CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY SECRETARIAT (CARICOM) - SECRETARIAT DE LA COMMUNAUTE DES CARAIBES - SECRETARIA DE LA COMUNIDAD DEL CARIBE

Mr. Edwin W. Carrington, Secretary-General, Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM)

In exactly three years, one month and 17 days - or altogether 1 143 days - the world, according to the calendar, will enter a new century and a new millennium. For some 800 million people, they will do so suffering from chronic malnutrition. Of these, nearly 200 million will be children under the age of five. Their particular lot will be one of acute and chronic protein and energy deficiency. Today, according to World Bank estimates, close to one billion people in developing countries are too poor to buy enough food to sustain their energy requirements, and projections by this very august organization, the FAO, for the year 2 000 indicate a further rise in the number of people in developing countries without enough food to meet their minimum daily nutritional requirements.

Mr. Director-General, in the face of this appalling scenario, how can we but commend you, the Government of Italy, your staff and your collaborating organizations for convening this historic World Food Summit? I share every ounce of your commitment and your sense of urgency of the need to alleviate the suffering and pain caused by hunger and malnutrition which these bleak figures actually signify and which their dismal projections portend. This situation is a virtual affront to all humanity and a condemnation of all collective leadership. Failure to arrest it and reverse it will not only hold dire consequences for a large proportion of humankind directly affected, but it will threaten the very sustainability of our entire development process. We have come here from every corner of the globe, I believe, because we share this common concern and recognize the urgent need to take remedial action to effectively eradicate one of humanity's greatest afflictions: increasing food and nutrition insecurity.

Fortunately, the problem is not fundamentally one of lack of availability of natural resources, of technology, of know-how or planting materials. The agricultural resources and the technology needed to feed the world's growing population are available. The cause of the problem lies elsewhere.

Today, the Caribbean Community joins the rest of the international community in the sincere hope that this Conference will mark a milestone in the global partnership that must be secured if we are to fulfil our responsibility to manage and utilize our resources to effectively eliminate food deficiency and nutrition insecurity. I am truly optimistic that together we can sow quality seeds of cooperation, which is the only way to bring about a true and lasting solution to this problem. Our primary focus must be on the implementation of appropriate policies by Member States and international institutions alike, which not only ensure that food is produced but that waste and over-consumption are significantly reduced, that production methods are environmentally sustainable, that supplies are available when needed and that there is access for the economically disadvantaged.

Two major obstacles - inequitable land distribution and inaccessibility to irrigation water - stand in the path of an effective solution to this problem and to agricultural progress generally. There must be a more tangible and secure commitment from national policy-makers and from the international financial institutions to land reform and to the provision of irrigation water. Such policies, if properly devised and implemented, can greatly minimize the need for food aid and other assistance programmes, many of which are not only costly, but often do not reach the intended beneficiaries.

The re-orientation of public investment to support land reform programmes and irrigation systems is essential to the modernization of agricultural production. Investment in roads, electricity, marketing and agro-processing facilities is also critical. No less so, indeed, are regional and international public and private sector collaboration to stimulate investment in agricultural research, targeted to the creation of new technology and to the enhancement of traditional systems to better service the needs of our farming communities. Increasing investment towards such research is vital, not only for finding Higher Yielding Varieties, but also for identifying environmentally-compatible solutions for the prevention and eradication of diseases and pests which continue to consume much of the agricultural produce.

Finally, at the base of it all, there must be a concerted effort by all actors, public and private, to develop the human resource capacity through education and training programmes, which focus not only on the need to exploit the opportunities to increase output offered by technological change but also to maximise the nutritional benefits of the various food crops.

In the Caribbean we are becoming increasingly conscious of the need to do our part to stem the threat of food insecurity and to address the twin challenges of malnutrition and obesity. Earlier this year, at the annual regular meeting of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, priority focus was laid on the agricultural sector. At that meeting Heads of Government identified the transformation of this traditional sector, largely built on artificial bases and historically sustained by extra-market mechanisms, as a priority focal point for regional development in the approximate future. All our institutions were called to arms in this process and will indeed need to answer that call if we are to organize and implement effectively a coordinated strategy.

The Caribbean Community is aware of and indeed grateful for the assistance of FAO and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation and Agriculture (IICA), as well as other key supporters, in its agricultural development efforts. We look forward to the increased collaboration in the region's recent agricultural development initiative. In this regard, we are particularly heartened by the willingness of FAO and IICA to assist in the establishment of a Caribbean Food and Nutrition Security Network. This network will contribute towards improved food and nutrition security for the people of the Caribbean. Equally, we wish to express our gratitude for the assistance of the Government of Italy and FAO in developing the Caribbean Seed and Germplasm Research Information Network.

In concluding, I appeal to the international community, and in particular to the international financial institutions, for special attention to be paid to the needs of small states whose agriculture is especially vulnerable owing to their size, climatic and topographical conditions, as well as their geographical location. In like manner, I also appeal to the developed countries to dismantle their barriers to agricultural imports from these countries and to assess their policies against the background of their impact on the agriculture and food security of these states.

As we emerge from these deliberations adopting a Plan of Action, we must never forget that two decades ago, at the 1974 World Food Conference, we also solemnly committed ourselves to ensuring - and I quote "that within a decade no child will go to bed hungry, no family will fear for the next day's bread and no human being's future and capacities will be stunted by malnutrition". Despite that commitment we are where we are today. Nevertheless we remain convinced that the world is ours to shape. "Man does not live in space, he fashions it, he creates geography, he modifies the landscape, he turns up the soil, he carves the face of the earth from generation to generation" said the French philosopher Boudeville. In fashioning our world of the twenty-first century, and in modifying its landscape, let us charge this generation of men and women to use their power to design and build a just society for all. There can be no such society, however, without secure access to the necessary food supplies for all. Let us therefore through the undertaking of this Summit, help to give substance to that most universal of prayers: "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts."