World Hunger Day Panel Discussion - The Future of Food in The Bahamas

 

Ms Sharon Brennen-Haylock

Director, FAO LON

 

World Hunger Day Panel Discussion

The Future of Food in The Bahamas

 

 

Good Evening Friends,

 

Greetings to you all on World Hunger Day, coming at a time when millions of persons worldwide still  live in a state of chronic hunger and food insecurity.  However, our presence here this evening means that we are all committed to do our part to make hunger history!

 

First of all, let me thank Hands for Hunger for inviting me to be a part of this important observance.  Permit me also to thank Hands for Hunger for the important work it is doing in the community to provide food to thousands of people, and for all those who support Hands for Hunger in this endeavour.

 

The excellent presentations from my co-panellists mirror the discussion at the global level.  I also look forward to hearing what all of you have to say about how about how we can work together, to eradicate world hunger, and indeed in hunger in The Bahamas.

 

A few words about the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, which is where I work.  I am not speaking this evening on behalf of FAO. 

 

FAO, based in Rome, is a specialized agency of the United Nations with the mandate to lead international efforts to defeat hunger, by helping developing countries and countries in transition to modernize and improve their agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. FAO works in close partnership with the two other food agencies that are based in Rome, the International Food for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to promote food security.  The Director General is Dr. Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil.  Amb. Godfrey Eneas is the Bahamas’ Ambassador to FAO, a recognised expert on food security in The Bahamas, and also well-respected in the region and internationally.

 

FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, and this year, the 70^th Anniversary of the founding of FAO, the theme for World Food Day is "Social Protection and Agriculture"

 

Achieving food security for all is at the heart of FAO's efforts – to make sure people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.

 

Yesterday, in Rome, the UN’s new global hunger report, the State of Food Insecurity (SOFI 2015) was released by FAO, IFAD and WFP.   The focus of this year’s report is Meeting the 2015 international hunger targets: taking stock of uneven progress.   SOFI’s estimates show that global hunger continues to decline.  About 795 million people are undernourished globally, whereas in 2014 the figure was 805 million people.  In the LAC region, since 1990, the prevalence of undernourishment fell from 27 to 20 percent. However, more than 7.5 million people still suffer from hunger in the region.

 

Friends,

 

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

 

It is possible in our lifetime to make hunger and food insecurity history!  However, it is a complex issue that requires a range of equally complex responses, and above all else commitment to action.  Just to give you an idea of the complexity -  food security is not only about food production and delivering food aid, it also is about aspects such as  reducing food waste and loss, addressing both sides of nutrition - proper nutrition and  mal-nutrition, the sustainable production of food with due regard for the preservation of the environment and levelling the playing field in terms of trade.

 

The global community is now grappling with these very questions.  First of all a few words about the Global Development Agenda:

 

In September 2000, world leaders adopted 8 Millennium Development Goals, (MDGS) with a series of time-bound targets to be met by 2015.  MDG Goal One calls for cutting hunger in half by 2015.

 

We are advancing rapidly to the end of 2015, and we have seen successes with the MDGs, but we still have a lot of work to do.  In terms of hunger reduction, the target is within reach, according to the UN’s data.

 

The global community, while accelerating action towards achieving the MDGs before the end of 2015, is now preparing the successor to the MDGs, Sustainable Development Goals, commonly referred to as the SDGs, expected to be adopted at a Summit at the UN in September 2015.  The shift to SDGs is in part because of climate change.  If climate change is left unchecked, it will increase the likelihood of severe, irreversible changes to our ecosystems, particularly with adverse impact on small island developing states, whose very existence is threatened if climate change is left unaddressed.  Broadly speaking the SDGS should be universal, action oriented, aspirational and transformative.

 

Proposed SDG 2 deals with hunger – and says “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.”

 

The push towards accelerated achievement of the MDGs before 2015, in the case of Hunger, is seen in the UN Secretary General’s Zero Hunger Challenge (ZHC), which he launched in 2012.  The ZHC reflects the personal vision of the SG for a world completely free of hunger in our lifetime, and this is a vision shared by world leaders and other UN Executive Heads.

 

At the core of the ZHC is that all stakeholders should work together - The atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion that tends to prevail amongst the public and private sectors and civil society groups, creating obstacles to work together, has to be overcome.

 

First of all a few words about why it makes sense to focus on the eradication of hunger.

 

• The right to food is one of the most basic human rights;
• Food security is a stepping-stone for economic and social inclusion. A hungry person has a limited voice and limited options.  Under these conditions, when the voice is heard it is often the voice of despair and violence.
• Fighting hunger also makes economic sense: if children are properly nourished, they can learn more, lead healthier lives and be more productive when they become adults.
• Promoting food security should be seen as an investment that benefits the entire society, not as an expense.
• And if these are not sufficiently compelling reasons, there are 795 million reasons why it is a moral imperative to end world hunger.

 

What is being proposed to end global hunger?

