming: Feeding the Planet, Caring for the Earth – as part of the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF).

The celebration of World Food Day offered an opportunity to share experiences and steps forward towards the eradication of hunger in a way that is sustainable for the future.

“Family farming is key in this effort”, said FAO Director-General José Graziano Da Silva, praising the contributions of farmers around the world. “For decades they were seen as a problem to be dealt with. The truth is that they are an important part of the solution to sustainable food security.”"For decades they [family farmers] were seen as a problem to be dealt with. The truth is that they are an important part of the solution to sustainable food security" – FAO Director-General José Graziano Da Silva

Food insecurity within the context of a growing world population, increasingly disruptive climate change and environmental destruction, scarce access to land and resources, discrimination against women and lack of financial support for smallholders and youth were some of the problems that were recognised as crucial in the global struggle to feed all.

Sustainable development and smart agriculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation to changing and more extreme conditions were raised as necessary strategies.

FAO figures show that increasing production is not the silver bullet – the world already produces 40 percent more than is needed.

Leslie Lipper, Senior Environmental Economist at FAO’s Economic and Social Department, raised the problem of access: “Today there is enough food in the world for everybody to be food secure, and we still have over 809 million people that are food insecure.”

“They don’t have the means to either buy or in some way get the food they need. We are looking at the need for an agriculture world strategy that increases income, not just production”, she added.

From a social perspective, Giuseppe Castiglione, Undersecretary at the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policy, highlighted the role of family farmers in terms of employment and social inclusion, saying that they offer the opportunity of involving vulnerable people in a familiar working environment that is more welcoming than other forms of employment.

The International Year of Family Farming has been a demonstration of what the United Nations system does well: gathering people, starting dialogue, creating platforms for discussion, raising awareness and sharing knowledge.

In this context, many speakers called for policy-makers to follow up and implement strategies that permit the creation of supporting infrastructures. In fact, farmers’ challenges include distributing food efficiently, gaining access to markets and financial investments, reducing waste and improving quality.

“Financial services enable farmers to generate income and insulate themselves from income shocks”, said Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development.

“Even a small amount of savings can mean that a mother does not have to sell her chickens or other income-earning assets in order to pay a doctor’s fee,” she added.

The crucial role of women as the backbone of agricultural production was not forgotten, and every speaker called for recognition of their role and for gender equality.

Santiago Del Solar Dorrego, Argentine agronomist and former president of a farmer group, suggested that while innovation is crucial, farmers should not go down that path alone if they do not have the scale to absorb the shock of failure. “Go together,” he said.

Jorge Anrango, responsible for food in rural and indigenous communities in the Ecuador delegation to FAO, talked to IPS about the experience of his country. “Everybody wanted to study, study, study. Nobody wanted to cultivate land”, he said, explaining that the IYFF has raised awareness of the importance of farming and has spurred people to return to the fields.

John Kufuor, former President of Ghana, highlighted the need for political leadership in policy-making for agriculture. He said that the 30 percent increase in rice production in his country had been made possible through offering landless people, women and youth degraded but usable land plots.

By providing them with access to training, markets and services, it had been possible to involve them in a system of plantation development and profit sharing and this programme had created jobs and improved income, food security and nutrition.

In a reference to the recent natural disasters that have hit the host country, Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, a movement promoting local food systems, said that the floods and landslides that affected parts of northern Italy earlier in the month were the result of terrible hydrogeological conditions.

This, he explained, was because while family farmers used to clean canals and rivers and to ensure that the land was looked after, their role had been weakened, negatively affecting the public service they had once provided.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

To meet the challenge of feeding the world’s 805 million hungry people, this year’s State of Food Insecurity report calls for the creation of an ‘enabling environment’. Credit: FAO/Giulio Napolitano

By Phil Harris
ROME, Sep 17 2014 (IPS)

The number of hungry people in the world has declined by over 100 million in the last decade and over 200 million since 1990-92, but 805 million people around the world still go hungry every day, according to the latest UN estimates.

Presenting their annual joint report on the State of Food Insecurity in the World, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), international Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP) said that while the latest hunger figures indicate that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015 is within reach, this will only be possible “if appropriate and immediate efforts are stepped up.”

These efforts include the necessary “political commitment … well informed by sound understanding of national challenges, relevant policy options, broad participation and lessons from other experiences.”"We cannot celebrate yet because we must still reach 805 million people without enough food for a healthy and productive life" – WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin

Introducing this year’s report, FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said that the figures indicate that a “world without hunger is possible in our lifetime.”

The three Rome-based UN agencies noted that while there has been significant progress overall, some regions are still lagging behind: sub-Saharan Africa, where more than one in four people remain chronically undernourished, and Asia, where the majority of the world’s hungry – 520 million people – live.

