14 October |
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Late news report on WFD celebration at FAO Regional Office on Channel 11 |
16 October |
- | Report on WFD celebration at RAP and YS Rao awardee from Thailand on Radio Thailand world service |
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and an interview with He Changchui, RR (07:00 hrs.) |
21 October |
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Late news report on national WFD celebration organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Rajabhat Institute of Ubonratchathani and RAP on Channels 5, 9, 11 and iTV. |
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BANGLADESH
http://www.dailystarnews.com/200210/17/n2101701.htm#BODY6 http://www.nation-online.com/200210/17/n2101701.htm#BODY1 Use surface water as much as possible: PM (The Daily Star, Bangladesh and the New Nation 17 October) UNB, Dhaka Against the backdrop of alarming fall in groundwater level, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday called for optimum use of surface water in irrigation for the country's sustainable development. "Like many other countries in the world, the groundwater level in Bangladesh is falling gradually due to excess lifting. It will be beneficial for us if we can ensure the best use of surface water in agricultural work as quickly as possible," she said. Inaugurating a countrywide programme here marking the Wold Food Day 2002, Khaleda described this year's theme of the day "Water: Source of Food Security" as very timely. Organised by the Agriculture Ministry at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium, the function was addressed, among others, by Agriculture Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami, Food Minister Abdullah Al Noman, State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and FAO Representative in Bangladesh Bui Thi Lan. The prime minister recalled that Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman realising this fact had first taken initiative to build up an integrated infrastructure by using surface water for better management of irrigation. "He (Zia) had launched the programme for canal digging and river dredging, and encouraged the people to dig thousands of kilometres of canals and dredge rivers in remote villages of the country," she told the audience of diplomats, MPs, ministers, government officials and agricultural experts. Explaining the usefulness of this scheme, Khaleda said water to be held by these canals and rivers in the rainy season would be used during dry season for irrigation. She said Bangladesh had attained food autarky within a short period of time due to this revolutionary step of Shaheed Zia. Khaleda said farmers would have to be made aware about soil and water management apart from being encouraged to adopt scientific methods of cultivation. Turning to the growing population and shortage of arable land in Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia called for producing more food through optimum use of land and adopting modern technology. "The country's population will hit 17 crore in 2025 when the demand for food will go up to 3 crore metric tons," she said. The prime minister reminded that there are problems of excess rain, floods, drought and salinity in Bangladesh. "So the challenge to boost food grain output for the increased number of population is very tough, particularly in this adverse situation." Underlining the importance of bringing qualitative changes in crop production management, the prime minister said more and more lands are needed to be brought under irrigation facility. "Salt tolerant varieties of crops will have to be cultivated on lands in coastal areas where crop do not grow due to salinity and water logging. We have to apply biotechnology, if necessary," the prime minister said. "It means we have to ensure the best use of every inch of our land. That's how food security can be ensured," Khaleda told the function. The prime minister said the country's development activities should be carried on by proper and logical use of natural resources in the interest of the present and future generations. Referring to the increasing trend of irrigation in agriculture, she said in irrigation 77 per cent of water comes from underground sources while 23 percent from rivers, canals and ponds. On the occasion of the World Food Day, the prime minister called upon all to get involved in Tele-Food Programme to fight against hunger. Agriculture Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami said, "We need to boost the country's food production by 15 per cent to meet the increased demand in the year 2025." He said the demand for water would be 24,370 million cubic metres in the year 2020 when the deficit will be 880 million cubic metres. |
