Statement on the Occasion of
the Celebration of World Food Day
United Nations Headquarters, New York, USA, 5
October 1996
Mr President of the General
Assembly,
Mr President of the Economic and Social Council,
Mr Secretary-General,
Professor Ivan Head,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The theme of this year's World Food
Day is "Fighting Hunger and Malnutrition", a theme that
is all the more mind-awakening in that we are faced with
the continuing logic-defying paradox of a planet that
produces enough for everyone but at the same time has
over 800 million people who have no guarantee of an
adequate diet. Paradox, too, in that alongside food
insecurity, there are countries with food surpluses they
have no idea what to do with. And a further paradox in
that many people suffer nutritional deficiencies, while
obesity in some countries is reducing life expectancy.
How on earth did we reach such a pass
and how can we accept it morally? But, more importantly
even, how can we get out of it?
What, to my mind, is particularly
unacceptable is that we know how to resolve the problem.
We have the tools and we have the know-how to use them.
Must I therefore conclude that we have lacked the
necessary will?
It is our duty to help those who are
hungry and malnourished today and those who risk not
having enough food tomorrow. I am convinced that, unless
we do something for these people today, the problem will
only get worse tomorrow, when the world will have
millions and soon billions of additional inhabitants,
each with the right to an adequate, healthy and balanced
diet, but many deprived of this right unless we act now.
Hunger only gives the world wasted resources, wasted
human potential, social and political unrest, misery and
death. So we have no choice but to react.
We have a twofold challenge before us:
that of producing enough food and that of ensuring that
each individual has access to this food, thus achieving
universal food security.
We must not lose sight of the increase
in productivity that the Green Revolution made possible,
particularly in Asia thanks to efficient extension
systems. Devastating famine was looming and had to be
checked. And so it was, with the farmers winning the day.
The cost to society and the environment was high, but at
least famine was averted, and we learned a great deal.
The potential of the Green Revolution
technology has not been fully realized - far from it.
There is still a vast difference between what small
farmers can harvest and what researchers can obtain at
their experimental stations, where output is on average
three times higher. A similar difference exists within
countries between the yields obtained by farmers with
access to modern technology and those obtained by small
peasant farmers. But no astonishing scientific
breakthrough is required to curb such disparities; all we
need is to put into practice what we already know.
But we have let matters slide. The
chain of technology transfer has been broken and
resources have begun to run short. The share of
development aid to agriculture has halved in the last
fifteen years. Many developing countries and the funding
agencies have focused their efforts on other paths to
development, rather than on agriculture, and even where
food insecurity is acute, agriculture has often been
relegated to secondary status in national priorities. In
many countries, the ministry of agriculture has become
the poor relation in the government administration. The
voices that were meant to relay new discoveries to
farmers in their fields, in their homes, have been
drowned or are barely heard. Even the minimal investment
in agricultural research needed to help bring about
sustainable food production has been reduced ? and
allthis without mentioning the size of the budget
allocated to FAO, one of whose duties is to ensure
agricultural extension at world level.
We therefore need to react. The Green
Revolution showed us what science can do to grow more
food, but its instruments now need to be tempered,
adjusted and supplemented with other methods. We now know
that we need to promote integrated farming systems within
a global framework of sustainable development.
Biotechnology is one of the tools that we shall have to
use wisely.
The Green Revolution called for
greater inputs. There is no denying that production
cannot be increased without using more means, but the
blind, indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides
is a dangerous practice that can lead to pollution,
poisoning, salinization and the drying up of aquifers. We
are now aware of the benefits of good drainage andthe
integrated management of pests, nutrients and crops. We
also need to learn from ecological agriculture and
recognize the growing success of organic farming.
The Green Revolution gave good results
at a time when fertile land was widely available. The
situation now, however, is very different, with hardly
any unused fertile land left. We also need to pay greater
attention to the protection of natural habitats,
especially forests, for the safeguarding of biodiversity,
the regulation of climates, soil enrichment and the
conservation of water resources, because, in the final
analysis, we are all dependent on this natural
environment. Agriculture can no longer encroach without
restraint on forest or savannah, but must instead be
intensified where currently practised without endangering
the environment.
However, past and future scientific
advances, the transfer of technology to farmers and the
introduction of environmentally-sound farming practices
will not be enough by themselves to achieve the
production objectives. These measures will have to be
accompanied by a heavy resumption of investment in
agriculture, for some of the constraints can only be
removed through investment. I am thinking in particular
of water management which is essential in many regions
with weather uncertainties. The potential does exist,
particularly in Africa, but it needs to be harnessed by
focusing on low-cost irrigation or water management
schemes that can be built and run by the farmers
themselves. I alsohave in mind road links, storage
facilities, communications and even schools and other
social amenities that are essential, not only for
production and market supply but also for the well-being
of the rural population who will thus remain in rural
areas.
These are all factors that influenced
the design of the Special Programme for Food Security
that FAO and its partners launched in 1994 for the
benefit of the 82 low-income, food-deficit countries.
The other challenge before us is to
secure access for all to an adequate, healthy and
balanced diet. While food security for small farmers can
be achieved by raising productivity, cushioning the
impact of irregular weather through water control and
increasing income by setting remunerative prices, we
cannot do the same for the urban poor who lack the means
to buy the food they need to survive. What they require
is an employment policy and appropriate food distribution
programmes.