In Oceania there has been a modest improvement in percentage terms (down 1.7 percent from 14 percent two years ago) but an increase in the number of hungry people. Latin America and the Caribbean have made most progress in increasing food security.

However, WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin warned that “we cannot celebrate yet because we must still reach 805 million people without enough food for a healthy and productive life.”

Calling for what they called an ‘enabling environment’, the agencies stressed that “food insecurity and malnutrition are complex problems that cannot be solved by one sector or stakeholder alone, but need to be tackled in a coordinated way.” In this regard, they called on governments to work closely with the private sector and civil society.

According to the report, the ‘enabling environment’ should be based on an integrated approach that includes public and private investments to increase agricultural productivity; access to land, services, technologies and markets; and measures to promote rural development and social protection for the most vulnerable, including strengthening their resilience to conflicts and natural disasters.

Speaking at the presentation of the report, the WFP Executive Director referred in particular to the current outbreak of Ebola in the West African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea which, she said, “is an unprecedented health emergency which is rapidly becoming a major food crisis.”

“You cannot isolate people without addressing the food and nutrition challenges of those who need assistance,” she added, noting that the populations in these countries are not harvesting or planting according to their regular seasonal requirements while the crisis rages.

“This is rapidly becoming a food crisis that is potentially affecting 1.3 million people today, with an unknown number of how many will be affected in the future.”

“We cannot let the unprecedented level of humanitarian crisis undermine our efforts to progress even further, to reach our planet’s most vulnerable people and to end hunger in our lifetimes.”

The State of Food Insecurity report will be part of discussions at the Second International Conference on Nutrition to be held in Rome from 19-21 November, jointly organised by FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO).

This high-level intergovernmental meeting will seek a renewed political commitment at global level to combat malnutrition with the overall goal of improving diets and raising nutrition levels.

By Denis Aitken
ROME, Oct 4 2013 (IPS)

The current international situation is characterised by financial and economic challenges that in one way or another affect most countries around the world. In this context there is an increasing call to modernise state institutions, private sector companies, and civil organizations, whatever their remit may be.

International organisations have not escaped this debate, including those of the United Nations system, among them the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is responsible for matters related to food and agriculture. Modernisation and efficiency are the key concepts that currently dominate this ongoing debate.

FAO is taking very seriously the task of adapting the organisation to the challenges of the 21st century. Since January 2012, when José Graziano da Silva assumed the post of director-general of FAO, we have been working to fulfill two key objectives requested by the member states.

The first was to establish a new Strategic Framework that focuses on eradicating hunger in the world within the shortest possible timeframe. The new strategic objectives were approved by the FAO Conference in June 2013, which also required some changes to be made to the organisational structure of FAO.

The second objective is to transform FAO into a modern organisation that gives the utmost priority to efficiency and the optimal use of available financial resources. From the beginning of the director-reneral’s mandate, our focus has been to identify efficiency savings that do not hamper the organisation’s technical capacity nor the direct assistance that it provides to countries around the world.

During the 2012-2013 biennium a results-oriented approach was adopted to ensure that the impact of FAO’s work was evident in the field. In terms of improving efficiency, between January 2012 and June 2013 the organisation identified 67 million dollars in savings, primarily through the reduction of administrative overhead costs at FAO headquarters in Rome. This included, among other things, an austerity policy on travel and rationalisation of procurement and other services.

At the last meeting of the FAO Conference in June, member states gave their unanimous support to the transformational changes being carried forward by the director-general and expressed appreciation for the efforts made to date. However, the members requested that FAO identify additional efficiency savings of 37 million dollars, particularly staff-related costs, without negatively affecting the organisation’s ability to deliver on its programme of work.

This means that we have had to identify more than a hundred posts to be abolished, some of them vacant. Some staff accepted voluntary separation packages, which has left the cuts still affecting over 50 staff, mainly from areas such as technological infrastructure, administrative support functions, and the FAO Library.

The director-general has sought to fulfil the task entrusted to him by the member states, while keeping the negative impact on FAO employees to a bare minimum. A series of mitigating measures have been put in place, such as the redeployment of staff to vacant posts. In addition the separation package FAO is offering is robust, and has been attractive to some staff with many years of service to the organisation.

Naturally, the tough measures, although affecting a relatively small number of staff, are still meeting resistance from those directly involved, along with expressions of concern from colleagues across the organisation. We have done our best to minimise the number of affected staff, and to clearly explain the rationale behind the difficult decisions that are being taken.

We know this is a very difficult time for colleagues, and we are doing all that we can to help them. I am happy to see that the redeployment effort has begun and that the number of cases to be resolved is decreasing. Progress continues to be made with the full participation of the representatives of the staff.

We know that a collaborative work environment and enthusiastic staff are necessary in order for FAO to fulfill the critical mission in its mandate. For this reason it is important to provide assistance to affected staff as needed and this is in hand.