NEPAL http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishdaily/ktmpost/2002/oct/oct11/features.htm#1 War against food and water security (`Kathmandu Post' 11 October 2002) By KAMALESH ADHIKARI The world is in a "race against the clock" in the war against hunger. While hunger is a consequence of poverty, the opposite is also true: Hunger causes poverty. This was the basic reason why the global community celebrated the World Food Day/TeleFood 2001 with the theme "Fight Hunger to Reduce Poverty". Most notably, World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16 to commemorate the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 1945. First observed in 1981, each year World Food Day highlights a particular theme on which to focus activities. While the theme for 2000 was "A Millennium Free from Hunger", themes for the previous two years were: "Youth Against Hunger" (1999) and "Women Feed the World" (1998). The World Food Day is important for two main reasons. First, it aims to heighten public awareness of the plight of the world's hungry and malnourished. Second, it encourages people worldwide to take action against hunger. More than 150 countries observe this event every year. Currently, more than 800 million people do not have enough food and freshwater to eat and drink. Despite the global pledge made during the World Food Summit in November 1996 in Rome, Italy to halve the number of undernourished people and eventually to achieve food security for all by 2015, the prognosis, as was expected, does not look promising. The target made is not on progress and the governments are not getting "on track" in reducing hunger. Moreover, according to FAO estimates, since the world will require 60 percent more food by 2030, the situation might become even more pathetic in the years ahead if precautions and necessary rectification in the policies are not immediately taken or implemented. Against this backdrop, the World Food Day/TeleFood theme for this year is "Water: Source of Food Security". This theme recognises the essential role of freshwater in feeding the global population and ensuring food security - having regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. Water covers three-quarters of the Earth, but only a small fraction is accessible as freshwater. Limited access to water is increasingly becoming a constraint in producing enough food and thereby in ensuring food security. Of the total amount of water withdrawn, agriculture claims almost 70 percent to produce the food that fuels human activity. According to a study conducted by FAO in 93 developing countries, the situation of water scarcity is severe to such an extent that a number of nations are already withdrawing water supplies faster than they can be renewed. Ten countries are in such a critical state that they withdraw more than 40 percent of their total water resources for agriculture and another eight are water stressed, withdrawing more than 20 percent. At the same time, the competition for water from industrial and domestic users is continuing to grow, posing other serious threats to the livelihoods of the people. And, most dangerously, the severity of water problem in the world is not merely to do with scarcity. It deals with access to and quality of water as well. Even if water is plentiful, access to it is not always equitable, and quality of it is not always hygienic. For example, take the case of women, who represent the majority of the developing world's farmers, but are often excluded by tradition from owning land and managing water. Even in the context of Nepalese women, they are used up in farming on a larger scale but they are in most cases excluded from owning land and managing water. Similarly, though immensely rich in water resources, the country has not been able to provide adequate drinking water and sanitation facilities to a vast majority of its population. Due to the lack of quality of water, people here often suffer from different waterborne diseases. Some 44,000 children under the age of five die every year from such diseases. With these reasons, the target to reduce the number of undernourished to half by 2015 is not merely tough but it also looks impossible. The choice of this year's World Food Day/TeleFood theme has therefore been centered on the role of freshwater in food security. This year's theme serves as a call to governments, civil society and the international community to realise the importance of water in securing food for all. This day can be taken as a reflection of the global concern, regarding the gap between the requirements and the availability of water in most parts of the world. In the United States alone, 450 national, private voluntary organisations sponsor World Food Day, and local groups are active in almost every community. Similarly, another initiative is the TeleFood Campaign, in which television and radio broadcasts, concerts, celebrity appeals, sporting and other events pass on the message that it is time to fight against hunger. Therefore, for Nepal also, it is urgent to give full recognition to the need of solving the water problem on a national scale. While international cooperation and commensurate resources are essential to prevent the present global water