"Latin America and the Caribbean have understood this and this was the first region to take on the challenge of fully eradicating hunger and not only diminishing it, by launching the Hunger Free Latin America and the Caribbean Initiative in 2005", he added.

Graziano da Silva highlighted the many initiatives that have emerged in the region, such as Hunger Zero in Brazil and the Crusade Against Hunger in Mexico - launched this week - which will help more than 7.4 million Mexicans living in extreme poverty and food insecurity.

"When a country decides to say 'no more hunger', the improvements that can be achieved are surprising," said the FAO Director General.

Graziano also highlighted the fact that Antigua and Barbuda has joined the UN Zero Hunger Challenge: Zero Hunger in Antigua and Barbuda has the full support of the FAO, and other agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Bank, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA),  the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), as well as the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).

Latin America on the front line  against hunger

Latin America and the Caribbean has become a benchmark in the global fight against hunger. In the last 20 years, 16 million people have ceased to suffer hunger in the region.

 In 1990-1992 hunger affected 14.6 percent of the population, or 65 million people, while in 2010-2012, it affected only 8.3 percent, or 49 million people. Add to this significant legislative advances: currently seven countries in the region already have food security laws, while another ten are developing legislation on the matter.

Hunger in the region is fundamentally a problem of access to food and not of food availability, Graziano said: "Latin America and the Caribbean, with a population of 600 million people, produces enough food to feed 750 million people. However, 49 million of the current population still suffer hunger," he said.

The Hunger Free Latin America and the Caribbean 2025 Initiative has provided strong support to this process by promoting the fight against hunger and the realization of the right to food, with action such as the creation of Parliamentary Fronts Against Hunger, which already exist in 14 countries

Tackling food waste

"A sustainable world requires not only that production be sustainable, but also consumption," said the Director General of the FAO.

Graziano da Silva said that globally, a third of all food produced is wasted, and he stressed that if one could avoid this waste "it would be possible to feed all the hungry people and have food to spare."

In Latin America and the Caribbean, losses and waste of food for retail during the production phase reach 200 kg per capita per year. At the consumer level, 25 kilos per capita per year are wasted. In cereal production, losses reach 30 percent of the grains produced, 40 percent of roots and tubers, 55 percent of fruits and vegetables, 20 percent of meat, almost 30 percent of fish and seafood, and more than 20 percent of dairy products.

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Laura Duchi, Presidente of the Gruppo Sportivo Bancari Romani, said: "We have worked for seven years alongside FAO, IFAD, WFP and Bioversity International to organize the Hunger Run. We are proud, together with the Rome-based international agencies, to help raise awareness of the fact that hundreds of millions of people around the world suffer from hunger, and to raise funds for poor communities in developing countries afflicted by hunger."

The run is being organized by Gruppo Sportivo Bancari Romani in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); the International Fund of Agricultural Development (IFAD); the World Food Programme (WFP); Bioversity International, and the FAO Staff Coop with the support of Expo Milano 2015, Roma Capitale and the Region of Lazio.

The initiative also enjoys the sponsorship of the Youth and United Nations Global Alliance (YUNGA), the United Nations Federal Credit Union (UNFCU), Acea and Federazione Italiana Atletica leggera (FIDAL).

FAO's top ten resource partners in 2012 include, in order of funding importance, the European Union, the United States of America, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Norway, Japan, Australia, the United Nations Development Programme, the Netherlands, Canada and Spain.

Since 2009, the EU has been supporting a wide-ranging initiative of the government and FAO to raise nutrition levels of the rural population and stimulate their economic growth potential, known as the Swaziland Agricultural Development Project (SADP), a 5-years programme funded with over €14 million of EU and almost €350 000 by FAO.

Although it was challenging to get such a complex project off the ground, Amadou Traoré, the EU's chargé d'affaires a.i. in Swaziland feels that things are moving in the right direction. "European taxpayers are willing to show their generosity," he says, "but especially now, when Europe itself experiences financial and economic difficulties, they want to see results." 

Louise McDonald, country program manager for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for Swaziland, says that SADP's achievements have strengthened collaboration between IFAD and FAO in assisting the government and smallholder farmers. "Together, we will work on bridging SADP's activities with a US$ 47 million program to be co-financed by IFAD", she says.

Smallholders

Fundamentally, SADP is all about smallholders, says Nehru Essomba, the project's Chief Technical Advisor: "You cannot tackle rural poverty, if you don't put the smallholder farmers first."

Connecting farmers to the market is a major challenge, Essomba says. So close to South Africa with its big scale producers, the environment is extremely competitive. SADP is setting up a €1 million Marketing Investing Fund, particularly to promote niche crops that offer small farmers a comparative advantage on the market place.

Equally important is to improve the environment in which the agricultural sector operates, both institutionally and physically. While major infrastructural rehabilitation works are being prepared, policies relating to research and extension are being updated and large scale capacity building of farmers, organisations and extension workers is underway.

At the same time, SADP helps spreading good agricultural practices, important for farmers to increase their productivity, while preserving the environment and lessen the pressure on Swaziland's limited natural resources. So far, more than 2 000 farmers have been trained in a wide range of practices, including conservation agriculture and agro-forestry.

Holding on

"Food security will come in two ways: by growing your own food and by growing to sell at the market," says Dr. Robert Thwala, Principal Secretary of Swaziland's Ministry of Agriculture, explaining SADP's focus on improving crop and livestock production and on agro-business development.

In Swaziland, where HIV prevalence is the highest in the world, the most vulnerable among the rural poor are the elderly and the youth, who have lost either parents or children, as the generation in between was decimated by the aids pandemic.