We in the United Nations system must modernise or we will become irrelevant, over- bureaucratic and ill-equipped for the times in which we are living. Yes, modernisation often comes at a cost in terms of colleagues who are affected by these processes, but in the end it will enable us to fulfill far better our responsibilities to those whom we serve.
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Excerpt:

By José Graziano da Silva, Kanayo Nwanze, and Ertharin Cousin
ROME, Oct 2 2013 (IPS)

Every year, we take a snapshot of world progress in the fight against chronic hunger. This year, the picture is looking better, but it’s still not good enough.

Some 842 million people are estimated to have been suffering from chronic hunger in 2011-2013, according to The State of Food Insecurity in the World, a report released jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

This figure is down from 868 million during 2010-2012, and represents a decline of 17 percent since 1990-1992. Significant as this progress may be, it cannot disguise the harsh reality: roughly one person in eight suffers from hunger.

The vast majority of undernourished people, 827 million, live in developing countries, while 16 million live in developed countries. It is unacceptable that in a world of plenty, hundreds of millions of people are denied their most basic right to freedom from hunger. The only acceptable number is zero.

One of the hard truths underscored by the report is that, despite overall progress made in hunger reduction, marked differences persist across regions, with many countries left far behind. Sub-Saharan Africa has made modest progress in recent years, but remains the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment (24.8 percent).

Western Asia has seen no discernible improvement, while Southern Asia and Northern Africa have registered slow progress. Eastern Asia, Southeastern Asia and Latin America, on the other hand, have seen greater relief from the grind of extreme hunger, with significant reductions in both the number and the proportion of hungry people.

Food security depends on a host of factors. While food availability is important, it is equitable economic growth and access to employment for the poor that enhance access to nutritious food. The report shows that transport, communication, safe water, sanitation, and appropriate healthcare and feeding practices are also crucial for reducing chronic hunger and undernutrition.

Given that 75 percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and mainly depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, fostering inclusive growth means investing in agriculture. And this investment has been shown to pay dividends in poverty reduction.

It is estimated that growth in agriculture is five times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in any other sector. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is 11 times more effective. Since smallholder farmers produce up to 80 percent of available food in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, there is an obvious impact on food security as well.

Economic growth that reaches large parts of the population can reduce poverty, leading to improvements in food security. In Ghana, equitable economic growth contributed to lifting some five million people out of poverty in just 15 years, and fewer than five percent of the population were undernourished in 2011-2013.

However, such growth is not always sufficient to ensure that everyone has what they need to live healthy and productive lives. In many cases, despite a reduction in hunger, nutritional status may deteriorate, for example, with the increased prevalence of child stunting.

Inadequate intake of vitamins and other micro-nutrients, a high disease burden, unsafe water, poor sanitation and poor child feeding practices at key stages of child development cause serious health problems for up to two billion people globally. Greater efforts with a holistic approach are needed to combat malnutrition.

Thirteen years ago, world leaders set out a series of development targets to be met by 2015 through a global partnership, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Under MDG 1, which aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, the world sought to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of undernourished people.

With only two years remaining, 62 countries have already reached this target. Twenty-two of them have also achieved a higher goal, established during the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, to halve the absolute number of hungry people in the same time period. But extending that achievement across the board will require urgent, sustained action.

Countries need to address hunger and poor nutrition by integrating food security and nutrition into public policies and making the necessary resources available.

We urge governments, organisations and community leaders in every region to make economic growth more inclusive through policies that target family farmers and foster rural employment; strengthen social protection; scale up nutrition-enhancing interventions to improve dietary diversity and the health of the environment, especially for women and youth; and promote the sustainable management of natural resources and food systems.

Only with sustained efforts and long-term commitment will we be able to reach well beyond the MDG targets to fully interrupt the cycle of extreme hunger, malnutrition and poverty that is stifling the potential of future generations.

Better is good, but when it comes to hunger, better is not good enough. There are 842 million reasons why.
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Excerpt:

José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations believes that Africa is entering a new era with greater investment in agriculture. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Matthew Newsome
ADDIS ABABA , Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

Sub-Saharan Africa may be home to six of the world’s 10-fastest growing economies, but it also has a majority of the countries that are suffering from a food crisis.

In fact, of the 20 countries in the world suffering from prolonged food shortages, 17 are in Africa, according to José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The commitment to making agricultural development and the eradication of hunger the focus of Africa’s growing economy reached a new consensus when African and international leaders and key stakeholders met at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa from Jun. 30 to Jul. 1. At the summit, leaders agreed to renew their partnership and commitment to “Zero Hunger” in Africa by 2025.

Da Silva helped launch and implement the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) programme in his native Brazil, which prioritised investment in poor farmers through social protection nets, and lifted 28 million Brazilians out of poverty.

In this interview with IPS, Da Silva says that he is confidant that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of hungry people in African countries by 2015 can be reached and that the goal is not too ambitious. The eight MDGs, adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

He believes that Africa is entering a new era with greater investment in agriculture, and that stronger coordination between governments, civil society organisations and the private sector would make the goal of zero hunger in Africa realistic by 2025. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: Is the goal of eradicating hunger in Africa by 2025 really achievable? And how does this campaign plan to achieve this target?

A: We have proven that it was possible to achieve the first MDG to halve hunger by 2015. Eleven countries already have achieved this in advance of the deadline…and several other countries are on track to achieve this goal in Africa. We believe that if the leaders of Africa get together with civil society and the private sector to achieve the same goal of eradicating hunger – we can do it by 2025.

Why am I optimistic about that goal? Because, firstly, Africa is on a very special momentum, it is the region in the world with the second-highest level of economic growth; it also has the resources available.

Furthermore, agricultural development is only just starting to take priority in Africa. We have on the continent millions of family farmers working at subsistence level. If we can convince them to increase their production and to adopt new technologies that are already available, then this will be more than enough to eradicate hunger in the region.

Q:  Only 11 out of 38 African countries have already achieved the MDG of halving hunger by 2015. With only two years left to realise this goal, has this target been unrealistic? And why do you think the Zero Hunger goal is any less ambitious?

A: We must remember that when we start to walk, the first kilometres are always very difficult. It requires some time to get accustomed and grow familiar with the different factors involved in this transition and also to understand what is available as support. We have everything in place – we are working to coordinate the governments, CSOs and the private sector so that they can work together in solidarity.

I think we still have time to achieve the MDG of halving hunger in Africa by 2015. We have 920 days from now, that is not a short period of time. Hungry people don’t have a lot of time either – they cannot afford to wait. What is important is that African governments have the message – they know what the objective is and they know how to meet this objective. We are not sending a man to the moon. It is not complicated. Simple steps like scaling up practices that are already implemented in many African countries will go very far.

Q: Are you confident that there is the political and social will from African governments to eradicate hunger?

A: That is exactly what this summit is about. This is a landmark occasion for African leaders to demonstrate without delay to their neighbours that there is the will to eliminate hunger, it is on the way and now more than ever before is the time to work together.

Q: Some of the highest economic growth rates in the world are being experienced by African countries. And yet one in four Africans still suffer from chronic hunger. Is economic growth alone enough to end hunger?

A: This is the most important lesson being learnt by this summit. Growth and increasing food production are not enough. In Africa we need to look particularly at access to food.

Many undernourished farmers suffer from not having access to land, while others cannot buy the food they need because it is not cheap enough for farmers to buy according to their salary, while many of them are jobless and without income. The challenge is to approach all these things at the same time. But we can do it. This has already been demonstrated and achieved by the countries that have already halved hunger rates by 2015.

Q: Global food prices continue to be volatile. How is this impacting the effort to reduce hunger in Africa?

A: This is one of our greatest challenges. We can boost resilience of food producers using what FAO already has in place. FAO has implemented a monitoring system and this has helped us a lot. But we need to move beyond that.

This October, FAO will have a second meeting with the G20 Ministers of Agriculture in Rome. We hope to address important factors like regional emergency stocks and how to improve our statistics. Moreover, we will look at how to improve inter-governmental cooperation when dealing with emergency situations such as the famine in Somalia two years ago.

If we could improve this effort to bring more global governance to the food security issue it will help a lot. This is not a problem for the African countries – this is a problem that needs to be solved globally. The G8 and the G20 countries need to especially help those countries that are not part of these two groups and are suffering, as they have the responsibility to generate effective global governance.

Excerpt:

Zimbabwean farmer Kindness Paradza (right) and his employee. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

By Thalif Deen
ROME, Jun 14 2013 (IPS)

As the United Nations prepares to launch an ambitious post-2015 development agenda, the message from one of its Rome-based agencies is unequivocal: the eradication of hunger and malnutrition should remain a high priority when the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) end in 2015.

In its flagship annual report released here, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) acknowledges that the world has made some progress on hunger and malnutrition, but stresses there is still “a long way” to go to resolve the lingering crisis.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva is adamant: “We must strive for nothing less than the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.”

The only effective answer to food insecurity is political commitment at the national level, reinforced at the regional and global levels by the international community of donors and international organisations, he says.

As examples he cites the Committee on World Food Security and the Zero Hunger Challenge initiated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban has singled out the “spectacular” economic growth in some countries that has made possible to cut extreme poverty in half.

“But the tide of prosperity has not lifted all boats,” he says. “To succeed before the end of 2015, we need a concerted effort focused on support for smallholders and better nutrition for women and children.”

Meanwhile, the FAO report The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) says “the social and economic costs of malnutrition are unconscionably high.”

The numbers are staggering: 3.5 trillion dollars – or 500 dollars per person – in lost productivity to the global economy.

