FAO/Fredrik Lerneryd
Vegetables are prepared for an agricultural training session for farmers in Taita, Kenya.
Facebook Twitter Print Email 14 October 2022Humanitarian Aid
In the face of the growing hunger crisis, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization stressed on Friday, ahead of World Food Day, the need to “harness the power of solidarity and collective action” to build a sustainable world with enough to eat for everyone.
Director-General QU Dongyu led the ceremony at FAO Headquarters in Rome, declaring that with food security worsening, and risk of serious levels of hunger in Asia and Africa at an all-time high, the world must “leave no one behind”.
‘A challenging moment’
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Sending a special message to the event, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was taking place “at a challenging moment for global food security”.
A staggering three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet; the war in Ukraine has triggered surging food, fertilizer, and energy prices; and the most vulnerable are being battered by the pandemic, climate crisis, environmental degradation, conflict, and deepening inequalities.
“The number of people affected by hunger has more than doubled in the past three years”, he said, adding that “almost a million people are living in famine conditions, with starvation and death a daily reality”.
Be the change
Referring to this year’s theme, Leave no one behind. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, Mr. Guterres said that farmers need to access reasonably priced fertilizers to ensure enough food next year.
Governments, scientists, and civil society need to work together to make nutritious diets available and affordable for everyone and financial institutions must increase support to developing countries.
“Together, we must move from despair to hope and action” the Secretary-General said. “On World Food Day and every day, I call on you to be part of the change”.
Multiple threats
The commemoration took place at a time when global food security faces multiple threats, pushing food, energy and fertilizer prices sky high amidst climate crisis and long-standing conflicts.
Moreover, the knock-on effect of COVID continues to highlight how interconnected economies and lives have become, as 970,000 people risk famine in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.
FAO’s latest The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report illuminates that hunger worldwide is on the rise.
Raising their voices
A message read on behalf of Pope Francis reminded that people “are not just numbers, data or an endless stream of statistics”.
Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said the day should be a call to ramp up action to “help small-scale farmers in rural areas, who supply food to their communities and countries…despite inequality, vulnerability, and poverty”.
World Food Programme (WFP) chief David Beasley described the food availability crisis as his “gravest concern”, saying “the world must open its eyes to this unprecedented global food crisis and act now to stop it spinning out of control”.
Celebrating the day
Events in Rome included an exhibit featuring photos taken from space by European Space Agency astronaut and FAO Goodwill Ambassador Thomas Pesquet, which highlights the climate crisis.
FAO’s first-ever Achievement Awards were handed out to people whose actions are transforming agrifood systems, and a Junior World Food Day event was held with a host of Food Heroes.
Awareness-raising events on the global fight against hunger will continue to take centre stage in the coming week.
Meanwhile, FAO’s Hand in Hand initiative continues to work to accelerate agrifood system transformation by eradicating poverty, ending hunger, and reducing inequalities.
It aims to promote decent rural employment, foster gender equality, social protection, end child labour, and support rural and Indigenous Peoples – custodians of much of the earth’s biodiversity.
Click here to watch the ceremony.
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ERADICATE HUNGER
28 September 2022Humanitarian Aid
As the war in Ukraine stokes a crisis for countries who are struggling just to access the food their populations want and need, the international community needs to ensure that doesn’t spill over into a “food availability crisis”, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday.
FAO Director-General QU Dongyu told a meeting of agriculture ministers from the G20 industrialized nations in Bali, that with access to Ukrainian grain, cooking oils and other vital foodstuffs for the most vulnerable countries restricted by seven months of conflict, “we must must increase the resilience of global agrifood systems.”
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Grain Initiative, ‘an important step’
He lauded the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative as “an important step forward”, and it has now freed-up more than five million metric tonnes of food, with well over a quarter of shipments going directly to lower income countries.
“But still it needs to be complemented to improve the food access of most vulnerable countries”, he said.
Overall, wholesale food prices have been heading down for five months now, but consumer food prices and inflation are soaring, “with devastating implications for global food security and nutrition.”
And beyond the crisis sparked by conflict, an increase in extreme weather is also fuelling to crop destruction and failure worldwide.
“While we witnessed improvements in the forecasts for wheat and soybean markets, the outlook is less positive for maize and rice, and fertilizer markets remain supply-constrained and volatile…Much needs to be done to ensure that all people can afford safe and nutritious food in sufficient quantities to meet their dietary needs and preferences and have a healthy life.”
Recipe for resilience
Mr QU said key steps must be taken, to boost resilience for now, and in the future:
• Improve early warning and early action systems.
• Increase productivity sustainably.
• Accelerate trade; and find innovative solutions to tackle inorganic fertilizer supply constraints.
In the medium-term, he told ministers it was crucial to boost innovation, invest in infrastructure to reduce inequality, reduce food loss and waste, and in the short-term, improve food access.
“For that FAO proposed the Food Import Financing Facility – which I am happy the IMF has now taken over and it is calling it the ‘food shock window’ within the IMF emergency lending instruments”.
Support for low-income nations
The idea of the financing facility is to provide funds for 62 lower-income food importing nations that are home to around 1.8 billion people, in order to meet their most urgent needs.
He said it was important to accelerate exports from Ukraine and Russia via the Black Sea Grain Initiative; and “increase fertilizer availability through the comfort letters issues by United States and the new guidelines issued by the European Commission”.
Conflicts, slowdowns and downturns, because of COVID-19, and the climate crisis, he told ministers, “are the major drivers of our crises today and tomorrow.”
“It is important that all nations join in the dividends of peace and stability, so that we all commit to peace. Without peace we will not achieve Zero Hunger and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
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