UNGA 73: General Debate

73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly Second Committee
General Debate

 

Thank you for giving me the floor.

I would like to affirm FAO’s continued support to the work of the Second Committee.

We look forward, in particular, to supporting your consultations on the resolutions on Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, and on the observances of World Food Safety Day, World Pulses Day and International Year of Plant Health. Each of these proposed observance raises awareness to important factors for food security and sustainable development.

Food safety is essential to food security and contributes to ensuring adequate health among other Sustainable Development Goals.

Pulses are an affordable, healthy, protein rich nutritious food that also helps improve soil fertility.

Plant health is critical to ensure food production, increase food security and protect biodiversity.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Second Committee will discuss issues of paramount importance in this session, perhaps none as urgent as the alarming trend in food insecurity.

The 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, released in September by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF WFP and WHO, confirms that hunger is on the rise. We are not only not on track to meet SDG 2, but we are losing ground on the fight against hunger.

There are three main reasons why.

First is climate, and this is precisely the theme of this year’s SOFI. Rural populations are especially vulnerable to climatic extremes, especially droughts. And as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this week, we have very little time to prevent global temperature rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which would have a devastating impact on agricultural production which will hit harder poor farmers.

Second, as explored in last year’s SOFI, we have evidence of the impact on hunger of conflict and protracted crisis, often combining conflict and other man-made factors with repeated and extreme climate events.

And, third, the economic slowdowns that continue to affect many countries.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would also like to point out the paradoxes that exist when we look at food security and nutrition. Despite growing urbanization, hunger and poverty are still disproportionally concentrated in rural areas. In fact, the review of the 2030 Agenda shows that rural areas generally lag behind not only in terms of SDG 1 and SDG 2 but also in terms of access to water, energy and other goals.

In another paradox, obesity is increasing alongside hunger and this is also happening in developing countries. Many times, hunger and obesity are present under the same roof and may even affect the same person over the course of a lifetime.

These are signs of broken food systems that we need to fix, in which some have too much to eat, others too little and where quality does not always match quantity. Making agriculture more resilient and sustainable, supporting family farming, creating decent jobs in rural and urban areas, and strengthening social protection are investments that will not only help improve food security and nutrition, but also contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation, and to address inequalities that exist between rural and urban, and women and men.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

At the opening of the Second Committee, the Vice President of the Brookings Institution noted the challenge of bringing technology to rural areas.

It is precisely in this spirit that FAO is organizing in November, in Rome, the “International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers: Unlocking the potential of agricultural innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”

This symposium will be a discussion from the family farmer perspective – their needs, their realities, their challenges – and will provide a platform to propose processes, pathways and interventions to unlock the potential of innovation in agriculture in benefit of family farmers, scale up inclusive innovations, and strengthen partnerships.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

To end, I would like to invite you to the World Food Day observance on October 16, 1pm, at the ExPress Bar. This celebration will be an opportunity to discuss how our actions can shape our future. Hopefully, these stories will inspire further action because while a Zero Hunger world by 2030 is still possible, we are quickly running out of time.

Thank you for your attention.