 

Some of the targets that we see in SDG Goal 2 give an idea of the actions needed to solve world hunger such as

 

• Ensure access by all people to safe and nutritious food all year round

• Double the agricultural productivity and the incomes of small farmers,
•  Respect the environment and the biodiversity of each region
• Address problems such as drought, floods and other disasters
• Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets

 

Friends,

 

The Hunger goal like the other SDGs is a game changer – it is universal, aspirational and transformative.  Notice that it speaks about ending hunger – period!  Not halving or reducing by a certain percentage!  This goal is also to be met by 2030 which means every person in this room has the potential to see the end of world hunger in his or her lifetime! Ambitious?  Yes!  But we have to be bold and ambitious to see results!

 

Political will is needed at the very highest levels of government to end hunger!  According to FAO data 72 countries have had success with MDG1 on halving hunger.  They were able to do this because of bold political leadership, and most of these countries enjoy stable political conditions and economic growth, often accompanied by social protection policies targeted at vulnerable population groups

 

You have probably heard that by 2050 world population will increase to about 9 billion persons, therefore requiring increased food production. Yes, we will need to produce more food to feed a growing world population, and we need to start addressing that now.  However, today, right now the world produces enough food for every child, woman and man on the planet. We have the resources to guarantee food security for all, today and in four decades from now. So we have to take steps to make the nutritious food that we now have, “available, affordable and accessible to all.

 

We need to eliminate food waste and loss. Throughout the world we lose or waste one third of all the food produced every year - roughly, 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year, according to a study released last year by FAO and the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology. The economic impact of losses due to food wastage is around $750 billion per year, a figure equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland.   Food loss has to do with the production side of the food chain.  Food waste happens at the end of the chain, in retail and consumption. If we could reduce food waste and loss by roughly 25 per cent, we would have additional food for about 500 million people a year without having to produce more.

 

The some 500 million smallholders and family farmers worldwide, who produce 80 percent of the world’s food, must play a central role in global efforts to eradicate hunger.  They must have a voice!

 

We also have to address the social dynamics that today undermine progress for smallholders, particularly as they relate to women. Women are primary food producers: the female share of the agricultural labour force ranges from about 20% in Latin America and the Caribbean to almost 50% in Asia and Africa. Greater voice for rural women and women farmers is not only a matter of equality; it is also a long term economic investment.  If women were to have equal access to productive inputs, yields from their land would increase by 20-30%. The food we are consuming tonight was very probably produced by a smallholder or a woman, working under less than optimal conditions.

 

We have to take into account the impact of climate change and take measures to produce in a sustainable way.  The family farming model comes close to the sustainable development paradigm in food systems.

 

As regards fisheries, it is a frequently overlooked but extremely important part of world food and nutrition security.  Today capture fisheries and aquaculture provide 3 billion people with almost 20 percent of their average per capita intake of protein. We see the same story of loss and waste in the fisheries sector, where an estimated 20 million tonnes of fish a year are discarded at sea.  The sector also contributes to livelihoods, valued at more than $200 billion annually.  Some 55 million persons are engaged in the world’s fisheries sector, about half of them are women yet women tend to be excluded from major decisions.  These and other issues in the sector have to be addressed.

 

Youth participation is critical.  The youth employment crisis has become a stubborn reality in most countries.  The UN has estimated that in order to overcome the challenge of youth employment, economies need to create 600 million productive jobs over the next decade.  Many of these jobs can be created in the agricultural sector.   We have to get rid of the stigma that agriculture is work that should not be pursued.  The tension between persons committed to the old ways and youth who are bringing fresh ideas and new approaches to agriculture needs to be resolved, since there are roles for both the old and the new.

 

Using the simple premise that we cannot manage what we cannot measure, we need to improve data collection and the use of information technology.   E-agriculture, ICTs and their applications in agriculture and rural development – can offer enormous support in combating hunger and malnutrition, building resilience and reducing food waste and losses.

 

We need to pay attention to issues of food safety.  Food safety is inextricably linked to food security, using a “food chain approach” - food safety starts with pre-production where safety is observed in every step of the chain, until it reaches our homes and tables. 

 

It also involves all persons eating more nutritiously – especially women from the beginning of pregnancy and children under the age of two.  We have to address the double burden of nutrition – malnutrition/under nutrition (which includes micronutrient deficiencies) and over nutrition (which includes overweight and obesity) – both of which may coexist within the same country.   Currently there are about 1.4 billion overweight adults worldwide, of which 500 million are morbidly obese, which increases their likelihood of incurring various non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and health problems including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, various cancers and osteoarthritis.  In young girls we see problems like “precocious puberty “linked to poor nutrition.

 

Eliminating hunger involves investments in agriculture, rural development, decent work, social protection and equality of opportunity. The UN is currently working on the figures to show the amount of investment needed between now and 2030 to eradicate hunger, and it is expected that those figures will be released in the coming weeks.

 

Friends, we need to make hunger history!  It is morally outrageous that in a world of plenty, 795 million persons are still chronically undernourished and do not know when and where they will get their next meal.  No child, woman or man should ever go to bed hungry!  We have the opportunity to end hunger within our lifetime. This is the greatest legacy we can leave to future generations, and we can only overcome if we work together.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here!