crisis from becoming a source of dangerous friction in the years ahead, the Nepalese government itself should also be more planned and organised in launching programmes to prevent water crisis in the country and thereby to ensure food security. It definitely needs renewed political will and commitment from the government. Likewise, equally important roles will be of the international and national non-governmental organisations, other grassroots level organisations, educational institutions and media. Citizens of the country should also realise that they do also have a key role to play in managing sustainable use of water and ensuring food security in the country. Hope this year's World Food Day will contribute to a large extent in highlighting the importance of freshwater as a source of food security, not only in the country but also in other countries of the world, which are suffering from acute hunger and malnutrition. |
PACIFIC
WORLD FOOD DAY: Water for agriculture vital for the future, day stresses Rome (PINA Nius Online, 13 October 2002) - Wednesday's World Food Day theme, "Water: source of food security", points to the essential role of water in food production, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. Around the world speakers will highlight the importance of better water management practices in agriculture production. There will be events in more than 150 countries, including in the Pacific. Each year on the anniversary of its founding, 16 October 1945, the FAO draws attention to the problem of hunger and malnutrition in the world. It highlights crucial issues through World Food Day. An FAO study of 93 developing countries indicates that some water-scarce nations are already withdrawing water supplies faster than they can be renewed. Ten countries are already in a critical state, it said. Agriculture uses about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn from the earth. More and more water will be used for irrigation, as world food production increases to feed a growing population. Water used for agriculture must be managed wisely, the FAO stresses as part of World Food Day. It is among reasons it is joining with the international community to promote the sustainable use and management of water as an essential global resource, it said. - PINA Nius Online. |
INDIA
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/19/stories/2002101900561000.htm Global food insecurity (Editorial in The Hindu, October 19 2002) MUCH HAS BEEN said during 2002 about a new global effort to accelerate sustainable development. At the Financing for Development conference and at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, two high level United Nations conferences that were held earlier this year, agendas were adopted and declarations were issued on a new partnership between rich and poor countries that would take the world to the Millennium Development Goals on poverty, health, education and gender equality. But now we have a U.N. agency, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, issuing a warning that the world will not meet the first and most basic of goals - of halving by the 2015 the population suffering from chronic hunger. The FAO warns, in its grimly titled report, State of Food Insecurity, that there are now 799 million people in the developing countries suffering from under-nourishment. The latest estimates show a 20 million decline between 1990-92 and 1998-2000 in the number afflicted by malnutrition, but this is far too slow a fall in the scale of chronic hunger in the world. The imperceptible progress that has been made in the war against global hunger since the early 1990s means that from now onwards, every year as many as 24 million people have to be lifted out of hunger (compared to the recent record of just 2.5 million a year) in order to achieve the 2015 target of just 400 million people coping with under-nourishment. Clearly, notwithstanding all the brave words spoken by the leaders of the world, the global fight against hunger is in urgent need of a much stronger thrust. If a reduction in the spread of under-nourishment is proving so hard to bring about, elimination of hunger must be a goal that keeps getting pushed further and further into the future. It is also worrying that what little progress has been made has been concentrated in a few countries - mainly China and six other nations in Asia and Africa. In the vast majority of developing countries, there is a slackening in the efforts to reduce malnutrition. Sadly, India is one country where even as there has been a small decline in the proportion of people experiencing under-nourishment (from 25 to 24 per cent between 1990-92 and 1998-2000), the absolute number has grown by as much as 18 million. This is consistent with the Indian development experience during the 1990s, when in spite of a fairly rapid growth in average per capita incomes, widening regional disparities have meant that the absolute number of people suffering from chronic hunger has increased. It is