In comparable numbers, “that’s almost the entire annual gross domestic product (GDP) of Germany, Europe’s largest economy,” says the report.

Vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies, along with obesity and overweight, are largely responsible for the loss in productivity and the high cost of health care.

Asked about the prediction by a U.N. high-level panel of eminent persons that hunger and poverty would be eradicated by 2030, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, FAO’s deputy director-general for economic and social development, told IPS: “Yes, hunger can be eradicated by 2030.

“But this will not just happen, (because) a series of important measures must be taken for hunger to be eradicated,” he added.

These include political and economic measures, in addition to appropriate governance mechanisms, he said.

“We refer to the eradication of hunger in the narrow sense – not food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies. We do not really discuss ‘poverty eradication’ as suggested in your questions. What do we mean by hunger eradication?” he asked.

In a more narrow sense, people who suffer from chronic hunger are those who do not have enough to eat to lead healthy and productive lives, according to FAO’s definition of “undernourishment”.

There are about 868 million people who suffer from chronic hunger (undernourishment) due to insufficient dietary energy (calories).

It should be noted that the “hunger line” is conservatively defined in terms of the calories needed for a sedentary lifestyle, Sundaram added.

The U.N. secretary-general’s “Zero Hunger Challenge” (ZHC) has five elements.

The ZHC deals not only with hunger in the above sense, but also seeks to eliminate stunting due to micronutrient deficiencies, ensure agriculture that is sustainable, minimise food waste and losses, and double poor farmers’ incomes.

In terms of key measures, Sundaram said explicit political commitments to eradicate hunger must be backed up by resources, whether these are commitments at the G8/G20 global level, or at the national/regional level, such as the Maputo Declaration in which African nations committed 10 percent of GDP to be invested in agriculture.

Evidence-based and inclusive governance mechanisms, with appropriate accountability measures, must also be in place, he said.

Sundaram said enacting appropriate hunger eradication policies and investment programmes requires that the interests of the poor, most vulnerable and marginalised are adequately represented.

This is necessary in order to ensure that their specific needs and concerns are addressed, that progress is monitored, policies updated, lessons learned are applied, and decision-makers and other stakeholders – including civil society and the private sector in addition to governments – are held accountable for the achievement of agreed objectives and targets.

On the question of resources, FAO estimated in 2011 (with a 2009 reference year) that 50.2 billion dollars of public investment is needed annually for the world to eradicate hunger by 2025, a sum to be complemented by private investment.

A study by Josef Schmidhuber and Jelle Bruinsma in the FAO book Safeguarding Food Security in Volatile Global Markets argues for a broad-based “twin-track” approach to hunger eradication, addressing both immediate needs (through safety nets), and underlying causes related to rural infrastructure development, market access, natural resource development and conservation, research, development and extension, and support for rural institutions.

Lastly, on lessons learned – and linked to the question of poverty reduction – the 2012 State of Food Security in the World (SOFI) examined a number of success stories in hunger reduction and concluded that “economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate reduction of hunger and malnutrition”.

This joint publication by FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) examines about half a dozen issues for successful hunger reduction, including the need to involve and reach the poor; the emphasis on agricultural growth involving smallholders, especially women; the need for “nutrition-sensitive” agricultural development; the need to ensure that social protection mechanisms are in place and an overall conducive environment for pro-poor, long term economic growth.

An estimated half of fresh produce in Papua New Guinea is lost between harvesting and marketing. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

With less than three years before a 2015 deadline, the developing world is largely expected to miss one of the U.N.’s key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): halving the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger.

Despite limited progress, there are still more than 1.4 billion people – out of a total global population of over seven billion – who live below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars and on the razor edge of starvation.

"On the quicksand of development, predictions are dangerous.” -- Ambassador Ernest Corea
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has, however, identified at least 16 countries that have already reached the 1996 World Food Summit’s goal of halving the total number of undernourished people.

“This was made possible by the priority the government has set on ensuring the right to food and polices it has implemented,” says FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva.

The 16 countries – namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chile, Cuba, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Guyana, Nicaragua, Peru, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Thailand, Uruguay, Venezuela and Viet Nam – will be honoured at an FAO ceremony in Rome on Jun. 16.

Meanwhile, in a report released last month, a high-level panel of eminent persons has projected a 2030 deadline to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger from the face of the earth.

But how realistic is this new deadline?

Ambassador Ernest Corea, who served for nearly 19 years on the staff of the World Bank’s secretariat for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), told IPS: “On the quicksand of development, predictions are dangerous.”

Two missed monsoons could upend whatever progress has been made towards reaching this goal, he noted.

“Still, it is better to reach out towards a worthwhile objective than to do nothing at all.”

Hunger is a cruel and debilitating scourge. Malnutrition, often the by-product of hunger, causes the deaths of three million children per year, he added.