Our efforts to achieve food security
need to focus primarily on women and the young, who are
the most vulnerable population groups. I am convinced
that in regions with agricultural potential, any increase
in production resulting from the actions I have mentioned
will generate income and employment, and will have a
beneficial impact on all sectors and the whole population
of the area. Other survival strategies, however, will
have to be found for regions where agriculture is
marginal and the environment fragile, and for areas of
urban poverty. Economic policies will have to be
rethought in both cases if we are to provide a setting
that is conducive to higher agricultural production on
the one hand, and to broader economic opportunity on the
other.
If universal access to food is to be
enduring, we will have to monitor constantly the food
supply situation at world, regional, national and even
local levels, not only to keep an eye on trends but also
to anticipate emergency situations so that the
international community can be mobilized in good time.
This is the role of FAO's Global Information and Early
Warning System.
Finally, we need to promote an
equitable system of international trade in food and
agriculture that will at the same time protect the
consumer. This is what FAO is working on in partnership
with the WHO and WTO.
All these facts are reported and
explained in the technical documents that have been
prepared for the World Food Summit for which the Heads of
State and Government will gather in Rome in less than one
month. These documents, which have been diligently put
together with the help of other United Nations agencies,
academic and research institutions and world scientific
experts, recognize that we have the knowledge, skills and
even the financial resources to take up the challenges
that lie before us. They point to the decisive role that
is played by agriculture in fighting poverty and reaching
food security. Food production and the fight against both
rural and urban poverty need to be reinstated as
development priorities. They need to be foremost among
the concerns of national and international policy-
makers. I do not mean by this, however, that industry,
energy, telecommunications, security, road links,
airports and harbours are not important factors of
development for poor countries and those affected by food
insecurity. On the contrary, they are also important
areas of investment, as are health and education, but
they lose all meaning if there is no food.
We are no longer alone in addressing
this situation, for efforts are also underway elsewhere
in the United Nations system to build up agriculture and
food security as cornerstones of development.
International development banks are reviewing their
portfolios with this in mind, and development agencies
are once again referring to agriculture, after years of
neglect. Many NGOs, meanwhile, are stepping up their
already impressive efforts to help small farmers.
While the farmers, technical experts
and practitioners of development are well-aware of the
situation, the top policy-makers in our States and
Governments now need to be convinced and mobilized. We
must get them to declare that a world in which over 800
million people are still suffering hunger is
unacceptable. We must get them to undertake to remedy
matters by changing policies where necessary, by
allocating resources where needed and, above all, by
placing confidence and restoring confidence in their
farmers. Such a public declaration of commitment will
draw in not only their ministers, their financial
organizations and other development agencies but also the
whole of civil society in the implementation of a plan of
action to secure food for all. That is the motivation
behind the World Food Summit which is to be held in Rome
from 13 to 17 November.
This Summit, which is an historic
first, was not only advocated and agreed by the
Conference of FAO in October 1995, but was also
unanimously endorsed by the General Assembly of the
United Nations in December of the same year and by many
inter-governmental organizations which urged their
members to participate at the highest level. The Summit
will be the culmination of a series of consultations with
governments, inter-governmental bodies, non-governmental
organizations and the private sector. This has led to the
drafting of a Policy Statement and Plan of Action to
achieve universal food security, which will be submitted
for adoption by the Heads of State and Government.
The Conference of FAO appointed the
Organization's Committee on World Food Security, which is
open to all the Member States of the United Nations, to
finalize these substantive documents in such a way that
they reflect the concerns of all the Members and of civil
society at large. This exercise, to which the
organizations of the United Nationssystem were invited,
also took into account the outcome of important
international conferences held in recent years. The
Committee's work has been intense, requiring two sessions
and the setting up of an inter-sessional working group
which met four times between March and August 1996. The
process is now drawing to a close with the Committee
scheduled to complete its negotiations at a final meeting
planned for next week.
As things now stand, the Plan of
Action to be submitted to the Summit calls for a series
of concrete, practical measures in seven specific areas,
so as to ensure: 1) conditions favourable to food
security; 2) access to food for all; 3) sustainable
increases in food production; 4) the contribution of
international trade to food security; 5) the availability
of emergency aid as and when needed; 6) the necessary
investment; and 7) concerted efforts on the part of
governments and international organizations to achieve
the intended results.
The Summit will not be a pledging
conference, nor will it seek to create new funding
mechanisms or additional bureaucracy. When the Summit is
over, it will be up to each Member State, acting in total
independence, to decide how best to achieve the
objectives set out in the Plan of Action. The
international organizations, NGOs and all sectors of
civil society will be invited to join the international
effort in a vast campaign to ensure food for all.
For its part, and in accordance with
its mandate, FAO will do all it can to ensure follow-up
to the Summit and implementation of the Plan of Action,
working closely with its partners in the United Nations
system. In line with the resolutions adopted in 1995 by
the Conference of FAO and the General Assembly of the
United Nations, the Committee on World Food Security will
be the inter-governmental body responsible for monitoring
progress and will report to the Council and Conference of
FAO and, through them, to the Economic and Social Council
and the General Assembly.
The fact that one hundred or so Heads
of State and Government have confirmed their attendance,
that the preparatory discussions have been so
open-minded, transparent and intense and that the media,
politicians, industrialists and NGOs have shown such keen
interest can only lead me to conclude that the Summit
will be a success. But then, seeing what is at stake, how
could it be otherwise?
The Summit casts a ray of hope on this
celebration of World Food Day which is dedicated to
fighting hunger and malnutrition. I wish to communicate
this hope to all the farmers of the world, small and
large, men and women, who battle each day against the
constraints of nature, the markets and regulations to
feed us. I am also anxious to communicate this hope to
all the hungry of the world and to state my firm belief
in a better future.
Thank you.
