Agriculture and Food Day

We are all familiar with the challenges we face.

 

As global population growth accelerates, the world needs to produce more food. But if we do not transform our food systems, we will continue producing more, with more environmental externalities and without addressing the triple burden of malnutrition.

 

We need to shift to more sustainable, resilient and inclusive food systems.

 

If we want to leave no one behind, we need to bring rural communities into the heart of the implementation of the 2030 agenda: around 80% of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas.

 

This means putting family farmers, fishers and pastoralists, and indigenous peoples at the centre of policy making and responsible investments as we have heard here today.

 

This means recognizing their critical role as agents of change.

 

We also need to promote innovative systems that protect and enhance the natural resource base, while increasing productivity. And let us not forget the local, traditional and indigenous knowledge and farming systems of poor rural communities that are a foundation to build on.

 

Innovation is essential for the SDGs. But innovation is not only about technology. It is also about transforming social, economic, institutional, and policy processes.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

Ensuring adequate means of implementation is key. And as is being said throughout the HLPF, what gets measured gets done. We need reliable data to inform policy making and responsible investment.

 

There is a broad consensus based on strong factual basis that responsible investment in agriculture and sustainable food systems has greater potential to reduce poverty than investing in other sectors.

 

Investments are also required at the farm level, infrastructure, processing and distribution activities which connect smallholder producers and consumers to markets and to rural and urban areas.

 

To do so, investments and policies must address the structural constraints faced by smallholders, increasing their access to productive resources, to markets, and providing social protection to help build their resilience.

 

And these investments must reach all rural actors, especially women and youth.

 

This is what we need, but in practice actual flows have not substantially increased. There is also little evidence that the rural poor are benefitting from new investments.

 

We need to identify the bottlenecks that are impeding this flow. New partnership and business models involving the public and private sectors, farmers and their organizations, cooperatives, civil society and non-governmental organizations will support the scaling up responsible investments.

 

The Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure and the Principles for Responsible Investment are instruments to promote sustainable agriculture and food systems. I call on you to use them.

 

To end, I would like to stress the need for greater alignment between global, regional and national policies to increase coherence and accountability of our actions. And all of us should be part of this effort.

 

In this regard, let me welcome today’s discussion that fosters dialogue between stakeholders, strengthens existing partnerships and generates new ones, and offers a platform to share lessons learned and best practices.  

 

Thank you for your attention.