not that the Governments of the developing countries do not know what needs to be done to make a major dent in this the most basic of problems afflicting the human condition. The agenda for action has been known for decades. What stands in the way is a combination of factors that includes Governments without political will, an unfavourable global environment and wrong priorities that get reflected in a paucity of resources. For Governments that care to listen, the FAO has listed once more all the elements of an age-old package. Since chronic hunger remains predominantly a rural phenomenon, land reform is as relevant today as it was decades ago. The FAO report shows once again, if evidence was needed, that no country has succeeded very much in lowering malnutrition without first implementing land reform. The other elements of the package include higher investment in rural infrastructure, restoration of degraded farmland, improved agricultural research and extension services and diversification of rural income. The FAO lists its familiar five-point programme which would cost the world $24 billion a year for achieving a dramatic reduction in the scale of under-nourishment. This may seem like an impossibly large amount in an era when few developed countries put their money alongside their lofty proclamations. But a monetary cost cannot be attached to reducing global hunger, the reduction - if not elimination - of which must be the first and foremost task of the international community. |
THAILAND
17/Oct/2002 THAILAND: LOPBURI MANGO GROWER HONORED ON WORLD FOOD DAY. A most recognized planter in Phattana Nikhom District, Nonthaburi Province, in central Thailand was among the five winners of the 2002 Y.S. Rao Award issued by the FAO Regional Office in Bangkok to mark the World Food Day. Mrs. Ireen Tatong, 51, a mother of four, was cited outstanding planter in the Asia-Pacific region, together with Mr. Shi Guangyin from China, Mrs. Genevieve Ichiro Rechelbang from Palau, Mr. K.M. Opananda from Sri Lanka and Mrs. Xuan Mai Phan Thi from Viet Nam. Before becoming a successful agricultural entrepreneur, Mrs. Ireen had to struggle through a series of unsuccessful ventures. After 30 years of mango planting, she now harvests an average of 250 tons of fruit every year from her 16 hectares of mango plantations. She uses innovative techniques such as grafting for mango fruit initiation, drip-irrigation and the application of bio-fertilizers that ensure high yields and quality. Her mangoes have frequently won the first prize for quality in provincial and regional contests. Mrs. Ireen is now well known and often invited by public and private horticulture institutions across the country to lecture and offer advice on fruit planting. Her plantation is a center for the transfer of horticulture technology and a provincial agro-tourism center. She has taken initiatives in sustainable horticulture like using fertilizer made from decayed mango, banana, guava and papaya fruit and non-chemical pesticides extracted from natural medical plants. (c) 2002 Thai News Service. THAI NEWS SERVICE 17/10/2002 |
VIET NAM
VIETNAMESE WOMAN FARMER WINS AGRICULTURE AWARD Bangkok, Oct. 15 (VNA) - A Vietnamese woman farmer was among five outstanding farmers in the Asia-Pacific region receiving the Food and Agriculture Organisation's 2002 Y.S. Rao Award for their excellent contributions to agricultural production. Phan Thi Xuan Mai, 39, living in hamlet 1, Tan My commune, Cai Be district in Tien Giang southern province, was able to double her rice yield to more than seven tonnes per hectare in the winter-spring crop and to four-five tonnes per hectare in the two remaining crops of the year. The four other award-winning farmers were from China, Palau, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The award presentation ceremony was held in Bangkok on Oct. 14 to mark the World Food Day.-Enditem |
SRI LANKA
http://origin.dailynews.lk/2002/10/16/new18.html World Food Day today : Emphasis on water for food security (Daily News Sri Lanka 16 October) Agriculture and Livestock Minister S.B. Dissanayake has congratulated the UN Director General and his representatives the world over for their efforts to fulfil the mission taken up by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in a World Food Day message. The Minister has said the FAO has taken up the unique mission of freeing mankind from hunger and poverty. The World Food Day commemorates the founding of the FAO. The theme for this year "Water : Source of Food Security" is an extremely timely theme given the growing necessity to manage water which is an essential input for agricultural production. Access to safe and nutritious food is the first fundamental human right. Policies of all governments strived towards achieving increased food production, access to food and a better livelihood for the farmers of this country. The political will and commitment of our Government is to achieve food security for all in our country. On this day which is dedicated