“Reversing this tragic situation is a goal worth striving for,” said Corea, a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States.

Dr. Joan Russow of the Canada-based Global Compliance Research Project told IPS one of the reasons for the failure of the MDG1 might have been because the urgency was not effectively communicated by using the word “halving”.

The goal should have been “eradicating extreme hunger and poverty and then delineating the drastic means to do so,” she said.

“It will only be possible to do so in 2030 if the global community drastically alters current global practices,” said Russow, a longtime peace and environmental activist.

These include, at a minimum, prohibiting land grabs for biofuel production around the world; establishing a global ban on genetically engineered food and crops, promoting organic agriculture and instituting a fair and just transition for farmers and communities affected by the ban.

Additionally, she said, there should be a ban on the production and use of pesticides such as neonicotinoids, which have been destroying the world’s honeybee population.

Frederic Mousseau, policy director at the San Francisco-based Oakland Institute, an independent policy think tank, told IPS the 2007-2008 food price crisis has mostly resulted in wishful thinking at international conferences that food security can be accomplished.

“However, silver bullet policy solutions, for instance suggesting foreign investment in agriculture will result in food security, ignore the unprecedented land rush over the last five years to grab the natural resources – land, water, forests – that the poorest depend on for their livelihoods.”

He said: “We know there are enough resources to feed everyone; it is therefore possible to eradicate hunger by 2030.”

However, this would require a major overhaul of current food security and development policies, which would have to focus on supporting the livelihoods of the rural poor in developing countries, protecting their rights to land and access and control over natural resources and promoting sustainable production methods.

Corea pointed out it would be a worthwhile exercise for a small working group convened by the FAO to review the record of the 16 countries and determine what common policies and practices among them contributed to their success.

Was it good governance? A crackdown on corruption? The development through research of enhanced sustainable productivity? Something else?

The findings of such a review would be invaluable to other countries.

Russow told IPS there are also other urgent issues that have to be resolved in order to eradicate hunger by 2030, including climate change.

She said there should be a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – primarily by conserving carbon sinks, ending subsidies to fossil fuel industries and by seriously phasing out the production and use of fossil fuels and abandoning an animal-based diet in favour of a vegetarian diet.

She also called for a substantial reduction in global military budgets, and investments in socially equitable and environmentally sound transportation, and energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal power.

Russow said there should be a revoking of the charters of transnational corporations, which, in pursuing unsustainable exploitative development, have destroyed food security around the world.

And the world should abide by the legally binding International Covenant on Social and Economic Rights, reaffirming that everyone has the right to be free from hunger and enshrining the right to food and drinking water.

She said it is necessary to move away from the over-consumptive model of consumption and towards an effective programme of conservation, coupled with a serious reduction of the ecological footprint.

Additionally, Russow said, there should be a cancellation of the “devastating debt of developing states”, and the abandoning of structural adjustment programmes by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the elimination of the World Bank’s ill-conceived projects.

Women working in their vegetable gardens at the Capanda Agroindustrial Pole in Angola. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2013 (IPS)

When the United Nations launched its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) back in 2001, two of its primary objectives were to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 and promote gender empowerment worldwide.

But the links between the two remain unhinged, warns Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, a food think tank “focused on feeding the world better”."Unfortunately, women typically lack access to land, credit, markets, inputs, education, and extension services." -- Danielle Nierenberg of Food Tank

Asked about the relationship between the two, she told IPS: “Without improving gender equity and women’s empowerment, it will be impossible to improve food security.”

She pointed out that women make up at least 43 percent of the global labour force working in agriculture; and in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, women make up 80 percent of all farmers.

“Unfortunately, women typically lack access to land, credit, markets, inputs, education, and extension services, making their role in food production much harder than it has to be,” she said.

Nierenberg said recent findings from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) suggest that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, yields would increase by 20-30 percent, helping raise agricultural output in developing countries and reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent.

“The MDGs on gender equity and food security need to be more intertwined because we can’t have one without the other,” she said.

“I hope when the new set of Sustainable Development Goals (under the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda) are announced, food security will also include women’s empowerment,” said Nierenberg, who is an expert on issues relating to sustainable agriculture and food.

Asked about the upcoming 38th FAO sessions in Rome Jun. 15-22, she said, “I think it’s extremely relevant. I know FAO has made huge efforts to put a gender lens on many of its projects, while I don’t see women farmers specifically mentioned in the agenda.

“I think they would be remiss in not discussing the importance of women in agriculture,” she added.

Among the substantive policy matters to be discussed at the upcoming conference is FAO’s gender policy and the U.N. system-wide Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (SWAP).

Launching FAO’s flagship annual report Tuesday, Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said while the world has registered some progress on hunger, there was a still a long way to go.

“FAO’s message is that we must strive for nothing less than the eradication of hunger and malnutrition,” he said.

