Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

“ We recognize that small island developing States, primarily net food-importing countries, are exceptionally vulnerable to the fluctuating availability and excessive price volatility of food imports. It is therefore important to support the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food, the eradication of hunger and the provision of livelihoods while conserving, protecting and ensuring the sustainable use of land, soil, forests, water, plants and animals, biodiversity and ecosystems. ”

“ Global food security depends not only on raising global production, but on reducing distortions in the structure of the world food market and on shifting the focus of food production to food-deficit countries, regions, and households. Many of the countries not growing enough food to feed themselves possess the largest remaining reservoirs of untapped agricultural resources. ”

“ Article 7 To give impetus to food production in developing countries and in particular in the least developed and most seriously affected among them, urgent and effective international action should be taken, by the developed countries and other countries in a position to do so, to provide them with sustained additional technical and financial assistance on favourable terms and in a volume sufficient to their needs on the basis of bilateral and multilateral arrangements. ”

“ The Soviet Union and parts of North America have significant amounts of frontier land suitable for agriculture; only Asia and Europe are truly land-starved. 39. Global food security also depends on ensuring that all people, even the poorest of the poor, can get food. While on the world scale this challenge requires a reappraisal of global food distribution, the task weighs more immediately and heavily on national governments. Inequitable distribution of production assets, unemployment, and underemployment are at the heart of the problem of hunger in many countries. ”

“ Growth in world cereal production has steadily outstripped world population growth. Yet each year there are more people in the world who do not get enough food. Global agriculture has the potential to grow enough food for all, but food is often not available where it is needed.
48. Production in industrialized countries has usually been highly subsidized and protected from international competition. These subsidies have encouraged the overuse of soil and chemicals, the pollution of both water resources and foods with these chemicals, and the degradation of the countryside. ”

“ Setting realistic targets and monitoring progress towards them call for reliable and relevant information and analysis which are still often unavailable at the national and international levels. For the follow-up to the World Food Summit, coordination and cooperation within the UN system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, is vital and should take into account the mandate of FAO and other relevant organizations. ”

“ America is leading the fight against global hunger. Today, more than half the world's food aid comes from the United States. And tonight, I ask Congress to support an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, so we can build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine. ”

“ At the low level of technology, 64 countries with a population of around 1.1 billion lack the resources to feed themselves, With the most advanced agricultural methods, the number of countries where food production potential would fall short of requirements drops to 19, with a total population of 100 million. Most are high-income West Asian countries and some small island states. Many of these countries have the capacity to earn enough foreign exchange to import their food requirements. In the others, the real issue is the modernization of agriculture on a sustainable basis. ”

“ The further improvement of international relations will create better conditions for international o-operation in all fields which should make possible large financial and material resources to be used, inter alia , for developing agricultural production and substantially improving world food security ”

“ Food demand will increase as populations increase and their consumption patterns change. In the remaining years of this century, about 1.3 billion people will be added to the human family (see Chapter 4) ; rising incomes, however, may account for 30 to 40 per cent of the increased demand for food in developing countries and about 10 per cent in industrial nations. [30] Thus over the next few decades, the global food system must be managed to increase food production by 3 to 4 per cent yearly. ”

“ These figures could be sunstantially higher if the area under food production and the productivity of 3 billion hectares of permanent pastures can be increased on a sustainable basis. Nevertheless, the data do sugest that meeting the food needs of an ultimate world population around 10 billion would require some changes in food habits as well as greatly improving the efficiency of traditional agriculture. ”

“ Strengthening food security from a global point of view requires reducing incentives that force overproduction and non-competitive production in the developed market economies and enhancing those that encourage food production in developing countries. At the same time, these incentive structures must be redesigned to promote farming practices that conserve and enhance the agricultural resource base. ”

“ There are places where too little is grown; there are places where large numbers cannot afford to buy food. And there are broad areas of the Earth, in both industrial and developing nations, where increases in food production are undermining the base for future production.
2. The agricultural resources and the technology needed to feed growing populations are available. Much has been achieved over the past few decades. Agriculture does not lack resources; it lacks policies to ensure that the food is produced where it is needed and in a manner that sustains the livelihoods of the rural poor. ”

“ For a lasting solution of the food problem all efforts should be made to eliminate the widening gaps which today separate developed and developing countries and to bring about a new international economic order. It should be possible for all countries to participate actively and effectively in the new international economic relations by the establishment of suitable international systems, where appropriate, capable of producing adequate action in order to establish just and equitable relations in international economic co-operation ”

“ The application of the concept of sustainable development to the effort to ensure food security requires systematic attention to the renewal of natural resources. It requires a holistic approach focused on ecosystems at national, regional, and global levels, with coordinated land use and careful planning of water usage and forest exploitation. The goal of ecological security should be embedded firmly in the mandates of FAO, other UN organizations that deal with agriculture, and all other appropriate international agencies. ”

“ In addition, some countries of Latin America are experiencing food shortages and are obliged to import grain.
The General Assembly has learned with concern that expected supplies of bread grains, rice, fats and oils, dairy products, meat and sugar appear to be substantially inadequate to meet minimum requirements for human consumption in 1947. Many countries, especially those which have suffered from enemy occupation and those which do not produce sufficient foodstuffs to meet their own requirements, need agricultural supplies such as machinery, implements, fertilizers, pesticides and seeds. ”

“ We express our deep concern over the persistence of hunger which, on such a scale, constitutes a threat both to national societies and, through a variety of ways, to the stability of the international community itself. Within the global framework, governments should also cooperate actively with one another and with United Nations organizations, financial institutions, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and public and private sectors, on programmes directed toward the achievement of food security for all. ”

“ The relevant United Nations agencies should be assured the resources to expand and enhance their food assistance and support safety net programmes to address hunger and malnutrition, when appropriate, through the use of local or regional purchase. ”

“ Recalling the need to strengthen our efforts to enhance food security and nutrition and to focus on smallholders and women farmers, as well as on agricultural cooperatives and farmers’ networks, and the need to encourage countries to revitalize global partnerships,
Recognizing the importance of South-South and triangular cooperation in promoting family farming and addressing the problem of food insecurity through the exchange of knowledge, experience and good practices, innovative policies, knowhow and resources,
1. ”

“ We call on governments, the international organizations and financial institutions to utilize their resources effectively, to improve their performance and strengthen cooperation and to undertake joint efforts to combat hunger, and reinforce the key role of sustainable agriculture and rural development in food security. ”

“ Other foods besides grains are changing the patterns of world food demand and production. Demand for milk and meat is growing as incomes rise in societies that prefer animal protein, and much agricultural development in the industrialized nations has been devoted to meeting these demands. In Europe, meat production more than tripled between 1950 and 1984, and milk production nearly doubled. [5] Meat production for exports increased sharply, particularly in the rangelands of Latin America and Africa. ”