FAO presents reports of the Secretary-General at GA Second Committee

UN committee discusses agriculture, food security and nutrition, rural poverty eradication, combatting sand and dust storms, and sustainable mountain development.

FAO Chief Economist, Maximo Torero Cullen, addressed the Second Committee today, presenting recommendations on how to advance sustainable agriculture development, food security and nutrition, and efforts to eradicate rural poverty, when introducing two reports of the Secretary-General on the issues. Watch the recording and read his full statement.

The reports were drafted by FAO, together with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affiars (UN DESA), with inputs from different UN entities.

FAO and UN DESA, together with the Mountain Partnership Secretariat hosted in FAO, also collaborated in the preparation of the Report of the Secretary General on sustainable mountain development, presented by UN DESA. As Chair of the UN coalition on sand and dust storms, FAO also introduced the report on this subject to the Second Committee. 

Enabling transformations towards more sustainable and resilient agrifood systems

The report on agriculture development, food security and nutrition provided an overview of the critical challenges in enabling transformations towards more sustainable and resilient agrifood systems, especially in the face of conflict, climate change, economic volatility and uncertainty, and the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“In 2021, up to 828 million people faced hunger,” Torero said in his presentation of the report. “This is 150 million more than prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, while conflicts are major drivers of acute food insecurity, [which increased] by 88 percent between 2018 and 2021,” he added. 

Particularly affected to these closely interwoven drivers of hunger and food insecurity have been small-scale food producers, including family farmers and agriculture workers, whose income and opportunities are lower. Women and youth are even more exposed to this instability, Torero explained.

The report warns the world is not on track to achieve the food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture SDG indicators by 2030. It calls for the transformation of agrifood systems to provide a growing population with healthy, affordable diets, while strengthening and fostering the resilience of agrifood systems through integrated policies and investments. 

Collective action is thereby imperative, to support the economic and environmental viability of agriculture, especially on the backdrop of rising food, energy, and fertilizer prices. 

Among its key recommendations, the report makes clear the need for addressing systemic inequalities to improve livelihoods and resilience, maintaining diversity in value chains, improving risk management and early warning capacities, and addressing the causes and consequences of escalating food crises across humanitarian, development and peace perspectives. 

Poverty remains largely a rural phenomenon, structural inequalities slow down post-pandemic recovery

“More than 80 percent of the extreme poor and 84 percent of those in acute multidimensional poverty live in rural areas,” Torero said in his presentation of the report of the Secretary General on rural poverty. 

The report noted that, for the first time in 20 years, global income inequality has increased, with these structural inequalities only exacerbating the impact on the poorest and most vulnerable of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ripple effects. Addressing income and wealth inequalities within and among countries, therefore, must be prioritized in the fight against extreme poverty, the report outlines. 

The report adds that the majority of rural poor depend on agrifood systems and natural resources for their livelihoods, making them more exposed to the overexploitation of natural resources and climate change.

”Sixty percent of total employment in sub-Saharan Africa is related to agrifood systems. Globally, two-thirds of those living in extreme poverty are engaged in agriculture,” said Torero.

To reverse this scenario, the report calls for immediate action to prevent people from falling into poverty in the short term, alongside longer-term, inclusive, rights-based, multisectoral and sustainable policies that address structural inequalities in rural areas.  

In this context, it underscores the urgency of scaling up investments in transforming agrifood systems, (i) promoting inclusive and sustainable low-emission industrialization pathways; (ii) ensuring access to productive assets, decent work opportunities and social protection, quality education and health, improved rural infrastructure, and digital and financial services; (iii) ensuring these investments reach family farmers and small-scale producers, rural women and youth, migrants and Indigenous Peoples; and (iv) improving disaggregated data collection to better inform policy making to accelerate the eradication of rural poverty and achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Combatting sand and dust storms as a transboundary issue of growing concern

Earlier this week, presenting the report on combatting sand and dust storms on behalf of the 15 UN entities comprising the UN Coalition on Combatting Sand and Dust Storms was the Director of the FAO Land and Water Division, LI Lifeng. Watch the recording and read his full statement. 

Li spoke on the report’s findings and risk assessments, including on how SDS affect the health, agriculture, environment, transport, and energy sectors. He also pointed to the transboundary nature of sand and dust storms as an issue of growing concern. It serves as a reminder that sand and dust storms directly affect 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Left unaddressed, sand and dust storms can erode other gains on the road to 2030, making its full implementation more costly and lengthy.

As the UN Coalition moves from a planning to an implementation phase, FAO remains at the forefront of the Coalition’s efforts to mobilize investments and coordinate actions to enhance resilience against SDS in agriculture.

Supporting mountain ecosystems in the face of climate and natural resource management crises

For its part, the report on sustainable mountain development, presented earlier this week by DESA, highlights the unique ways in which mountain ecosystems and the livelihoods of mountain communities are increasingly affected by biodiversity loss, climate change and land degradation. To this end, transboundary cooperation and action of the Mountain Partnership Secretariat – hosted in FAO – has been vital in integrating context-specific and long-term approaches to sustainable mountain development, based on sustainability, resilience, post-pandemic recovery and inclusiveness.

Related links

• Read more about the UNGA Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee).
• Stay informed on the latest FAO work on food systems.
• Revisit FAO’s new rural poverty analysis tool.
• Read more on the UN Coalition on SDS here and here.
• Learn more about the Mountain Partnership here.