A total of 340 vegetable gardens have been established for vulnerable families to grow vegetables and herbs for household consumption, or in case of excess production, for sales to community members. Over 2000 people have directly benefited from the gardens, while also receiving nutritional education, through demonstrations in food preparation and processing. 

To support the younger generation, SADP is helping youth groups set up small agricultural businesses. Sixty groups, comprising around 2 500 youngsters, are engaged in poultry farming, pig production or vegetable and field crop production. They get the equipment, tools, inputs, medicines and training to make their business run.

The Mhawu Youth Club from the Ngudzine area in southern Swaziland is raising chickens. Sixteen year old member Nomcebo Simelane finds a lot of encouragement at her club: "Your peers tell you that when you want to make your dreams come true, you should just hold on."

Moreover, the poultry business offers her a way to do just that. She hopes that she will make enough money out of it to go to university and become a nurse.

"Plant genetic biodiversity is a key factor for sustainable agriculture. We share the commitment to ensuring that the world's ecosystems, and in FAO's specific case the world's agro-ecosystems, are healthy and sustainable," said José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General, at the 2^nd High-Level Round Table on the International Treaty for Food and Agriculture at Rio+20.
 

The meeting focused on delivery of the Treaty's potential benefits for biodiversity, climate change mitigation, and sustainability. FAO hosts the Secretariat of the International Treaty which entered into force in 2001.

The European Union joined the Treaty in 2004 and this is the first time that a member of the Treaty which is not an individual country has contributed to the Fund. The funding package follows previous contributions from Australia, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.

The Benefit-sharing Fund is governed by 127 countries and addresses food security at a time when climate change and other threats are contributing to massive losses of crop genetic diversity. The Fund already supports projects in 21 countries by promoting innovative planning and practical solutions for the use of crop biodiversity in areas affected by climate change, rural poverty or food insecurity.

"We need full political and financial commitment in support of sustainable agriculture if we want to guarantee food security worldwide while ensuring the conservation of our natural resources, such as biodiversity," Dacia Cioloș, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, said.

"In this context, strengthening the implementation of the International Treaty will be essential to face major challenges for food security such as climate change," he added.

"Farmers, as managers of genetic diversity, have much to offer both to their own communities and to the world at large thanks to their efforts to conserve and improve their crops through breeding and selection, and by making them available for use by others," said Lars Peder Brekk, Minister of Agriculture and Food of Norway and Chair of the High-Level Task Force of the Treaty.

Scientific criteria

"One of the Benefit-sharing Fund's unique features is the transparent process that governs the allocation of funds. After a wide announcement of each call, all the project proposals received for funding are evaluated according to established scientific criteria by international experts in order to fund the best projects," said Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the International Treaty.

Another key feature of the Fund discussed during the Second High-level Round table is its specific focus on conservation and sustainable-use activities in developing countries and regions which are not adequately funded in any other way. The contribution from the EU will make possible a range of activities, including:

• On-farm evaluation, selection and management of local and introduced seed varieties;
• Conservation of local and threatened varieties in national or international genebanks or the development of local and community genebanks;
• Documentation and sharing of local and indigenous knowledge that brings value to local crops and varieties;
• The transfer of technologies for conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources to farmers and selected institutions in developing countries;
• Establishment of links between farmers and communities elsewhere to promote the sharing of genetic material and information about that material, which will help farmers to respond to climate change.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and the Estonian Minister of Agriculture Helir-Valdor Seeder at a ceremony on 18 April, the day before the opening of the Regional Conference for Europe.

It commits Estonia to long-term support for FAO's core work on food security and rural poverty reduction, economic development and environmentally sustainable agriculture. Estonia provides an initial 23 000 euros to finance the use of its agricultural experts in FAO development projects. The money will also help strengthen statistics in Moldova.

The agreement, which specifies that Estonia would like to assist countries from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, runs until 2017. A member of the European Union since 2004, Estonia becomes an FAO development programme donor at a time when international aid has fallen due to the global recession, as data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows.

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Possible areas of cooperation include improving agricultural statistics, the use of communication and information technologies to benefit agriculture as a whole, and small-scale farmers in particular, in addition to supporting the development of a scorecard system.

During the meeting, Graziano da Silva presented Gates with a permanent building pass to FAO, in a symbolic gesture of FAO's commitment to working closer with the private sector and civil society.

Information innovation and cooperation

Graziano da Silva highlighted the value of innovative partnerships and of increasing South-South Cooperation to support smallholder producers.

Emphasizing the foundation's commitment to supporting small-scale farming, Gates addressed the need to make sure the benefits of the digital revolution and scientific innovations reach poor farmers worldwide and are better used in gathering and analyzing data.

FAO has also long advocated the need for greater access to information, innovation and cooperation to reduce hunger, malnutrition and extreme poverty through agriculture. In the meeting, the value of information technology to help small farmers obtain market information, link them to new and existing markets, and improve their productivity and business decision-making was also highlighted.

Before meeting at FAO, Gates discussed agriculture and sustainable poverty reduction during a question-and-answer session at the 35^th Session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He said that the world had the opportunity and the obligation to imagine a different future.

"This future will begin with another revolution in agricultural productivity. Sustainable yield increases will lead to a better living for farm families; they will also make food more accessible and cheaper for the growing number of poor families living in cities. In short, more productive small farmers are the key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty. If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture," said Gates.

It is crucial to build on these lessons and step up efforts to enable the world's most vulnerable people to withstand future shocks and produce the food they need to live active and healthy lives.