The report points out that while some 870 million people (out of a global population of seven billion) remained hungry in 2010-2012, this was just a fraction of the billions of people whose health, well-being and lives were blighted by malnutrition.

The social and economic costs of malnutrition are “unconscionably high”, amounting to perhaps 3.5 trillion dollars per year, or 500 dollars per person globally, says the FAO director-general.

In a report to the Human Rights Council last December, Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, underlined the range of human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guaranteed the right to food “without discrimination”.

But despite these requirements, he noted, discrimination against women remains pervasive in all spheres of life, resulting from laws that are themselves discriminatory.

The report singled out unequal access to productive resources such as land and to economic opportunities such as decent wage employment; unequal bargaining position within the household; gendered division of labour within households; and women’s marginalisation from decision-making spheres at all levels.

“A successful strategy for strengthening the rights of women in support of the realization of the right to food requires a whole-of-government approach, coordinated across various ministries, including those responsible for health, education, employment, social affairs and agriculture,” the report said.

Asked if eradication of poverty and hunger can be resolved without empowering women, Nierenberg told IPS: “Absolutely, not.”

She said until women have the same access to resources as men, “our efforts to alleviate hunger and poverty will be stymied.”

She said De Schutter has clearly outlined how lack of women’s empowerment is directly related to food insecurity.

“Improving food security and women’s rights have to go hand in hand to make sure that women, children, men, and whole communities and countries are well-nourished and improving their incomes,” Nierenberg said.

She said women are the key to food security and investing in their role as food producers and providers of food will be crucial to helping reduce hunger and improving nutrition.

“And we need to recognise women’s multiple roles – not just as producers and providers, but that they’re also business women who need to make a fair wage, they’re innovators sharing their knowledge with others in their communities, and they’re stewards of the land who deserve to be recognised for the ecosystem services they provide that have long-ranging benefits,” she added.

By Fabiana Frayssinet
SALVADOR, Brazil, Dec 8 2011 (IPS)

The man who played a key role in the design of Brazil’s successful food security policies believes it is possible to eradicate hunger in the world, and intends to try by promoting “a simple idea.”

José Graziano da Silva becomes FAO director general on Jan. 1, 2012. Credit: Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

In this interview with IPS, former Brazilian minister of food security José Graziano da Silva, who takes over as the new director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Jan. 1, says that what is needed is an increase in political commitment, the mobilisation of even modest resources, and the adoption of absolute rather than relative targets.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs – a series of development and anti-poverty targets adopted by U.N. members in 2000) aim to halve the proportion of hungry people in the world by 2015 – a relative goal that is hard to get people to mobilise behind, says Graziano da Silva.

Citing the experience of Brazil’s Zero Hunger programme, he says everything invested in the fight against hunger is good business.

Graziano da Silva, an agronomist and economist, also says the fight against agribusiness led by social movements like Vía Campesina, the global movement of peasants and small-scale farmers, has a “crippling” effect.

There is no contradiction between small-scale agriculture and agribusiness, he argues, saying “a large part of family agriculture today is involved in the agribusiness food chain.”

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: The number of hungry people in the world is about to climb over one billion. What will be your main approach to eradicating hunger, as the head of FAO?

A: My idea is quite simple. Three elements must be combined. First, a political commitment to eradicating hunger is needed in the poorest countries.

I plan to start a consultation with countries suffering lengthy crises, poor food importers – especially in Africa, and some in Asia – to get them to assume this political commitment and to mobilise resources. Because those countries do have resources.

Brazil’s experience shows that whatever is spent on this is rapidly recovered – any investment in fighting hunger has extraordinary returns.

In the case of anti-hunger spending in Brazil, the consumption cycle immediately brings back revenue in taxes, and the expenditure leads to the generation of jobs and incomes. In FAO, we are going to help these countries draw up feasible plans and help come up with the resources to finance them.

The second question then is to mobilise national resources and involve not only the FAO, but also the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

And third: We have to go beyond the Millennium Development Goals. Because it is very hard to mobilise people politically behind a target like “cutting the proportion in half.” Absolute goals are needed.

I think these three conditions are feasible, and can enable FAO to effectively return to its core goal of eradicating hunger.

Q: Agriculture is facing several dilemmas, including the impact of climate change and land degradation. What approach do you plan to take to these problems?

A: One of the five pillars of my campaign was to promote more sustainable development in terms of production and consumption: a doubly green revolution.

One example is your country, Argentina, where between 90 and 95 percent of grains are planted by direct seeding, without tilling the soil. That reduces erosion to a minimum. One of the big problems in tropical agriculture is the loss of soil and the advance of desertification, due to the intensive use of machinery.

Because of price and access limitations in terms of chemical fertilisers, we have found ways to replace them with natural fertilisers and compost. So there are a number of technologies in developing countries that practice tropical agriculture.

