WORLD FOOD DAY: INVESTING IN AGRICULTURE FOR FOOD SECURITY

Today October 16 is the World Food Day. The Day also commemorates the the day on which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) was founded in 1945. The UN recognizes that agriculture has contributed to human civilization by improving nutrition and living standards. Its roles of production and distribution of agricultural, fishery and forestry products and enough food to feed everyone on this planet are still maintained. The theme for the World Food Day 2006 is "Investing in agriculture for food security." Despite the achievements, hunger and famine are still widespread in parts of Africa and Asia with alarming statistics, literaly announcing some degree of failure. More than 852 million people or about 13 percent of the world population do not have enough food each day to sustain a healthy life. Of this, about 815 million people live in developing countries, 28 million in "transition" countries of the former Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet republics, and about nine million in the industrialised world.

Why food crises in Africa, for example, where about 50% of global natural resources are found? I summarize some few reasons below although are not justifying food insecurity in our countries:

One, while the majority of the hungry live in Asia and Africa, with about 80 percent living in rural areas and depend on agriculture and pastoralism to survive, there is general absence of development policies geared toward providing support for rural development and small-scale farmers to ensure long-term food security.

Two, the donor countries and international financial institutions preventing a developing country from implementing economic and trade policies that would support local producers and their markets, which could prevent a country from facing widespread hunger and destitution.

Three, "dumping" of overproduced food (which are subsidised) at cheap prices into developing nations, ravaging the livelihoods of small farmers. Supermarkets full of cheap imported foods make it impossible for local producers to compete.

Four, lack of enough work, or access to productive resources like land and water sufficient to feed the household members.

While millennium development goal number one is to reduce the number of hungry (815 million) by half by 2015. Today, the gross food production in the world is enough to feed the entire 6.5 billion people. However, FAO estimates that over 852 million people including 400 million childen are chronically malnourished. It is estimated that six million children die of malnutrition and related illnesses before they reach the age of five. The millennium goals are hard to achieve in hunger prone zones unless there is global political will and resolve.