to renew our pledge of ensuring food security, " the message said http://origin.dailynews.lk/2002/10/16/new28.html World Food Day celebrations by NGOs (Daily News 16 October) by Galewela group correspondent Many Non Governmental Organizations operating throughout the island have made arrangements to celebrate the World Food Day on October 16 highlighting the theme for this year `Water: Source of Food Security', designated by `Food and Agriculture Organization' (FAO). Colombo FAO office has allocated some money to National NGO Council of Sri Lanka (NNGOC) and its Board of Directors met on October 10 and decided to distribute this money among its affiliated NGOs who offered to celebrate the World Food Day - 2002. Girl Guides' Association and Sri Lanka Youth Council will conduct a programme in Colombo. Wilpotha Women's Thrift Association, Talawa `Samasewaya', Hatton `Nawayugaya', Social Development Forum, `Projects For The Youth' Matara, Hambantota `Women's Development Foundation', Puttalam `Community Trust Fund', `Sawiya', `Gemi Jana Pubuduwa', and `Uwa Farmers' Organization Badulla have notified their programmes scheduled to be implemented today 16. `United Schools Organization Sri Lanka' in collaboration with `The Agriculture Science Society' of Galewela Central College has rescheduled its programme for October 18 to avoid clashing with Colombo celebrations. Mazlan Jusoh FAO Resident Representative for Sri Lanka and Maldives will attend the `World Food Day' programme to be conducted at Hector Kobbekaduwa Agriculture Training and Research Institute, Colombo and FAO Programme Officer R. M. Ranasinghe and NNGOC Chairman Saman Amarasinghe will be the chief invitees at Galewela Celebrations on October 18. Several Farmers' Organizations receiving `World Food Aid' also have come forward to fall in line with the international farmers to celebrate this world event. Yatiwehera Lenawala `Sri Sarana' and Kambarawa Kudumirisyaya farmers' organizations have made arrangements to engage in practical work to improve their tanks on October 18 to mark the World Food Day. |
PAKISTAN
http://paknews.com/top.php?id=1&date1=2002-10-16 Water a precious commodity: Musharraf (Pakistan Daily, 17 Oct) ISLAMABAD: Oct 16 (PNS) - President General Pervez Musharraf Tuesday said that water was was a precious commodity for Pakistan. The water irrigating much of Pakistan's Punjab and a life-line for agriculture and live stockflows from Kashmir. The Indus Water treaty has been the framework of water sharing between Pakistan and India. Without Kashmir waters, the entire Pakistan is likely to turn into a barren desert. In his message on the occasion of World Food Day, Musharraf said: "I am pleased to note that World Food Day is being observed today with a most apt theme `Water, Source of Food Security' in light of the present global scenario of food insecurity and poverty. Water is a precious and finite resource. Although it covers three quarters of the earth only a small fraction of this resource is accessible as freshwater, of which about 70 percent is used to produce food. In Pakistan, water is most precious with intense competition between agricultural, industrial and domestic consumers on its use. With a growing population and developing economy, Pakistan's demand for water is ever increasing. Unfortunately, over the years, no effort was made to augment the country's existing water reservoirs, which have depleted due to silting and other factors. Protracted drought and desertification over the past few years have further impacted this precious resource. I am proud to state that the Government in a brief period has taken a number of short, medium and long-term measures to address the issue of water shortage in the country. A comprehensive programme for expanding storages through environmentally safe and sustainable approaches has been launched. Alternate technologies are being explored not only to derive maximum benefits from all the available water resources but also to reduce the negative effects of excessive use of irrigation water on soil and the environment. Despite the severest of droughts, with the benevolence of Allah and appropriate policy reforms, we have been able not only to achieve self-sufficiency in our main food grain, wheat, but also to export sizable quantities of it. Pakistan feels a strong bond with other members of the world community in the common goal of reducing poverty and hunger in the world. We are bound to share our know-how and resources with other states in working towards the achievement of this common goal to which we have jointly committed in the declarations of the World Food Summit of 1998 and the follow up World Food Summit of June 2002. On the occasion of the World Food Day, let us renew our commitment to provide an enabling environment for food security of the poor and vulnerable segments of our society. We also pledge to support all international efforts to eliminate hunger and malnutrition from the world." |
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