Another pillar of my campaign is increased South-South cooperation.

Q: Large-scale export agriculture and the vast fields of crops (soybeans, oil palm, or industrial tree plantations) that cover ever-growing areas of land compete with food production. What is your take on these challenges?

A: Unfortunately, some social movements have a viewpoint that is detrimental to themselves, and to a certain extent, crippling: the idea that family agriculture and agribusiness are mutually exclusive, are competitors.

Agribusiness is more about marketing. The concept emerged in the United States in the 1950s to lobby Congress for more farm subsidies, and involved sectors that supplied inputs for processing industries and for the entire food chain.

In that sense, it is a unifying concept, and I think that a large part of family agriculture today is involved in the agribusiness food supply chain. There is no way to avoid moving in that direction. That is why the idea of combating that model seems to me like it has a crippling effect.

It would make a lot more sense for family farmers to fight for the development of local markets, where fresh, nutritional food – which cannot be sold on the international market – is in demand.

In Latin America we have beans throughout Central America, and cassava in Brazil, as staple foods, while the Andean countries have quinoa and amaranth.

Not everyone eats meat. There are other kinds of animal and vegetable proteins that have been lost.

That reduction in variety – 80 percent of the global population depends on wheat, corn, rice or soy as the basis of their diet – is a huge threat to the world population, especially because things are moving in the direction of a diet made up of cereals, fats and oilseeds.

And obesity is a serious problem because it affects more than one billion people worldwide. Expanding the food base with diversified production in family agriculture that supplies local markets seems to me a positive route that does not clash with agribusiness.

Q: The expansion of food crops for the production of agrofuels has contributed to driving up prices. Critics also say that as monoculture crops, they contribute to environmental imbalance, like sugar cane in Brazil, palm oil in several Latin American and Asian countries, or corn in the United States. What is your position on this?

A: I’m going to use the rhetoric of (former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) in his 2008 speech in a FAO meeting. He said biofuels is a generic term; lots of things fit under that umbrella. And as in the case of cholesterol, you have to separate the good from the bad.

There is one biofuel that affects food prices: corn, because it is the basic ingredient in many food supply chains. FAO studies show that it has an impact because it affects prices of other products, including soy, since the markets are interconnected.

There is also an impact on oilseeds, like rapeseed in Germany, because of competition for water and with other natural resources. In Malaysia there are fears that expansion of oil palm plantations will destroy natural biodiversity.

But biofuels don’t generally have an impact on prices. That has been proven in the case of sugar cane in Brazil. First of all, because it is not on such a huge scale – just three percent of the land is used for ethanol produced from sugar cane. And second, because the sugar cane circuit in Brazil does not compete with the agri-food sector. It has its own channels.

Not everyone has the same availability of land and water to produce biofuels. In FAO we carried out a country-by-country study in Latin America, which is how it must be done, and found that there are four countries that could expand biofuel production without affecting food security: Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Colombia.

These countries have an adjustment variable which is the great modern secret, if you will: the transition from extensive to intensive livestock systems, which frees up enormous amounts of land and water and significantly curbs pressure on forests and jungles from the expansion of the agricultural frontier.

It is a radical paradigm shift. These are countries that have integrated livestock and agricultural production like in Europe, the United States, or parts of the pampas (in Argentina).

Q: Another new issue is land grabbing by companies and even governments of other countries in Africa and other regions of the developing world. What are your views on this phenomenon?

A: We just completed a study in 17 countries in Latin America according to which, in terms of volume, the impact is significant in Argentina and Brazil. Other countries feel the problem in border areas, but as a consequence of population movements that happened a much longer time ago. That includes Paraguay and Uruguay, which are affected by Brazil’s expansion in soy agribusiness.

But we didn’t come across evidence in other countries. We did find, however, great concern on the part of countries and governments, in terms of the need for legislation that allows them to keep order in their territories. For example, in southern Chile we see companies that purchase large tracts of land to preserve woodlands or block the construction of hydropower dams or roads.

Countries have to update their land laws, many of which were copied from the United States of the 18th century, when legal conceptions were aimed at keeping the people of one country from populating the border regions of another. But that conception is no longer in line with the mobility of capital we see today.

Countries ask FAO for help in designing other mechanisms to ensure control over their territories, such as a database. The great majority of nations in this region don’t even have information about who is buying land.

Q: What was the purpose of expanding and reforming the Committee on World Food Security?

A: The aim was to attract sectors that until now were civil society observers, to allow them to express themselves in the fight against hunger in the same conditions as countries, and the same goes for the private sector – the two components that are joining the Committee as a result of the reform. All of these sectors must be included in the struggle, which has to be global.

This has just started, but now there is a deadline for getting to know each other and finding the path to take. The reform was tardy, and there is tremendous pressure to respond immediately with more concrete actions.

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